Tag: creativity

2014 Your Opportunity to Create Anything

Kalina Ivanov and Muriel Stockdale creating
Kalina Ivanov and Muriel Stockdale creating
Happy New Year to the year of the heart, the year of creation, the year of getting into basics like what makes you tick, what connects you and what sustains you. Times have been interesting and I think will continue to prove to be even more interesting. Think of where we have come from in our lifetimes. So many new things, when I was a baby we got color TV, today’s new babies will see reconstructed body parts, wearable tech and god knows what else. But what is the point of all the magical toys if our inner state cannot match them with a higher state of consciousness. It’s not worth it to create more and more stuff to destroy each other, that is just not satisfying, is it?

So where are the new things that help us lift our consciousness? I’m not suggesting that you go to Colorado today and buy some pot but instead look for tangible tools to free the mind and heart so that 2014 can be that year of freedom, creativity, satisfaction, accomplishment and absolute connection to the ones you love. Here’s how I manage to stay in the light.

First, I continue to practice my Mastering Alchemy lessons. In a lifetime of spiritual yearning, wandering, experimentation and practice I have finally found a path with astonishing tools of enlightenment that steadily drive me toward the success creating my own life that I have always craved. The path starts off by helping with understanding the boundaries between me and the world out there. Next it progresses to discovering the interference of other voices in my head like as Jim Self, the master alchemist, says, “Teacher, Parent, Minister”. Once discovered those voices, that try so hard to drive our lives, are politely invited to depart. From there the course of study begins to include the voices of master principles inviting us to align with our own power. For example Jim Self repeats often “be happy”. He invites us time and again to be confident, capable and kind to ourselves and I finally get it. The course continues to be exciting, inviting, interesting and joyfully challenging. The key here is attitude and crafting the right attitude and sticking with it is the stuff of mastery. I invite you to check out the site www.masteringalchemy.com and see if you find it useful to you too.

Next I continue to watch the world and seek out those bright light ideas that inspire, uplift and ignite respect and love for each other. I try to post them here but it’s been a busy year and I know I’ve missed  a lot of good moments that should be shared. Two things that are really critical right now and that speak to the new trend that we will swing together toward are these and they relate to money. I know that the economic downturn was terrifying for so many. That downturn was predicted for ages before it happened and the circumstances that caused it are not mitigated so the chances are we could be back there again any day. But you know me, my goal is to focus on what’s positive. So don’t worry let’s make another crash into a great opportunity. Already behind the scenes there are many people creating radical ways to construct the new economy. Right now I am reading a great book, “Sacred Economics” by Charles Eisenstein which invites us to consider trade and commerce in a far more enlightened way than we do today. For those who were shocked by the fact that so many lost their homes in the bad mortgage fallout how about those crazy Occupy Wall Street folks who are buying up bad debt and then just forgiving it so that people can move on? We are not out of the woods and we need the radical free-thinking ideas of new minds to solve the tremendous problems we’ve created for ourselves. They are out there working on it creating micro finance, new forms of exchange, better worldwide connectivity and safer forms of interaction. The big trees are dead and about to fall but on the forest floor when the light of the sun hits them so many creative shoots will sprout that we will be amazed we had not known that all that preparation was going on.

On a more personal note I want to encourage everyone to create, do what you love, write, draw, sew, sing because that is the new economy. Many of you know that I was an unhappy costume designer for many years, that I then quit my career to make my way into a new career creating uplifting entertainment. That career has been a winding path, with a group formed to support people who want to create spiritual entertainment, a short film that never became the feature I hoped for – yet. There were also a few scripts including a musical that wasn’t produced and TV pitches that almost made it as well as a couple of books still in progress and, of course, the diverse US flags that have had an awesome journey throughout New York and New England and have now settled for a while at least at Charlotte’s Place downtown here in NYC. My husband has been asking me continuously, “What are you doing? You’re all over the place, why can’t you focus?” and because I don’t know what to say, I have to follow my heart so I say, “I not making an appetizer, I’m creating a feast”.

So I’m so thrilled to report that it looks like exciting things are coming to life in 2014. One is a TV show developed by me and my dear friend, Kalina Ivanov, for cable TV in the style of, “The Borgias”. Our show entitled, “The Accidental Empress” is about the remarkable ascension of a Creole girl, Aimee Dubucq de Rivery to Empress of the Ottoman Empire in 1817. What makes this story more interesting is that it’s true and she’s the cousin of Josephine Bonaparte. So watch out for the show, it is currently being shopped around and our fingers are crossed. The second project is now an opera entitled, “Sitayana”. It is the story of Rama’s wife who was rescued by her prince after being kidnapped by the demon king, Ravana. For years this project languished after my dear friend, Philip Baloun, who hired me to write the book for the musical, died. This summer when I did costumes for “Ulysses” i proposed my script to my fabulous director, Crystal Manich and she likes it and graduated it from book to libretto. So we are developing the project. Keep your ears open for news of Sitayana too.

You might wonder how did this happen? I might have wondered too but now I know. For years I worked under the same conditions of under paid, over worked, under supported, not enough time, no respect and etc. I always felt like, “poor me” “why does this keep happening to me” until I had to admit if this dynamic keeps happening it has to be in my own world construction somehow. Two times in my life I saw with absolute clarity how I created situations. The first was at NYU with my thesis production. In my first year I saw the teachers absolutely rip a designer to shreds during her critique. It was not necessary and so cruel and much of what they cited was not her fault, I was shocked and that experience stuck with me. I was terrified it would happen to me too and wouldn’t you know two years later, it did. The other time I created with absolute clarity was when we broke the rudder on our first boat. It was in the shop all summer so we didn’t get the license for it. On the last day of summer they told us we could pick it up. I was fretting about getting a ticket for not having a tag and I went on and on about it. Guess what we got, lucky us.

With that kind of clarity in creating the invitation is there to figure it out. Many years later, a lifetime later, I am delighted to say that with the help of Mastering Alchemy I get it. I am not a master yet but I am so much better at the creative process than I was. This year I will be good enough so that you can watch the Empress on TV and come to Broadway to see Sita get rescued by her prince Ram. That’s my intention. I also intend great things for you too; may there be blessings, connecting with friends and family, satisfaction in accomplishment, recognition and opportunity for you all in 2014. 

Muriel

Activating the Dream

For most of my life it has seemed as if we come into a society where we as individuals live our separate lives and try to get the most of it in a Darwinian, “survival of the fittest” kind of a reality however, praise the universe, now it seems that mode of operation is finally changing. No I am not going to talk about the financial crash and the burgeoning of socially conscious entrepreneurship, I have done that already and will do it again. Today I want to explore a fascinating trend shift in entertainment that speaks eloquently about the collective shift in consciousness that we are all participating in.

We have all noticed the overwhelming popularity of ‘reality programming’ but we have spent little time examining why it is so popular. I think there are two kinds of this ‘reality programming’; first is the winner take all competition, the dog eat dog fight for territory game show and second is the talent competition. To me the first kind of show sticks with the old paradigm. Contestants play to win a cash prize and will do almost anything toward that end – eat bugs, get slammed by a wrecking ball, vote each other off the island, put their kids on display and who knows what else they may come up with. This is a kind of desperate grasping for the brass ring without any sense of morals or consciousness. The second kind of game show is of a far higher spiritual value  and as far as I am concerned is far more entertaining. To me this is spiritual entertainment. These are the shows that afford opportunities for people to reach out to grab their dream. They are shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, Dancing With the Stars and America’s Got Talent.

Actually America’s Got Talent is the show that made me see this trend with great clarity and inspired this blog. Let me try to explain my reasoning here. In these shows ordinary people are invited to express their deepest hearts dreams. The competitions are tough, the dreams are real. It’s not about becoming famous for famous sake or rich for rich sake; its about being a great singer or dancer, or chef or designer. It’s about testing oneself to the limit and coming out on top of oneself, not on top of the competition as much as on top of the best that we can be. I applaud all contestants that put themselves in these competitions it takes guts and commitment. And they take their chances in front of all of us, how incredibly brave they all are.

This is a path of no holds barred, no looking back, no excuses and no complaints. We see contestants dive in completely and as far as I have seen for the most part with much grace reach for the highest within themselves. Yes, we see squabbling and theatrical spats for entertainment’s sake but look at the big picture. Here is a phenomenon for our culture that steps beyond the ‘find myself’ consciousness of the 80’s, the ‘victim story’ of the 90’s, the ‘consumer voraciousness’ of the oughts and lands us squarely in the ‘stepping in to the void’ consciousness of the 2012 ascension process.

Where are we going? Wherever we go we are not going to get away from ourselves. Our relationship with ourself is the one thing that has to be dealt with in the here and now. The minute that we realize our magnificence is the minute that we want to express it. We are all magnificent and we all want to be seen. As Rumi says, ” A human being is a star attached to a body” or something like that. I think I’ve said this before in a blog but it bears repeating. As we ascend we recognize this more and more, but we don’t need to ascend to know it, we are what we are: radiant light, extraordinary talent, a new song, a new invention, a magnificent artwork, a complex new social organization. All these things and much more we are and can be.

Here is the path to the ascended future in blazing lights. Shows like America’s Got Talent are beautiful windows for us into the ascended future of our actualized dreams. This is why the world was so moved when Susan Boyle of Britain’s Got Talent came on to the stage. She was a star from that first moment and our recognition of that lit the fire of our own stars and connected us to the dream of our hearts.