A Gentle Phoenix discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

The Salon and creativity
What is it
The need fulfilled by a Salon
A place to talk and explore
Finding a creation partner
Some history and background of the salon
A note on the role of the feminine in the Salon

What is it (Top)

Relative to accessing and releasing our unlimited creativity, a "Salon" is a gathering of people more than a place where people can go to discuss their creative journey, especially the inner journey and exploration of our inner world. At a Salon, where there is a gathering of similarly intentioned individuals, there is the possibility we can create what can be called a support and dialog partner much as suggest in the Fifteen Creative Steps/Guidelines if not a creation partner at least for the duration of the Salon. As discussed below the concept of a Salon has been around for centuries. Depending of the format, those who attend discuss and address a particular topic or they simply support each other’s creative endeavors.

The need fulfilled by a Salon (Top)

We need to realize creation/Creation is not done alone and we will need another to give us the experiences we desire to have. Any creative effort is made much easier if the other who gives us the experience we need to have also is one who consciously or nonconsciously supports our desire. Sometimes this is true. But because of our enculturation and socialization either us or them are unable to fully align with the flow of our creative life energy which would allow for the path of least resistance to manifest what we desire.

Frequently we and the other initially support each other’s creative endeavor on a nonconscious level since both of us are pulled into each other’s life to gives us a commonly desired experienced. Then, when we, or they are faced with some aspect that is not pleasurable and/or some pain or fear of the past surfaces as result of what is being experience, we ,or they, withdraw from the experience further thwarting the free unfoldment of both their and our creative spirit. This, in fact, occurs most of the time and is probably the most common reason we become frustrated with Physical Creation. Yet, the cause lies within us and not Physical Creation nor the creative process.

In most cases we will not "fix" the issue of nonconsciously pulling ourselves and others into common experiences which we find unpleasant or less that desirable. Quite simply, we do not give sufficient attention as to how we create our experiences to create more pleasant experiences and the mundane of living life continually distracts us from having the necessary focus. But we can greatly mitigate creating unpleasant experience in our creative endeavors and the possibility of creating much more pleasant experiences. There two things which can be done to over come our seeming limitation in this area. One is to have someone with whom we can process and talk through our experiences in order to become more consciously aware of what we think and believe and the memories we have. The second is for someone to give us the safe and secure space to create our desired experiences.

Additionally, there can be many frightening if not terrifying things which can arise during a creative journey and some type and kind of help will be needed. Workshops, therapy, guidance, counseling and the like are all ways that have been, and can be, used to face what arises. However, without the perspective of how we create our experiences and the nature of Creation relative to the creative process, we will not get the help and assistance we seek. We may get a partial solution but not what is needed.

A dream rainmaker who understand the creative journey will provide the best assistance for they are intimately familiar the inner journey and are aware of how to call forth our creative spirit and create the necessary safe and secure space for the free unfoldment of the creative spirit. Without their availability, a Salon offer the opportunity of obtaining help and guidance without incurring the cost of consultation or attending a workshop and the like. In fact, often the information exchanged is as good if not better than one can obtain in such paid sessions. The reason for this is the information exchange is directed specifically at the issue at hand and not directed toward completing an workshop agenda or some larger therapy or consultation agenda. In fact, as a result of the creative process and the intention we hold in attending a Salon, we may find we pull to us the exact experiences we need to have to obtain the information we need and it may very well be from an individual who understands first hand the particular issue we face.

A place to talk and explore (Top)

What we need to realize is that it is important for people to talk. There is a creative power in making what we think verbalized and expressed. This is powerfully true for our creative endeavors.

A support or dialog partner (return to above) is someone who will nonjudgmentally listen to our story and our experiences and hold us accountable to our intention rather than what they think and believe we should do. If the support or dialog partner shares their experiences or provides a recommendation it is specifically directed toward asking how the individual’s intention would be served by the information which is provided. That is, the individual needs to become creatively empowered. They need to be allow to eat and digest what is suggest and encouraged to take for themselves what serves their intention and not some idea of success. The support dialog person holds the individual’s creativity as sacred and looks to assists the individual in becoming creatively empowered. In many ways it is about helping an individual to become creatively self sufficient much the way one would help a child to grow up and become self sufficient in the world.

In this regard, a support or dialog partner is quite different than a therapist or counselor. The support or dialog partner does not judge as wrong or incorrect in any way what the individual does or experiences. In a true creative endeavor there are no mistakes, only learning experiences. Nor does the support or dialog partner seek to bring the individual in align with some idea of how things should be although they may provided alternative ways to view what is discussed. Nor is the individual seen to need to be healed in any way. Rather the support or dialog partner assume the individual is a powerful creator seeking to access and release their creative power through the experiences they have to learn to create something which better serves them. The support or dialog partner directs their attention to empowering the individual to learn what serves the individual and allows the individual to become more empowered as a conscious creator. They look to see where the individual may not be honoring their creative ability and creative power and holding their creativity sacred.

The salon provides a gathering for people to talk about their experiences of probing the boundaries of their mind and what they are finding in the experience. The salon provides a place to have someone to talk about the same kind of journey to help each other see where the mind is resisting and to figure out ways to manage a break through. It is a place they can talk about the difficulties they are having facing what they find. Often rituals and metatheater can be used within the Salon to explore and probe the boundaries of our mind in playfulness and to probe the limits of our mind across the a broad range of experiences.

It is a place to be free to discuss our dreams and receive support for what we wish to create. The goal is to help the individual how to create what they desire. It is a place where there is dialogue, where we can question ourselves, participate in exercises and delve in to the questions in the back of our heads that seem to rob us of the motivation for what we might become. These sessions look to access the source of our individual creativity to see what we have not seen before and where our blind-spot area(s) might be and to take a different course of action, i.e., by thinking "outside of the box",  learning from each other and looking within.

Finding a creation partner (Top)

The most important aspect within a creative endeavor to create a faster, easier and gentler way is someone to support our creative efforts and what we need to do. As a creator we each need someone or something who supports and calls forth our creative spirit. Whomever or whatever calls forth our creative spirit will not necessarily create the space for our creative spirit to freely unfold nor support what it desires to create. Without this external support, there will be a painful struggle within our being for our energy will not be properly grounded to manifest what we desire. Rather, there will be pain, frustration, discouragement, depression, anger and a variety of other similar experience by the thwarting of the free unfoldment of our creative spirit. Additionally, the mundane of life attending to the needs of life will continually divert our attention. When this occurs, rather than feeling the wholeness of being which comes in creating, we will feel a separation within our being and feel we are somehow separated from the Creative Power of Creation. Often we will be draw to seek some way to relieve the pain rather than pursue the creative endeavor.

The creation partner (return to above) is an individual who both creates and hold the safe and secure space for our creative spirit to freely unfold but they also continually support the free unfoldment of our creative spirit. In this regard, the creation partner is much more than a support or dialog partner. The creation partner is in essence a creative shape shifter for they will shift their shape to maintain the safe and secure space for the free unfoldment of our creative spirit as the needs and demands of our creative endeavor shift and change.

One of the primary functions of a rainmaker is to create the space to call forth the individual’s creative spirit to create what is desired and to hold the space to bring it out into the world such as the dream midwife and dream nanny. They help hold an individual’s dream and help carry the dream for a short while in a way analogous to portaging. The rainmaker helps hold the dream for the individual until the individual finds someone who give the individual the space to keep in contact with their dream and who can support it. The individual then leaves the rainmaker (or dream midwife or dream nanny depending on where they are in their journey) and gets on with their life. This is the essence of what the Salon is all about.

The Salon functions as that rainmaker where a group of individuals hold the space rather than one. Because the Salon is normally a group of individuals, the depth and breath of talent and ability available in the group is available to a given individual as the needs for their creative endeavor changes as it unfold. In this regard, there is much less demand on the creative shape shifting qualities for any individual.

Given all of the personality quirks of any one individual and between any two individuals, the biases, prejudices, and judgments within any individual it is very difficult to find any one single individual to totally support all that we need to do at each and every level of our being over the duration of the effort in any significant creative endeavor. As a unique, infinitely creative being we should not be surprised in any way that anyone individual will be unable to support all that we need to do. We are fortunate to find an individual who is capable of being a creative shape shifter to support our creative endeavor. But they are a rare find. Here the Salon can help provide this need for it is a collection of individuals supporting the common cause of manifesting our creative endeavors.

The gathering of individuals within a Salon help to provide "that other" where individuals can go to support each other's dreams and yet not have to make a commitment to be the creative partner for another. Yet the doorway is open to finding such an individual from within the group or outside the group.

On the note of finding an individual to support our creative endeavor, although many do not realize it, the whole concept of individuals desiring to "find a mate" or a committed life partner, getting married, and the like is not just about finding an individual so as to not being lonely, have one’s sexual needs met, creating a family, satisfying a social need and the like. There is an aspect of finding an individual to help support the dream in our heart and what we incarnated to do and what we desire to create in, and with our life. Rather a committed relationship is also about looking for someone to support our dream and what we wish to manifest. Most continually look for someone to support our dream even after we find a committed relationship. We package our search in different ways and give it different names, but in the end, it is simply about find support for our dream and what we desire to create in, and with, our life. This is what the Salon helps to accomplished when there is no specific individual to support our dream.

One of the reasons why the journey of the exploration of our creativity included exploring the creativity aspects of sexuality is that sex arose when it was observed married individuals or committed partners would separated when they become deeply engaged in a creative endeavor. It was observed often the separation is about finding an individual or individuals who support the dream and flow of energy within the individual giving rise to the creative endeavors. Yet, because of the life giving energy of sexuality to recreate our life, the search for a creation partner was confused with satisfying the byproduct sexual feelings which naturally arise from being enthused through our being with a life giving/life creating energy. The separation form an existing partner wasn’t really about severing an existing relations although there were usually a variety of excused that could be used for separation. In, fact, often the individual found their new partner was not the creation partner they sought. On this point, no two individual ever need to separate although it may be more convenient to do so. Rather it is about finding an individual or individuals who support our dream and being allow to be free do what needs to be done..

Salon can help address the issue of individuals in committed relationship where the spouse/partner is unable to hold the space for the individuals to manifest their dreams. In this way, the Salon is analogous to how a support group for something like a Twelve Step Program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program) would work. That is, individual do not normally have to separate from committed relationship to find freedom from their addiction. Yet, that may be required or it is a byproduct in some cases.

Additionally, some of the inner world necessary for some creative endeavors can be deeply personal and intimate and can only be explored and discussed in a safe and secure space with trusted individuals.. The level of intimate can go well beyond what individuals often share with a committed life partner. Many have stated they have become more intimate in what is discussed with a creation partner than the intimacy created with a sexual partner. Here a salon is especially useful for individuals who are in a committed relationship and whose partner does not necessarily support their creative endeavor. The salon offers such an individual contacts who can help fulfill the role of a creation partner within in a group such that the intimacy required for the inner journey for many creative endeavors is provided but does create the question as to whether the intimacy for the inner journey somehow violates the trust or relationship between two life partners.

Some history and background of the salon (Top)

The following historical notes were condensed/extracted from the discussion provided at Wikipedia. Click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)) for the discussion link as it was posted at the time of this writing.

"A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings,..."

"The salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Salon sociability quickly spread through Europe. In the 18th and 19th centuries many large cities in Europe had salons copied on the Parisian models, although those were not as prominent as their French counterparts.

"The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently..."

"The word salon first appeared in France in 1664 (from the Italian word salone, itself from sala, the large reception hall of Italian mansions). Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred,....Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were frequently held in the bedroom (treated as a more private form of drawing room): a lady, reclining on her bed, would receive close friends who would sit on chairs or stools drawn around."

"The salon evolved into a well-regulated practice that focused on and reflected enlightened public opinion by encouraging the exchange of news and ideas. By the mid-eighteenth century the salon had become an institution in French society and functioned as a major channel of communication among intellectuals."

"Wealthy members of the aristocracy have always drawn to their court poets, writers and artists, usually with the lure of patronage, an aspect that sets the court apart from the salon. Another feature that distinguished the salon from the court was its absence of social hierarchy and its mixing of different social ranks and orders. In the 17th and 18th centuries, "salon[s] encouraged socializing between the sexes [and] brought nobles and bourgeois together" Salons helped facilitate the breaking down of social barriers which made the development of the enlightenment salon possible"

The Role Of Women "At a time when society was defined and regulated by men, women could exert a powerful influence as salonnires. Women had a very important role in the salon and were the center of its life. They were responsible for selecting their guests and deciding whether the salon would be primarily social, literary, or political. They also assumed the role as mediator by directing the discussion. The salon was really an informal university for women in which women were able to exchange ideas, receive and give criticism, read their own works and hear the works and ideas of other intellectuals. Many ambitious women used the salon to pursue a form of higher education."

A note on the role of the feminine in the Salon (Top)

A thought about the Salon and creativity is that it is the feminine aspect which nurtures a creation. The role of consciousness, the masculine and the mind in the creative process is to cause a creation to come into existence. However, it is the feminine, the flow of energy and what we feel in our heart which brings any creation into existence and nurtures the growth and unfoldment of the Creation. On this point it is appropriate to note that Salons were about individuals pursuing creative endeavors in one form or another and many of the Salons were hosted by females.

If one recalls, the muse, a traditional inspiration of artistic endeavors were feminine. They were seen as the inspiration to creator (the masculine and mind) and were see to excite the masculine creator into action. When the muse was lost, the creative passion to create was gone and the creation ceased to unfold if not whither and die.

Whether we realize it or not it is the feminine which brings a creation into existence and there is a need to protect and nurture the feminine if we wish to manifest what we desire to create. It is the feminine which allows the masculine to surrender to the task at hand and become the creative shape shifter and turn itself into whatever is required to create and hold that safe and secure space for the creation to grow and unfold.

For a Salon to be successful, the individuals need to learn to surrender to the feminine can become a nurturing presence. This includes both males and females. Although females may be more willing to surrender to become a nurturing presence and to a hold a nurturing presence, their ultimate ability is not less or greater than any male. It is just the male normally has a greater ego to overcome to surrender to what is required. Unfortunately, most males do not have the strength of will to sufficiently surrender to over come the normal male characteristics fostered by society and the role they think they have to play in life.

The suggestion here is for each individual to become very clear as to why they desire to create and hold the space for any other to manifest their dreams. Each needs to pull the string as to their real motives. Each needs to look to see if what they are they doing to gain something for themselves or do they see that which each individual desires in life is really no different than any other - to have the safe and secure space to become true to themselves at each and every level of being. In obtaining clarity as to one’s motives, each should set the intention to become whatever is required to create that safe and secure space for the individuals in the Salon to both get what they need and experience the free unfoldment of their creative spirit. Each should ask their intuitive guidance what they need to do and/or become for the safe and secure space to manifest. Then, honoring the intuitive guidance received.

Related topics
Power of intention

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