Freeing the Creative Spirit: Drawing on the Power of Art to Tap the Magic and Wisdom Within

This colorful and exciting book offers delightful exercises, rituals and practices for opening up your inner creativity to expand your spirit and your whole experience of life. The exercises are simple and have directions that include a list of supplies - again, simple and useful. Anyone can do these practices and gain tremendous insight into their own "artist/healer" within. This book entices you to participate in the creative exercises and then helps you to reflect deeply upon the inner healing that arises out of your own creative expressions. Highly recommended!!

I've used Freeing the Creative Spirit as a guide to learning/evolving in the expression of my own reflections and ponderings. The various exercises and rituals, suggested in this book, have helped me to set an environment where I can create in a variety of mediums. Having used these ideas/rituals over time, I now come to the worktable in a comfortable and welcoming posture. This book has aided me in casting-off the childhood baggage that I am "not good at art"; and has opened me to a variety of expressions I did not perceive as possible. Ms. Diaz finds a different way to instill art as expression, to avoid "product", and to enjoy the medium! I find myself sketching in my journal, drawing my own illustrated maps while traveling, dispelling insomnia, and "dabbling" as a means to enjoyable stress reduction. I highly recommend this book to folks at any level of talent or for any medium. My purchase today is to (again) replace my copy as I have passed mine on to a friend.

"Freeing..." is filled with exercises to do just as it is titled, "tap into the magic and wisdom within" all of us. It starts by explaining how to tap into your spirit through "Creative Meditation" in which you can renew your sense of self esteem, recognize your connections with the rest of the world and to free the flow of creativity in the individual and society. Although this is mainly dealing with painting, I feel it is useful for all people in any art medium. The exercises of consciousness of breathing while finger painting are just as useful for those who throw clay on a pottery wheel. Using your childhood memories to recall playful experiences and to feel like that child again is always a good way to tap into your creativity. The child never judges when it comes to art, whether their own or others. Although most of the exercises are aimed at the adult they can be adjusted to apply to children. There are individual as well as group exercises and are very encouraging to those who deal with "blocks" to creativity. This book is filled with information and advise and definitely flows from the authors personnel journey. I recommend it highly and that you go with it and play.

Freeing the Creative Spirit makes you want to lift up your paintbrush, your pencil, and your heart, and spread color everywhere! The exercises are perfect for uncovering the artist that lurks in each of us. On a gray day, I recommend spreading the newspaper on your kitchen table and opening at random to any one of Diaz's exercises. You'll feel better for it.

This book is an excellent step by step on how to be free to play like a child. It can be used to free your creativity and/or to do inner child work (therapy). My favorite part is the idea that talent isn't the key to success, it's merely DETERMINATION. If you are on a spiritual path to find yourself and inner child this is the book.