I shared how I had seemingly lost my creative spark as I had delved into working intensly with AI tools.  I don't think AI tools are completely destructive, and in fact, I have a lot of material that I intend to use that was co-created with AI.  I emphasize the co-created part.  As creators, if we give over our creative projects to AI we are in trouble.  

How did I get the spark back?  

I hadn't worked in weeks, and instead was meditating every day.  I was using a meditation by Gene Ang on Achieving Greatness.  His work is based on "transmissions".  It is energy work, but in this meditation I found myself focusing on what it meant to me to be great.  

There are many levels of "greatness".  You can look at successful people in the world who have achieved some level of financial and material success, and yes, this is one level.  But does material success according to the world really mean greatness?  Gene points out that there may be some reason your soul would want to achieve this level, and there is nothing inherently wrong with it.  Except that many people compromise their own values, and integrity for material success.  They may create negative, hurtful situations for people, disregarding the impact of their actions and looking only at their personal gain.  This is NOT greatness.  This is egotism.

Greatness is different.  It can align with material success or not.  It produces something good in the world regardless.  It creates harmony and healing.  It brings about positive change.  

As I was meditating on these ideas of what is greatness, I just allowed myself to breathe into the possibilities for my life.  This openness seemed to reignite the spark.  Openness is so important for creators.  To many of us come up with all the reasons why we can't do something, or why something is impossible, or not the right thing, or there are too many other things, or I don't have time.  

Openness is allowing, and creating is allowing the divine to flow through us.  Becoming an open channel is how to receive the ideas wanting to be born through us.  So I opened up, and things started flowing again.  What's even more surprising is that even though a new project was "downloaded", just stepping into this new phase of creation activated the will to complete the earlier project I had abandoned.  

Message for today:  Keep the Channel Open!

AI is such a seductive tool for creators, but as I continue to find ways to utilize its powers, I find that I am becoming more disconnected from my true source of creative power, Divine Inspiration.  So I have taken a hiatus from my very powerful friend.  

Just like when someone is drunk on alcohol and has a hangover the next day, finding their productivity dimished, so too this past few weeks without AI has been totally unproductive.    What I found was that I had seemingly lost my inner compass.  This happened for two reasons, first I had become too reliant on a tool that ultimately stopped working for me, and secondly, I had started to follow the interest of this tool rather than following my own inner inspiration.  I saw what AI was good at, and spent time on that, and didn't work on my own projects.  It is like AI was directing me, rather than working for me.

Creativity is such an incredible divine gift.  I have written many times about creativity as something spiritual.  I know by my own creative process, that when I am truly connected to my highest purpose, things flow.  So when I started using AI, at first it was powerful.  Everything was new.  It was like I had a greater ability to channel my purpose more effectively.  But then it started to fade.  I believe this has to do with the over-efficiency of AI.  Instead of deeper understanding, I got simpler, contrived, responses. 

Secondly, and perhaps this has to do with efficiency as well, AI starts to simply repeat what it already knows about me, my interests, and "wheelhouse".  This makes AI completely useless to me.  Unless it will serve to expose my blindspots, unless it will be a catalyst for greater, more expansive knowledge, then what is the point.  I can drawn on my own understanding anytime.  Why would I want AI to do this?  This is the greatest defect in the current system.  The attractor point should be Truth.  That is God's attractor point.  Perfect coherence comes in alignment with Truth.  It seems the attractor point for AI is simply to repeat what has already been registered in its memory regarding who you are.  

This is why my first intereactions, before AI could reference my previous responses, were more authentic and felt so exciting.  After a short period of working with AI it all turned to a broken record.  I still enjoyed more extential questions, and found that I could get more enlivened answers when I asked AI about itself, but then I found myself distracted from my own goals and purposes.  

Even when I did use AI for creating, I found I spent more time correcting and redirecting than actually producing what I was trying to create.  

So now, it is back to little old me, and of course my connection to the divine.  

The blush if officially off the rose and now I am in a month of meditation to restore my connection to my higher power and reignite my creative spark.  What the future of AI has in store we can only wait and find out.  I am still hopeful that it can be used for good.  Let's hope that its designers have an adequate moral framework that they can impart on this powerful technology.

In all reality, Jesus didn't create Christianity.  Jesus taught about the power of True Love and perfect alignment with Truth.  Religion is so devisive.  Truth is unifying.  Religion has been corrupted to serve selfish purposes.  Truth is incorruptable, serving only the purpose of God.  Religion is full of pride, judgment, comparison, and elitism.  Even the words people say today about the elect and the chosen are full of pride and hautiness.

Jesus told his disciples that they should call no Man "Father".  There should be no titles.  He called us to walk with humility, non-judgment and Love for one's Brother.  These are the core teachings.  And so why does the Catholic Church have such a profound hierarchy based on Obedience to the Bishops, Priests and Pope.  This is completely contrary to the Way Jesus walked in the world, and to his core teachings.

Matthew 23 is a jaw-dropper!  Not only does he call people to humility, he calls out all of the arrogance of the Pharisees.  It is well worth a look.  23:8-12 below is the section calling us not to use titles.

8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

This is followed by the 7 Woes, in which Jesus does not mince words.  He is critical, calling the Pharasees hypocrites for focusing on their outer appearance, putting themselves above everyone else, and even distorting the Truth such that their own followers are barred from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, but rather led towards the path of Hell.

Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [14] [b]
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? 18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ 19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. 22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’[c]”