Editor’s note: This article sheds some light on the CreativeWorks workshop during Lucid University CourseWeek. Students who join Dave Zaboski in his Escape Velocity course can certainly expect to learn how to produce tangible pieces of art. What may not be expected is the emphasis on introspection during the creative process within the individual. Learn more from Dave Z himself below. Lastly, be sure to seize this opportunity and apply for our CourseWeek Scholarship Program!

In the world of art, there has been a long tradition of deep mentorship going back to the renaissance. Italian systems have a maestro and apprentices with deeply ingrained systems. These systems not only teach us to make the thing, but also how to make the maker.

 

My course this year at Lucid University is about giving people real world practices that are viable for mastery and for turning thoughts into things.

It’s a focus on not just the things that we make, but who we are in the process of making them.

These are practices that go back throughout history.  

When we bring artistry into the process of turning a thought into a thing we track the logistics, meeting production costs, and all those sort of left brain necessities that would cause something to be called a success.

 

But we also track the emotional aspects.

 

That is…

How does it feel for the makers?

How does it feel for the people that use it?

What is the general feeling that we want this project to engender for the world?

Artists have become really masters at tracking both the logistical success criteria as well as the emotional success criteria.

It is the oscillation of those two practices that causes flow.

We live in strange, sometimes tumultuous, and difficult times.

 

It’s easy to be sucked into the negative narratives that pull our energy away from those things that we really truly want to be doing to change the world.

The truth is, the world needs our love.

It needs our positivity and it needs our big ideas now more than ever.

 

When the world is saturated with divisive media and politics, how can you stay focused on what is really most important to you and create from that place?

 

I like to think about it as a bounce.

Whenever I find myself being pulled into negativity, being dragged by that black hole of darkness that’s created by some “other” out there that’s trying to “otherize others…”

Whenever I’m pulled into that black hole, I let the feeling of that acceleration wake me up to the hypnotism that I’ve just been seduced by.

Then I find a place to bounce.

I say, okay, enough of that, I’m going to bounce off of this negative information, energy and intention, and I’m going to face in the opposite direction.

Then I can clearly see the biggest idea that I can think of and enact the polarity to all of this negativity.

I’m going to bounce off of the negative and enact the polarity.

There’s an evolution of excellence that continues to grow that we can all choose to support each other in.

 

What I’m really looking forward to about this year is a reconnection with a community of creators who assist one another to bring their biggest ideas to fruition in the fullest expression of what’s possible, and consistently support each other in that expression.

So it’s not just the newcomers coming in, but it’s the building of a community of creators. That’s the thing that I really love about CourseWeek.

I’m really excited about the two tracks that we’re creating.

 

The first track is…

Incoming students who’ve never done this before who have big ideas that they want to take on. I think that our temple crew and the work that they do in the world with supporting makers and creators is going to be super valuable for people wanting to come in and take on a big idea.

So new students can take their ideas to an escape velocity, that is, to a place where they can break free of the gravity that might have held them back before.

This year, we’re playing with this idea of the Moon’s Eye View: it is as though we are in space looking back on this beautiful blue planet and seeing how we can make it a better place.

So our aim is to give new people some real tools and real practices that allow them to build their idea into something that breaks free of that gravity that’s held them back before.  

 

I’m also super excited about returning students…

So that we instructors have an opportunity to take our teachings more deeply, and not just do level one over and over again, but to have level two and level three.

It’s really about the idea that we can manifest more perfectly, collaborate more beautifully, look for innovations, and create a path to mastery so that students can claim their own lives and creativity.

Are You Ready to Bounce?

When we make things…

When we turn our thoughts into things…

When we reach across that membrane into infinite potentiality…

And we pull a beautiful idea across that membrane from the nothing into something…

There is a kind of magic to it that gives us an indication of our ability to change the world…

To manifest new things in the universe, to be divine. I do this because I believe truly in the divinity of all people, that we are grace personified.

When we can reach into that place and bring our ideas forward, it gives us a chance to know ourselves better, to be more connectable to the truth of life.

We create because we have to. Because creation is in our DNA. Because to create is to emulate the powers of the divine.

So when we can make things, it gives us a chance to know ourselves better, to know each other better, and to make the world better.

When all the trees in the forest are growing, you have a big beautiful forest.

 

Creating at our highest potential, we are able to tell a new story. The story of this kindred quest, the story of creators together.

No longer singular, we are able to tell a story that is the transition from an age of separation to an age of reunion, and from a place of singular pursuits to community pursuits.

I teach people a lot of these practices so that they remind me when I forget.

We’ve all been wounded artistically.

I think that more good creators are ruined by bad teachers than any other source on planet earth. I was no different.

When I was in second grade and the teacher said, “Who are my artists in here?” Every kid raised their hand and I had an army with me.

By the time I got to twelfth grade, I was last man standing. In high school art I got a D+.

I also got bumped a grade from an a B to an A in social studies because of all the drawings that I did on the desk that semester.

The social studies teacher called me in said, hey, I’m going to give you a B.  But I have to ask: were you the one doing the drawings on the desk every day?

And I said ”Yes, I was.”

And he replied, “Every teacher in this whole row would come in to see the drawings that you did every day after class.  So I’m going to bump your grade and give you an A.”

So I got a D+ in high school art for being too social and an A in social studies for being so artistic.  

I found that to be kind of confusing and so I kind of packed my art up and I kept it to myself because it was something so precious to me that I didn’t want to be judged on it.

It’s a challenge to live in a world where you create and then have to deal with all the criticism…and not the constructive kind.

It’s something that I overcame by becoming a professional artist By being taught the practices and teachings that allowed me to understand my process I weathered the slings and arrows and gained a personal sovereignty in my creative abilities.   

So I had the freedom to create like a child and the ability to manage the external world at the same time.

Those are some of the things that we will explore in this course.

To be inspired and to be given tools and community. To be able to help architect that which is inside your heart and in your bones. To express it into the world in a way that feels safe to be vulnerable and fully self expressed.

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