The formula states that absolute creativity is always unlimited, thereby meaning we can always expect to find ourselves wandering around the unknown, trying to discover that which can help our known work better.

If we think wandering the unknown is less then preferred, consider for a moment the alternative, as represented by the history of maritime navigation.

Without the invention of longitude and latitude, lacking such navigational aides, ships were vulnerable to attack since they had to follow prescribed currents and routes, or else run the risk of being lost at sea. Prescribed routes became easy "pickins" for pirates, scoundrels and thieves. Thus the necessity to plot one's bearing in the wide open ocean without being predictable or getting lost became paramount.

"The map is not the territory," and in this case, we can't even have a map or latitude/longitude lines, since the formula says "the territory is always unknowable." Thus the need for a compass.

A compass helps us navigate in unexplored terrain. Creativity by definition is open terrain, hence the need for a tool that provides directional bearing. At least with a compass, we'll have a general sense of which direction we are heading, and how to correct course if needed.

We can use the Creative Compass much like the software example provided for making money. In the next section we'll get into its working mechanics, but first I'd like to share an example of another type of compass, which I think has great validity as its essence permeates this book.

My all time favorite compass award goes to the Inka Elders from Peru.

It was at the corner of West 113th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on a dark, dreary Sunday evening in 1996 at St. John The Divine Cathedral in New York City, where I first met the Inka Elders and learned about their compass. Referred to as the Inka Medicine Wheel, it is a compass for the soul.

The Elders I met that November night were representing the Q'ero nation. They told the story of how their people fled from Machu Picchu, approximately 10,000 feet up in the Andes, when the Spanish Conquistadors, with powers of church and state, pursued them with murderous aggression. The Q'ero quietly ascended to the higher elevations of 14,000 feet, where they stayed for almost five hundred years, unknown to the rest of civilization. About thirty or forty years ago, a few of them came down from the mountains in the clouds and said, "We've got something to say."

Their compass for the soul starts in the south, which is represented by the snake. Here we learn to shed anxieties, doubts, fears, guilt, and the past, all at once, just as the snake sheds its skin.

Then we move around the compass to the west, represented by the jaguar, and learn to jump beyond fear. Just like jaguars, we must learn to make the jump from the edge of one mountain cliff to another, planning our general landing but never really knowing what to precisely expect until our feet hit the ground. Hence the jaguar's courage to jump and its flexibility when landing.

The compass continues on to the dragon path of the north, where we learn the way of ancestors, the "ancient ones," and receive the sacred dream to honor and serve all life.

The compass ends with the eagle path of the east, the most difficult direction. In the east, we learn to develop the gift of vision, to create a world of balance, harmony, and peace, and to help unfold the sacred dream of evolution. In other words, we learn personal leadership to put it all together for the greater good. To implement!

In the next section, we'll see how the Creative Compass works in a way similar to the Inka Medicine Wheel.

Since you are reading these words, I'd like to propose that on some level, we have already shed our skin, taken the jump, and sought to improve. So let's move on.   top