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Webster says that “create” means to bring into existence something that is new, something that did not exist before.

  Canyon Light Show by Page Holland

We often imagine creators as solitary individuals struggling against great odds, trying mightily to craft new inventions, music, or art that is novel, fresh, unique. We assume that prior training and skills are crucial in the creative process. Someone who doesn’t know arithmetic will never be a great mathematician. A tone-deaf person will never compose majestic music. Someone who is not grounded in the classics can never be a great philosopher.

So much for logic.

  Radiant by Mary Collar

The processes that drive creativity have been so mysterious to us throughout human history—why we create art and inherently crave fantasy. Terms like “divine inspiration” have frequently been used to describe what underlies the inception of great creative works.

In times past, of course, divine forces were used to explain just about anything which was brought about by unseen schemes—natural disasters, diseases, etc. Now that we have a much deeper understanding of the scientific processes that weave through the fabric of the universe, we better understand many such once mysterious phenomena.

  Its Alive by Phil Wagner

An ancient idea, is universal, unitary consciousness. The premise surfaced dramatically in America during the nineteenth century in the philosophy of transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the leading proponent, wrote:

"There is one mind common to all individual men ... What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent."

Emerson called this single, universal mind the Over-soul. In this perspective, the One Mind can function as the source of all the ingredients could anyone ever need to formulate a new idea, or paint or sculpt a work of art. Tapping into the Source is the goal of most creative individuals

  Solitary Man by Dell Crandall

The door to creativity is often opened during meditation, reverie, or dreams, in which time is perceived as an eternal present in which the divisions of past, present, and future meld into an all-encompassing now. In this state, it is not just the separations in time that disappear, but also separations between people and things. This experience is amazingly common. It often erupts spontaneously, as when we are transfixed by a plangent musical note, the smell of fresh-baked bread, or a coyote’s midnight howl. During these moments, if fortune smiles, we can become Creative!

  Blue Monuments By Jeffrey Durrant