Creativity is quite a wonderful little word. It encompasses so much of what we regard as joyful, playful and fun. It represents unimagined futures, inspires dreams undreamt and leads us directly into the unknown. Truth may be a pathless land, but it's a lot more fun to be there when you are the conscious creator.

With all of that in mind, here's a few tricks to get the creative juices flowing. Most of these are things you've already heard of, and perhaps some you haven't. In any case, have fun and please feel free to add your own.

A) Mashup: In Web 2.0 terminology, a mashup is what happens when you take two completely different tools and put them together for a completely new purpose. So here are few examples as applies to what we do:

Enlightenment = Non-Locality
Meditation = Monitor
Kindness = Bubbles

B) Visualizing: Granted, men are generally speaking, more visual than women, but visualization is something all of us can play with. Typically a visualization involves taking something that we're working on and playing with it in our head. Take it to the next level and scribble it out, even if you're not much of an artist!

C) Free association. This is one of my favorites. You just take the first couple words that pop in to your head and just chew on them. It's kind of like a Vipassana meditation, but writing out the stuff that flows through your head. And btw, don't let your mind just "blank" on this one. Observe your thoughts...then write. Creativity is nice, voices in your head and silly noises aren't.