Creativity, Light, Freedom, & Flight (the “missing” post for Wednesday 2/11) February 11, 2026

“Happy Carnival!” to those who are celebrating! Many blessings to everyone, everywhere!!

Peace, ease, contemplation, and creativity throughout this “Season for Nonviolence” and all other seasons!!!

This is the “missing” (and backdated) post for Wednesday, February 11^th (with excerpts). In addition to the new content and excerpts, it includes some re-purposed content. You can request an audio recording of this practice or a previous practice via a comment below or (for a slightly faster reply) you can email myra      (at) ajoyfulpractice.com.

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“Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is simply to ask the right question. And sometimes the best way to ask the right question is to come up with an example that makes most explicit what the problem is about.”

— quoted from the “What Needs to Be Explained” section of “Part I. The World Knot — Chapter Two: The Special Problem of Consciousness” in A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi

On a certain level, life is a series of lessons… or puzzles… or questions seeking answers… or “problems that want to be solved”. How ever you think about it, life requires us to be creative. In fact, in discussing life, sleep, and the mind-body experience, Dr. Gerald Edelman and Dr. Giulio Tononi wrote, “If our view of memory is correct, in higher organisms every act of perception is, to some degree, an act of creation, and every act of memory is, to some degree, an act of imagination. Biological memory is thus creative and not strictly replicative. It is one of the essential bases of consciousness, to the mechanisms of which we now turn.”¹

What the good doctors were saying is that, whether we realize it or not, we are all creative beings, creating all the time.

Now, if you are wondering how sleep got in there, consider that our parasympathetic nervous system — which is also connected to our ability to rest and digest — is also related to ability to create. We need to rest in order to digest (i.e., process) everything we consume — be it food and drink, ideas, media, experiences, etc. — and we need to process things in order to learn the lessons, solve the puzzles, answer the questions, and solve the problems of life. In other words, we need to rest and digest in order to engage our “creativity”, the principle of the day for the “Season for Nonviolence”.

Inventors like Thomas Alva Edison, who was born on February 11, 1847, are obviously remembered as being creative. If you think about it, creativity is also needed if you are a statesman and activist, like Nelson Mandela, and you want to change your country and the world. Also known as Madiba, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison on February 11, 1990, after 27 years in prison; and one of the things that sustained his spirit and gave him hope — especially when he was in prison — was the creativity of others (often in the form of music). Finally, you know how handy creativity can be if you have ever experienced any kind of oppression and/or worked in the service industry. So, I am sure it was a useful tool for Ruth Carol Taylor, whose maiden flight was on this same date in 1958.

“‘I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have, fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.’”

— Thomas Edison, as quoted in “A Photographic Talk with Edison” by Theodore Dreiser (printed in Success Magazine, Feb. 1898)

Click on the excerpt title below for more about Thomas Alva Edison.

FTWMI: Getting the Light On

“As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

— Nelson Mandela

Click on the excerpt titles below for more about Nelson Mandela (including a note about Umqombothi a special beer).

Compassion and Peace (with reference to a “separated” time)

More Than 46664 (the “missing” Sunday post, with a reference to Monday’s practice)

“…[Ruth Carol Taylor] didn’t take the job because she thought being a flight attendant would be so great. She says she did it to fight discrimination.

‘It wasn’t something that I had wanted to do all my life,’ she tells JET about being a flight attendant. ‘I knew better than to think it was all that glamourous. But it irked me that people were not allowing people of color to apply… Anything like that sets my teeth to grinding.’”

— quoted from the JET Magazine article entitled, “First Black Flight Attendant Is Still Fighting Racism” (printed in the “Labor” section of the May 12, 1997 issue)

Click on the excerpt title below for more about some historic flights, including Ruth Carol Taylor’s 1958 flight.

En L’Air (a special Black History 2.5-for-1 note)

“Music is a great blessing. It has the power to elevate and liberate us. It sets people free to dream. It can unite us to sing with one voice. Such is the value of music.”

— Nelson Mandela speaking to musicians at a Freedom Day concert in London

Tuesday’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “02112023 Breath, Light, Freedom”]

If you are thinking about suicide, worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, you can dial 988 (in the US) or call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call this TALK line if you are struggling with addiction or involved in an abusive relationship. The Lifeline network is free, confidential, and available to all 24/7. YOU CAN TALK ABOUT ANYTHING.

White Flag is an app, which I have not yet researched, but which may be helpful if you need peer-to-peer (non-professional) support.

If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgement-free place to talk, you can also click here to contact the TrevorLifeline (which is staffed 24/7 with trained counselors).

NOTE: ¹ I often use an abbreviated version of this quote (courtesy of Dr. Oliver Sacks). It is originally from “Part III. Mechanisms of Consciousness: The Darwinian Perspective — Chapter Eight: Nonrepresentational Memory” in A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi.

### CREATE! ###