Using the SAGA and MYTHOS decks as a jumping-off point for creativity has proved itself useful time and time again. As a writer, there are times when the words won’t flow and the creative spark is lost. At these times when my creativity is blocked, finding my way back on course is not easy.
Drawing a card from one of these packs allows me to take a step back from the work I am struggling with, and to refresh my mind with the newness of the image I see before me. Even a card that I have drawn and worked with many times before will have new meanings for me with each drawing. The state of mind that I am in will influence the shades of meaning I see, reflecting itself through the subtle overtones of the story that emerges.
The imagery fuels my mind, allowing me to wander into new territories and across unfamiliar terrain. As I allow my imagination free reign to make the associations that it chooses, to see the past or the future through the eyes of the card, I am able, at that moment, to let my mind touch new depths, to discover new possibilities.
Although the story that comes to me from the card may have no clear link to the work I was doing, the process of working with the image changes my thinking so that I am no longer stuck.
As well as using the cards in this way for creative work, I have used them for problem solving. Here, in a similar way, the story that comes from the card or cards will usually have no link to the problem, yet by firing up my creativity, my field of vision expands so that new solutions come into focus. The solutions that emerge are almost a by-product of the story that’s formed. Tapping into the hidden reserves of creativity allows the options to flow, and as they do, solutions present themselves for consideration.
Steven Weir
London, England
Excerpted from original material for the book Strawberries Beyond My Window: Games of Association for Opening the Door to Creativity and Communitcation, 2nd German Edition, by Waltraud Kirschke.
