{"id":26868,"date":"2022-08-01T01:10:20","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T05:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/?p=26868"},"modified":"2022-07-29T16:19:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T20:19:32","slug":"book-review-the-creative-pendulum-by-joan-rose-staffen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2022\/08\/01\/book-review-the-creative-pendulum-by-joan-rose-staffen\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review – The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit by Joan Rose Staffen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book Review
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>The Creative Pendulum:
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>by Joan Rose Staffen
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>Published by Weiser Books
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>June 1, 2022
\n<\/b><\/span><\/span>288 pages<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m showing my age here, but back in the day, there was a commercial for breath mints with the tagline, \u201ctwo \u2013 two \u2013 two mints in one!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I kept thinking of this slogan when I was reading The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit<\/em>\u00a0by Joan Rose Staffen, published earlier this year by Weiser Books. It\u2019s two \u2013 two \u2013 two books in one! It\u2019s a book about how to use a pendulum and how to be a more creative person \u2013 even if you never thought of yourself as creative or artistic or in anyway innovative. This is the book that will help you release all the demons that are holding you back from being the virtuoso that you were meant to be.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I have used pendulums since I was in my early twenties but they were homemade ones of crystal buttons and embroidery floss. I didn\u2019t receive my first \u201ccommercial\u201d pendulum until 2015 \u2013 now I have several beautiful pendulums. Generally, I use a pendulum in several ways \u2013 when I need a quick \u201cyes\/no\u201d answer to some question I may have \u2013 or in conjunction with the Tarot or Lenormand \u2013 I spread the cards out, face down, and then let the pendulum pick the cards to be read. I do this quite often. I find the pendulum to be very accurate.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I have also always thought of myself as an artist and a writer \u2013 in fact, I have been getting published since I was fifteen years old \u2013 I have also sung in rock\u2019n\u2019roll and country bands \u2013 I was also a professional dancer for over ten years. I currently maintain several blogs on WordPress and Blogger \u2013 my life has always been dominated by the creative arts. Like many artists, I often suffer from creative blocks. Being bipolar doesn\u2019t help. When I am manic, I create almost around the clock but when I am in the midst of a depression, it\u2019s like my creative flow has been stopped up by barrier the size of the Hoover Dam \u2013 I know that my creativity is there \u2013 but it\u2019s not going anywhere \u2013 certainly it\u2019s not getting to where it\u2019s supposed to be. When I\u2019m like this, I spend a lot of time watching movies and old TV shows trying to jumpstart my brain into some kind of creative activity but I know that I just have to wait for the depression to lift and for my manic energy to return.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Joan Rose Staffen has been working with these kinds of creative energies for many years. Her website http:\/\/joanrosestaffen.com<\/a>, has a complete list of links to her history in this field. You can order her books, check out her paintings, sign up for workshops, find out how to get psychic healing or simply contact her with the click of your mouse. She also has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. She\u2019s definitely a twenty-first century healer.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

After reading this book thoroughly, I am undecided as to whether it\u2019s more of a book of divination or a how-to book for artists and writers. Although there are plenty of prompts for using your pendulum, there are even more ideas for igniting your inventive imagination, getting your creations promoted and marketed and sold \u2013 even if you may have only thought of yourself as an amateur. The entire book is filled with charts, exercises, quotes from working artists, affirmations and so much more. If you want to be a published writer or want to get your artwork sold, this is definitely the book for you \u2013 it has every last good idea for the creative person to use to get their work out into the world and noticed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s so much in this book that I really can\u2019t talk about everything, because that would make this review too long and too involved. I will just point out a few things I found especially interesting.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I really loved the charts. There are thirty-three of them, all gathered in the appendix in the back of the book. The first one you will use will be the Yes\/No chart, to see if your pendulum needs clearing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been using a pendulum for many years but I had never heard of clearing a pendulum. I got out the pendulum I use most often and hung it over the chart and asked a \u201cyes\/no\u201d question (a really obvious yes\/no question, no ambiguity whatsoever). The pendulum moved in a clockwise direction \u2013 so it did not need clearing. Honestly, this amazed me because I really did think it would need clearing, since I\u2019d had it for several years and used it all the time but I was happy to find out that it didn\u2019t need clearing. Maybe the fact that I used it all the time was the reason that it didn\u2019t need clearing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As you read through the book, you will use every other chart in the book. It\u2019s rather interesting to see how the pendulum always picks what is always true \u2013 for instance, take the Chart 18, the Literary Arts Chart.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Asking yourself, \u201cWhat do I love to read?\u201d, let the pendulum swing to where it will. In my case, it swung first to biographies but then to novels, which was very informative, because I love both biographies and novels but what I really like are historical novels about famous people so I figured that\u2019s what the pendulum was saying.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Staffen does not only cover every aspect of how to increase your creative output but also how to increase the audience for your creativity using social media. Many people decry the influence of social media on today\u2019s culture but the fact is, this is the world in which we live and the artist who doesn\u2019t use social media to promote their work is usually not selling their work. On page 138, she lists some interesting facts about social media \u2013 for instance, the internet in general has 4.54 billion users (Staffan, 138) which is a whole lot of people! I know that my main blog, silverapplequeen.wordpress.com<\/a> has followers from all around the world and I follow other bloggers from all around the world \u2013 some of my favorite bloggers are from Vietnam, Hungary, Germany and Italy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another chart I found interesting was Chart 8, the Distractions Chart.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you suffer from writer\u2019s block like I do, you will be distracted by all kinds of things \u2013 housework, family, friends, the internet, TV, shopping, video games, yard work, drugs and alcohol, crisis \u2013 she lists nineteen different distractions \u2013 I am very sure that you can change this chart to reflect your own life. For instance, she has drugs and alcohol as separate entities \u2013 in my world, I would have them as one. Also, I don\u2019t play video games \u2013 I never have \u2013 but I play solitaire games on my phone \u2013 there\u2019s several stupid card games that can draw me in (no pun intended) for several hours as I watch some old TV show or movie \u2013 instead of writing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But when I used my pendulum with this chart, the distraction that the pendulum pointed to \u2013 most definitely \u2013 was noise. Now, it\u2019s true that I have noise issues. I moved out of the city of Buffalo because of the noise and I loved living in the city \u2013 I loved being close to shopping, being able to walk everywhere, having more than one bus route nearby and all my friends living close by. But where I live now is so very quiet. The only thing I hear are the barking of my neighbors\u2019 dogs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think the noise issue is the noise in my own head \u2013 because I\u2019m bipolar \u2013 and sometimes I just can\u2019t turn that noise off. So even in a quiet place like where I\u2019m living now \u2013 noise can be an issue. This is where daily meditation is helpful. Learning to deal with all the noisiness in my own head and calming myself down so I can work with what I\u2019ve got in there. My problem is that I\u2019ve got too many ideas and too many stories \u2013 I have to settle myself down so I can actually finish a project. Right now I\u2019m working on several writing and art projects \u2013 with the house and the gardens and a grandchild on the way \u2013 I would say that I\u2019m fairly distracted all the time. Honestly, it\u2019s amazing that I get anything done at all!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Whether you are simply a creative person or you have a pendulum, The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit, by Joan Rose Staffen is a fabulous book \u2013 I would say that it\u2019s a must-have book for every and all artists and writers. I would also say that it is unnecessary to have a pendulum to use this book \u2013 there\u2019s so much information in here that doesn\u2019t pertain to using a pendulum \u2013 but using a pendulum with this book will only enhance your learning experience and help you grow into a stronger and more focused artist. I can\u2019t recommend this book enough. Find it at your local library; order it from your favorite online bookstore; or buy it at your local mom and pop bookshop. It\u2019s a great book!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Find out more about the author at http:\/\/joanrosestaffen.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe Creative Pendulum on Amazon<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

**<\/b><\/p>\n

About the Author:<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Polly MacDavid<\/b>\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan but she gets along with a few of the masculine deities. She loves to cook and she is a Bills fan. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

She blogs at\u00a0<\/span><\/span>silverapplequeen.wordpress.com<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span>. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit by Joan Rose Staffen Published by Weiser Books June 1, 2022 288 pages     I know I\u2019m showing my age here, but back in the day, there was a commercial for breath mints with the tagline, \u201ctwo \u2013 two \u2013 two mints in one!\u201d I kept thinking of this slogan when I was reading The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit\u00a0by Joan Rose Staffen, published earlier this year by Weiser Books. It\u2019s two \u2013 two \u2013 two books in one! It\u2019s a book about how to use a pendulum and how to be a more creative person \u2013 even if you never thought of yourself as creative or artistic or in anyway innovative. This is the book that will help you release all the demons that are holding you back from being the virtuoso that you were meant to be. I have used pendulums since I was in my early twenties but they were homemade ones of crystal buttons and embroidery floss. I didn\u2019t receive my first \u201ccommercial\u201d pendulum until 2015 \u2013 now I have several beautiful pendulums. Generally, I use a pendulum in several ways \u2013 when I need a quick \u201cyes\/no\u201d answer to some question I may have \u2013 or in conjunction with the Tarot or Lenormand \u2013 I spread the cards out, face down, and then let the pendulum pick the cards to be read. I do this quite often. I find the pendulum to be very accurate. I have also always thought of myself as an artist and a writer \u2013 in fact, I have been getting published since I was fifteen years old \u2013 I have also sung in rock\u2019n\u2019roll and country bands \u2013 I was also a professional dancer for over ten years. I currently maintain several blogs on WordPress and Blogger \u2013 my life has always been dominated by the creative arts. Like many artists, I often suffer from creative blocks. Being bipolar doesn\u2019t help. When I am manic, I create almost around the clock but when I am in the midst of a depression, it\u2019s like my creative flow has been stopped up by barrier the size of the Hoover Dam \u2013 I know that my creativity is there \u2013 but it\u2019s not going anywhere \u2013 certainly it\u2019s not getting to where it\u2019s supposed to be. When I\u2019m like this, I spend a lot of time watching movies and old TV shows trying to jumpstart my brain into some kind of creative activity but I know that I just have to wait for the depression to lift and for my manic energy to return. Joan Rose Staffen has been working with these kinds of creative energies for many years. Her website http:\/\/joanrosestaffen.com, has a complete list of links to her history in this field. You can order her books, check out her paintings, sign up for workshops, find out how to get psychic healing or simply contact her with the click of your mouse. She also has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. She\u2019s definitely a twenty-first century healer. After reading this book thoroughly, I am undecided as to whether it\u2019s more of a book of divination or a how-to book for artists and writers. Although there are plenty of prompts for using your pendulum, there are even more ideas for igniting your inventive imagination, getting your creations promoted and marketed and sold \u2013 even if you may have only thought of yourself as an amateur. The entire book is filled with charts, exercises, quotes from working artists, affirmations and so much more. If you want to be a published writer or want to get your artwork sold, this is definitely the book for you \u2013 it has every last good idea for the creative person to use to get their work out into the world and noticed. There\u2019s so much in this book that I really can\u2019t talk about everything, because that would make this review too long and too involved. I will just point out a few things I found especially interesting. I really loved the charts. There are thirty-three of them, all gathered in the appendix in the back of the book. The first one you will use will be the Yes\/No chart, to see if your pendulum needs clearing. I\u2019ve been using a pendulum for many years but I had never heard of clearing a pendulum. I got out the pendulum I use most often and hung it over the chart and asked a \u201cyes\/no\u201d question (a really obvious yes\/no question, no ambiguity whatsoever). The pendulum moved in a clockwise direction \u2013 so it did not need clearing. Honestly, this amazed me because I really did think it would need clearing, since I\u2019d had it for several years and used it all the time but I was happy to find out that it didn\u2019t need clearing. Maybe the fact that I used it all the time was the reason that it didn\u2019t need clearing. As you read through the book, you will use every other chart in the book. It\u2019s rather interesting to see how the pendulum always picks what is always true \u2013 for instance, take the Chart 18, the Literary Arts Chart. Asking yourself, \u201cWhat do I love to read?\u201d, let the pendulum swing to where it will. In my case, it swung first to biographies but then to novels, which was very informative, because I love both biographies and novels but what I really like are historical novels about famous people so I figured that\u2019s what the pendulum was saying. Staffen does not only cover every aspect of how to increase your creative output but also how to increase the audience for your creativity using social media. Many people decry the influence of social media on today\u2019s culture but the fact is, this is the world in which we live and the artist who doesn\u2019t use social media to promote their work is usually not selling their work. On page 138, she lists some interesting facts about social media \u2013 for instance, the internet in general has 4.54 billion users (Staffan, 138) which is a whole lot of people! I know that my main blog, silverapplequeen.wordpress.com has followers from all around the world and I follow other bloggers from all around the world \u2013 some of my favorite bloggers are from Vietnam, Hungary, Germany and Italy. Another chart I found interesting was Chart 8, the Distractions Chart. If you suffer from writer\u2019s block like I do, you will be distracted by all kinds of things \u2013 housework, family, friends, the internet, TV, shopping, video games, yard work, drugs and alcohol, crisis \u2013 she lists nineteen different distractions \u2013 I am very sure that you can change this chart to reflect your own life. For instance, she has drugs and alcohol as separate entities \u2013 in my world, I would have them as one. Also, I don\u2019t play video games \u2013 I never have \u2013 but I play solitaire games on my phone \u2013 there\u2019s several stupid card games that can draw me in (no pun intended) for several hours as I watch some old TV show or movie \u2013 instead of writing. But when I used my pendulum with this chart, the distraction that the pendulum pointed to \u2013 most definitely \u2013 was noise. Now, it\u2019s true that I have noise issues. I moved out of the city of Buffalo because of the noise and I loved living in the city \u2013 I loved being close to shopping, being able to walk everywhere, having more than one bus route nearby and all my friends living close by. But where I live now is so very quiet. The only thing I hear are the barking of my neighbors\u2019 dogs. I think the noise issue is the noise in my own head \u2013 because I\u2019m bipolar \u2013 and sometimes I just can\u2019t turn that noise off. So even in a quiet place like where I\u2019m living now \u2013 noise can be an issue. This is where daily meditation is helpful. Learning to deal with all the noisiness in my own head and calming myself down so I can work with what I\u2019ve got in there. My problem is that I\u2019ve got too many ideas and too many stories \u2013 I have to settle myself down so I can actually finish a project. Right now I\u2019m working on several writing and art projects \u2013 with the house and the gardens and a grandchild on the way \u2013 I would say that I\u2019m fairly distracted all the time. Honestly, it\u2019s amazing that I get anything done at all! Whether you are simply a creative person or you have a pendulum, The Creative Pendulum: Keys to Unlock Your Innovative Spirit, by Joan Rose Staffen is a fabulous book \u2013 I would say that it\u2019s a must-have book for every and all artists and writers. I would also say that it is unnecessary to have a pendulum to use this book \u2013 there\u2019s so much information in here that doesn\u2019t pertain to using a pendulum \u2013 but using a pendulum with this book will only enhance your learning experience and help you grow into a stronger and more focused artist. I can\u2019t recommend this book enough. Find it at your local library; order it from your favorite online bookstore; or buy it at your local mom and pop bookshop. It\u2019s a great book! Find out more about the author at http:\/\/joanrosestaffen.com   The Creative Pendulum on Amazon ** About the Author: Polly MacDavid\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic. Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan but she gets along with a few of the masculine deities. She loves to cook and she is a Bills fan. She blogs at\u00a0silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":26872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10005],"tags":[10095,10015,12252,11248,13965,12183,10075,13966],"class_list":["post-26868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-book","tag-book-review","tag-creativity","tag-guidance","tag-joan-rose-staffen","tag-pendulum","tag-review","tag-the-creative-pendulum"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26868"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26890,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26868\/revisions\/26890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}