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Tao of Creativity are TWO book chapters for a future magnum opus. It’s an interview with me (Michael Winn), telling my personal Tao journey from “copy cat Monkey” to creating from my authentic Self.

A lot of esoteric material on 12 Oversoul-Muses, how to contact them and enhance your creative life.

Details on Tao 36 Heavens, its inner structure, how Earthly creativity is rewarded in Afterlife.

See Table of Contents below, click to download PDFs.

Read a selection from each PDF within this newsletter.

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FALL TAO EVENTS 2025

Oct. 25-26, 2025  Sat/Sun $144.

 

Dec. 13 -14, 2025. Sat/Sun $144.

Dec. 21, 2025. Sunday  7:30 – 11pm
Winter Solstice,

 Black Dragon Ceremony,

   Crystal Bowl concert.

RSVP ASAP – very popular FREE 

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Tao of Creativity             Interview with Michael Winn                     by Christos Vayenas

                   Part One

 Qi Cultivation as a Lifetime Work of Art

   PART ONE    (Excerpt)

                            Encountering the Tao

1.    How did you come upon the Taoist tradition? 

When I was young, I was very clever. In high school

I won the California State Debate Championship.

I beat 100,000. teams with a clever case no one

was prepared for. I got into an Ivy League college.

From a conventional standpoint, things were going

well for me… but I didn’t feel creative.

I felt like a smart monkey that put things together

to impress people, rather than creating a new thing

that really came from myself. I copied other people’s

creativity. Even my mother called me “my little monkey”.

I never told anyone how I felt, but it really bothered me.

Decades later, I learned my Chinese astrology

chart was dominated by Double Monkey.

I realized my issue was constitutional. I was born

“super-clever”. The challenge was to balance

that gift to my personality with the need to unfold

soul values of love and true creativity in my life.

After college, I took a job in NYC book publishing.

Things started off well. I survived a merger that fired

82 people – I was one of four left with a job. At age 23,

I was the youngest Publicity Director in the industry.

A year later, a new boss abruptly fired me. I protested,

“I’m doing a great job, why are you firing me?”

She said, “Yes, you do good work.

But you don’t belong here. This is a corporation.

You’re too creative.”

Wow. I was getting in touch with my creative self.

Getting fired was the best thing to happen to me.

I’ve been self-employed ever since. Double Monkeys

want to be boss of their creative projects.

I re-invented myself as a freelance journalist,

war correspondent, and adventure travel photographer.

I traveled to Africa 27 times. I travelled all over the world,

to more than 100 countries, writing, buying and selling

handicrafts, doing all kinds of work to make ends meet.

I loved it, because I was forced to be creative to survive.

Travel abroad helped me cut loose from American culture,

making it easier to re-invent myself.

I was a Creative Copycat, not Creating from Source

Yet I still felt limited in my creativity.

I was only creative in my life’s outer aspects.

Too much “copycat” creating, too secondary.

I knew there was a more fundamental shift

I had to make.

I got interested in the act of creation itself.

What was the source of my creativity?

Was there a god feeding my creativity?

Was I a puppet on strings, created from above?

The tough, knitty-gritty questions:

How do I create my body?

Am I creating my core values,

or borrowing them? I explored many

spiritual paths to find answers.

I focused on my body-mind process.

I felt I was daily sculpting my character,

my career choices, my everything. Yet I

only knew my life from a printout on the

outside. I couldn’t grasp my inner creator.

Tao Path of Embodiment & Alchemy Combustion

Eventually I stumbled upon Tao, the Natural Way.

It felt much more embodied than other traditions,

with a focus on bringing spirit into body-mind-soul.

The Taoist practices of qigong and inner alchemy

(meditation combusting volatile Water & Fire,

primal sexual qi) gave me tools to navigate my

deep inner space.

I realized there were two different kinds of meditation.

One focused on stress relief, escape body suffering,

stopping the mind, seeking emptiness or some heaven.

The other embraced creative tension in the body.

It coupled polar yin-yang energies within the body

to co-create a new identity. It’s called inner alchemy.

Alchemy + qigong empowered my new “inner artist”,

It boosted my health & creativity.

It enabled me to dive deep into my psyche,

to tinker inside the dark un-conscious we all fear.

Later, it opened the doors to higher dimensions.

I especially valued Taoist sexual energy methods.

Most traditions avoid the relation between sex

and spirituality as “too messy”, a minefield.

I was able to methodically re-direct my sexual drive,

to re-design the psychic infrastructure of my creative self.

I was empowered to be a spiritually creative monkey,

not just a copycat monkey.

    Qi as Medium Unifying All Creation

Three Treasures of Tao are Heaven, Earth, & Humanity.

They holistically evolve via a single medium called qi,

lit. “subtle breath” (qi, chi – both pronounced “chee”).

Qi greatly simplified my process of self-evolution.

Western psychology and religion had no unifying medium.

They use mental categories or distant deities.

I began to integrate my outer creativity and inner spirituality.

Both were driven by qi, flowing in two directions. Taoist

Chuang Tzu called it “walking two paths at once”. Qi flows

in a loop: inward to Origin, and outward to Creation.

I explored Tao concepts of yin-yang qi and

five element qi theory. This map enabled me

to see my physical, emotional, sexual, mental, and

spiritual subtle bodies as nested qi layers of my Self.

Qi linked all these moving parts of me together.

All my subtle bodies used the same operating system.

If I shaped the qi in one body, it vibrated the other bodies.

         Wandering Taoists vs. Temple Taoism

I identified with the Wandering Taoist tradition,

the lineage of early Taoists Lao Tzu (500 b.c.),

Chuang Tzu (300.b.c.), and inner alchemist

Lu dongbin (10^th century c.e.).

They took Mother Nature as their teacher.

Tao is a feminine path. “She” is the Mother of All Things.

(Lao Tzu v. 1). Her body includes the primordial qi field of

Great Oneness (taiyi), plus all embodied forms of Nature.

Original Tao was a practical, self-guided path, with no

priesthood, no statues; no temples outside of Nature.

No ruling deity – just align with & shape the qi field.

IIt suited my need for creative freedom.

I had long refused to give my power away to any teacher

or deity. I was allergic to having a “guru” or “master”

define my path – a common trait of rebel-artists.

Religious (temple) Taoism arose 700 years after Lao Tzu.

It incorporated many Early Tao principles & practices

into a cultural mix of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism,

and Statism.

It served the Chinese imperative to achieve

social harmony. Its priests, deities and temples were 100%

owned by the emperor – more powerful than any Pope.

In 1949 the ownership of religious Taoism was inherited

by an atheist Communist Party. Modern temple Taoists are

now “religious workers”. Their first duty is to glorify the State,

before Taoism.

Not my cup of tea – worse than a corporate boss or a

corrupt Pope. But there are about 750 million Folk

Taoists in China’s 1.6 billion population. They mostly

ignore the State, honor their own blend of village

traditions and practices. Like western New Agers, only Old.

I traveled around China to find non-temple teachers,

to explore the root of Taoism, to sort out cultural

1. universal truth. I led 22 China Dream Trips.

We do qigong, meditate in Tao sacred mountains

and power spots, engage with local Taoists.

The trips became famous, attracted two Tao scholars

to write a book Dream Trippers: Global Daoism 

and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality

(Chicago Univ. Press, 2017).

The predicament is that Temple Taoism is bound to

Chinese culture, it cannot be exported. But qigong &

Tao inner alchemy methods are being adopted globally.

Dream Trippers are “re-seeding” them in modern China.

Young Chinese distrust temple priests and the State, yet

sre hungry for spiritual nurturance. Qigong feeds them.

Winn book review of Dream Trippers (PDF download)

“Are you an Authentic of a Fake Taoist? Wandering Taoists vs. Imperial Temple Taoism”

 

Download PART ONE PDF:

https://healingtaousa.com/tao_article/tao-of-creativity-part-one-qi-cultivation-as-a-work-of-art/

TABLE OF CONTENTS – PART ONE

1. How did you come upon the Taoist tradition?

• I was creative copycat, not creating from Source

• Tao path of embodiment & alchemy combustion

• Qi as medium unifying all Creation

• Wandering Taoists vs. temple taoism

2. How can Creatives begin working with Tao practices?

• Three methods to nourish creativity:

1. Do grounding qigong

2. Talk to your organ spirits

3. Grow self-love with Inner Smile

3. Did qigong & Tao meditation boost your creativity?

• Transmuting sex drive into creativity

• Discovery of my “Oversoul muse”

• 12 Sovereign Hexagrams: I Ching Fates as Oversouls

• War in Ethiopia: qi boosted my creativity

• Qigong linked my many careers

• Conscious conception: highest creative act

• Poem: The beauty of yin & yang

4. Are ancient Tao practices relevant to modern creative process?

• Qi is testable now, not an old belief system

• Yuan qi is timeless root of All creativity

5. At core, is all art the shaping of energy patterns?

• Cosmic mandate: individuate Spirit into Matter

• Divine gift of imagination is in every being

• Humans must create their own reality, 24/7

• Our Energy Body is a continuous work of art

• Can you crystallize your essence into a pearl?

6. Is there a Taoist cure for creative block?

• Inner Smile dissolves resistance from inside

• Use Inner Child to reboot creativity

• Must artists suffer in order to create?

7. Do Taoist ideas on creativity differ from Western?

• Taoists lack notion of “an Un-conscious”

• Is copying a master artist anti-creative?

• Carl Jung on Taoism and creativity

8. What’s the relationship between art and inner alchemy?

• All art is a form of inner alchemy

• Nature cycles are inherently alchemical

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                       Part Two

                 Tao of Creativity  

   Co-create with Your Oversoul Muse

EXCERPT from Part Two

12. Question on Afterlife #7:

Some dismiss Tao quest for spiritual immortality as fantasy.

Your thoughts, Sage?

Perhaps they confuse it with Western quest for physical 

immortality, the Fear of physical death projected 

into a forever future that never happens. 

It’s a dark side trap promoted by trans-humanists, 

who want you to implant bionic parts in your biologic 

body. Since a mechanical body is created on Earth, it 

will never be admitted into Early or Original Heaven. 

The soul is thus stuck on Earth – a dark side wet dream.

Quest for physical immortality is really a Fear of

creating and loving fully in the Present Moment. 

Fear can freeze creative and loving energy. 

Death is natural, not to be feared. It is a time to embrace 

a new phase of life, to complete what was not created in 

the Earth Life phase. 

The billions of souls flowing in and out of Earth is an 

immortal cycle, a dance of life that will continue until 

the experiment in creativity called Humanity is complete. 

Homo sapiens is still in its infancy. 

I give it at least another ten million years, in earth time.

When it’s over, The 12 Oversouls will have achieved total harmony.

Dense physical plane will have evolved into its natural light-sound

 body.

The life-death cycle will dissolve.  Only spiritual immortals

will be left. They will continue creating, in an eternal love dance

with Great Oneness.

When this comes to pass, the Mother of the Multi-verse,

who willed our cosmos into existence to conduct this experiment,

will be pleased.

———-

Download PART TWO PDF:

https://healingtaousa.com/tao_article/tao-of-creativity-part-two-co-create-with-your-oversoul-muse/

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

– PART TWO

   Co-create with Your Oversoul Muse

9.  Can wu wei – spontaneous creativity – be cultivated?

• What exactly is wu wei?

• Inner Smile: wu wei directed inward as self-love

• Simple trinity at core of cosmic creativity

•    Self-love awakens our power to create

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10. Is music significant in the Taoist tradition?

• Traditional Chinese music IS Taoist in origin

• Each human has a soul song and a Sound Body

• My wife’s death opened Music of the Spheres

• 3 Subtle bodies shape our life-death journey

————-

11. How do we include Original Breath (yuan qi)

& Oversoul-Muse in our creative process?

1. Don’t create anything mechanically.

2. Invoke Original Breath from your spiritual heart

3. Honor importance of Beginner’s Mind.

4. Train your 12 Inner Monkeys to co-create

5. Can we be sure 12 Oversouls exist?

6.Relation of 12 Oversouls to 12 organs

7.How to contact your Oversoul muse

8. Invite muse to co-create with you

9. How can a mostly neutral Oversoul have creative force?

10. Oversouls: origin of resistance within Creation

————

12. Is creativity part of Tao quest for immortality?

• Love what you create: fast path to high heaven

• Heaven, Earth, Humans occupy same place, same time

• Tao map: 36 Heavens reward creativity

• Seven Questions for Sage on Afterlife

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Download PART ONE PDF:

https://healingtaousa.com/tao_article/tao-of-creativity-part-one-qi-cultivation-as-a-work-of-art/

 

Download PART TWO PDF:

https://healingtaousa.com/tao_article/tao-of-creativity-part-two-co-create-with-your-oversoul-muse/

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