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A poet's vision needs work that touches the heartYou could never happily devote yourself to any work purely for financial gain, for your deepest loyalties are given to an inner vision. You need to seek a vocational path which allows you to express that vision. This might cover a wide range of possibilities - from living the artist's life, with all its special difficulties and challenges, to working in those areas where artistic gifts are combined with more market-orientated work such as advertising or web design. Which end of this range might best suit you depends a great deal on how powerful and uncompromising the vision is which drives you. But whether you work in the world or apart from it, the core of your working life needs to be the poet's vision which inspires you and which, for you, is the true reality. Your heart and imagination must be touched, and you need to know that you are connected with a higher, deeper, more meaningful level of existence. That does not preclude material success; but such success should be the by-product rather than the primary source of your efforts. Your real field of work is the imagination; and whether you express it in obviously creative ways such as writing, painting, or theatre, or in the helping professions through depth psychotherapy and dream-work, you would never be able to bear for long a field of endeavour where your imagination is not engaged.
It may also be helpful to remember that an artist's temperament and motivation are not necessarily accompanied by actual skill in draughtsmanship or fiction-writing, or actual talent at playing a musical instrument. If you do possess a genuine talent for working with images, music, or words, then it is important for you to develop that talent with as much intensity and effort as possible, so that you can carve out a professional path which allows you to express the imaginative wealth within you. But if you do not possess the literal manual or verbal gifts, this does not diminish the importance of your creative imagination and the necessity to include it in your work. A business or consultancy can be a creative product rather than a pragmatic construction; a school or training group can equally be the result of imaginative inspiration; and there are many other spheres which might not be conventionally defined as artistic work but which are, on the most profound level, the children of the inner creative world. Try not to allow the usual definitions of creative work to undermine your faith in yourself. You possess the ability to recognise and interpret the symbolic dimension of life, and to perceive external reality as the embodiment or reflection of profound inner patterns and images. This mode of perception is a special gift, although it may have sometimes felt more like a handicap if you grew up within a conventional educational framework. But it is a great asset, not a psychological aberration or indication of some kind of social "maladjustment". Material security is as relevant to you as it is to anyone, but you need to choose your vocation from the inside out, as it were, and not from the outside in. In other words, your work needs to be firmly rooted in what makes your heart and soul sing, not in how large the salary cheque is. Art school, music school, or drama school might provide you with suitable training if you are unsure of your skills, even if you do not wish to produce "pure" art. A quality education, plus extensive reading, might help you to gain confidence in the use of language. Whatever you need to do to hone and refine your abilities, don't abandon your loyalty to that inner realm which you know to be the true underpinning of life.
The need to communicate the imaginative worldYou tend to suffer from a kind of "divine discontent", whatever work you do, because you have a powerful connection with subtler levels of reality that are not usually acknowledged in ordinary life. Your sense of being part of a larger unity is very deep and insistent, even if you have not formulated the sense of connection that you feel. This may have caused you problems in the past, because if you have tried to pursue the ordinary cut- and-thrust business of making it in the world, you may have been baffled by your lack of commitment and your tendency to retreat into a fantasy-world of your own. Yet you are neither lazy nor uncommitted. It is just that your focus needs to be on the inner world rather than the outer. You need a creative vehicle through which you can communicate the world of the imagination and convey the feelings and images which flow so freely within you. It is important that you have such a vehicle even if you cannot yet make this a part of your everyday working life. But ideally you should aim for some sphere of the arts, or some area of humanitarian or healing work, where you know you are participating in a greater human unity and can experience the fulfilment that comes from identifying with and giving expression to the emotional longings and dreams of the larger collective.
There is a devotional quality in your nature that needs to be included in your work. You long to feel that, in however humble or indirect a fashion, you are serving something deeper or higher. You would rapidly become depressed and unhappy if you have to work in a sphere where you are unable to make such a commitment. The arts, of course, can offer a place for your need to devote yourself to a mystery; and hybrid spheres such as art therapy, music therapy, and certain kinds of imaginative teaching and healing might also provide a vehicle for your strong desire to be "taken out of" yourself. Spiritual ideals may provide the backbone for your everyday work efforts, although these may not necessarily be understood by you in conventionally religious language. But you have a deep craving to lose yourself in giving yourself to something greater. This is why the arts are so suitable, especially if you are able to work with others in an environment such as an orchestra, a band, or a theatre or film company. The experience of merging with a group which is dedicated to the same expression you are could be the most rewarding thing you could do with your talents and energy. Rather than drifting, try to train whatever creative skills you might possess. You may not be suited to the "pure" artist's life, but you need to participate in some area, however peripheral, which can allow you to enter, express, and immerse yourself in the imaginative world.
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