Human Potential
Even three thousand years ago, Solomon, perceived that all human beings, even the lowliest of peasants, possess the potential to achieve creative excellence and make valuable contributions to society in some appropriate field — a truly revolutionary vision in an age where the suggestion that ordinary people were even capable of learning to read, write, and do arithmetic would have been regarded by most rulers as bizarre beyond belief. As bizarre perhaps as cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky’s more recent assertion that there is little if any difference between the average person and a Mozart or Beethoven.

In his wisdom, Solomon saw that the creative excellence attained by the few is in fact an ordinary expectation of the human mind, and attainable by the many — once they wake up to reality and are enlightened to the possibilities of the creative potential they already possess.

Enlightenment — the Option of Excellence
The wise man and the creative genius, Solomon saw, are born as ignorant as the fool, but by the appropriate use of the miraculous creative magic that is lies ready and waiting to be aroused in every human mind, they somehow find and follow the path of personal development that leads to excellence.

Appropriately, then, the first four principles of the "Song" focus on "enlightenment" — the simple fact that creative excellence, in the very broadest sense, is an option open to all human beings, no matter what their race, colour or creed, and no matter how humble their social origins.

LESSON 1 – FIRST FALL IN LOVE

The song of all songs, which is Solomon’s.
That you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your caresses are better than wine
Your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out Therefore the virgins love you.

Draw me after you, and I will follow you eagerly.
Be my king and take me to your chambers.
We will be happy together; we will extol your love more than wine; Rightly do they love you.

Song of Songs 1:1-4

In these very first verses, Solomon seemingly describes a girl yearning for the presence of her lover -- but as in every other section of the “Song”, there is something ever so slightly odd about the scenario he presents. Here, for example, the girl wants the mysterious un-named lover to draw her after him, so that she can follow eagerly. She also wants him to be her king. There is far more going on here than is immediately apparent at first reading.

King Solomon’s Master class
It is the occurrence of odd little phrases like these in each section that show that the “Song of Songs” is not a series of love poems at all, but an inspired master class in creativity – each clever metaphors or scenario being packed with a variety of complementary insights into the creative process, all waiting to be drawn out by quiet reflection and discussion, ideally in consultation with a trained mentor. Some insights will be more obvious, and some less so, perhaps only becoming visible to the reader in the light of practical experience.

One lesson here, for example, is the uncannily close parallel between creative action and sex – and the fact that both processes are triggered by emotions, such as excitement, desire and love, and that both involve male and female roles. Although this parallel has been informally observed since ancient times, sex and reproduction do not afford a complete picture of the creative process, which is why Solomon also draws supplementary lessons, later in the “Song”, from gardens, vineyards, lions, gazelles, foxes, horses and even a flat-chested young girl.

What Do You Love?
If creativity begins with love and desire, what do you love? What draws you? What subject, problem or purpose excites you and stirs your heart like a fine perfume? What fascinates you, and what do you enjoy doing? What would you love to devote your life to? What is the significantly un-named love of your life? When you find it, it will change the way you think and behave — as when boy meets girl.

Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that during a TV interview, the wise and experienced president of a leading international bank offered this simple advice to ambitious young people: "Find something you love to do — and do it!" The great man was not saying find something you "like" or "enjoy", but something you love with a consuming passion.

Creative people are in love, obsessed, infatuated, sometimes from a very young age. Such infatuation is evidenced in the following extract from by David Weiss’ biography of the great sculptor August Rodin,: " ‘What makes you think you can be an artist?’ . . . ‘I have been drawing since I was five.’ . . . ‘On canvas?’ . . . ‘On wrapping paper’ ".

The Giant Within
Perhaps the most fundamental insight in this introductory section is the fact that creative success is not achieved by mentally striving and intellectualizing, but by working in partnership with your creative mind, your creative self, as typified by a marriage union -- by working with what Anthony Robbins calls “the Giant Within” and what Solomon more accurately describes as a King, and a lover.

Inspired poems and pop songs are not written, symphonies are not composed, fine pictures are not painted, and exciting new theories and innovative designs are not developed by grit and determination -- but by relaxed play and interaction with the creative king within each one of us.

The King’s Chamber
Notice that our king has a "chamber", an inner room, which is simply an appropriate metaphor for the part of the mind that contains the creative mind — a chamber that is somewhat removed, like a bedroom in a big house, from those areas where the more mundane workaday activities take place.

In “Nine Chains to the Moon”, engineering genius Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, makes the following significant comment: "Common to all such humans is their guidance by a phantom captain . . . an infinite understanding . . . the phantom captain enters from his inner sanctum to peruse the exhibit".

The Greatest Psychological Discovery of Modern Times
Solomon’s king could now be called the “sub-conscious” or “un-conscious” mind, supposedly the greatest psychological discovery of modern times – a creative power that has, however, been recognized and given a variety of other names throughout the ages, such as the under-self, the over-self, the super-self, the essence, the big me, the inner helper, cosmic intelligence, and more recently the right brain experience.

Psychologists now accept that the subconscious mind functions "as if" it were a separate person, which is precisely how Solomon teaches us to work with it in the “Song” -- communicating with it in words, "as if" it were a powerful king and lover ready and willing to help us.

Let Your Creative King Be in Charge
The power of the subconscious mind, was well understood by the great writer and poet Rudyard Kipling who said: "I have learned that when the “inner helper” is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift — wait — and obey."

Somehow, apparently, Kipling had learned to do precisely what Solomon suggests in the "Song" when he has the girl saying to her "king": Draw me, and I will follow you eagerly.