"Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery." -- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

In Buddhist Reflections, Lama Anagarika Govinda says this about intuition and inspiration, and how both are muscles that can be strengthened.

Although intuition (and inspiration) cannot be called forth by an act of will, intuition gains in strength, and can appear more easily, through the constant exercise of all our faculties. This exercise can be pursued to such a stage of mental sensibility and adaptability that these faculties react to the slightest impulse. By attaining this state, we can translate and transform our intuitions into a creative form of expression so that the original impulse in them can fully develop its indwelling qualities in a continuous process of growth and transformation. This is comparable to the process of growth and transformation of a seed into a plant. Therefore form (or the production of form) must never be understood as a "solidifying;" or "setting" of intuition or inspiration…"

Which is to say, intuition and inspiration can be worked on, and made stronger. As our intuition and inspiration continue to grow, we learn to trust these gifts and allow them to guide us. Much as a plant grows without thought to its image and "the meaning of it all," we too can grow according to an internal/external logic that is ours alone.

The longer you cook, the more cooking will seem intuitive and not a A-to-B (to C) process. We will learn to trust our impulses, as we will have developed mounds of evidence that trusting those impulses is something that will work out for us in the end. Even the more agnostic among us might call this "faith."

This was something of a revelation to me, as well as many folks I know who have fought addiction. Early in my recovery, I remarked to my sponsor at the time that I hadn't had the "spiritual experience" that the book Alcoholics Anonymous (aka "The Big Book") promised. He asked how many days I had sober. "Ninety," I replied. "What was your previous record for consecutive days sober?" he asked. I mused on that for a second. "Like…eight I think?"

"There's your spiritual experience," he said.

As I've continued to stay clean, I have come to realize that if I am making the right choices in the moment, and helping folks to the best of my ability, that things will work out. They might not work out in the way I might like them to, but they will work out.

We have to work for it, however. That same sponsor of mine used to love that old recovery chestnut that states "God can move mountains, but you also need to bring your shovel." Intuition and inspiration will greet you in the kitchen if you put yourself in the kitchen. You gain inspiration by showing up every day, and being present, and learning some little something each time you cook.

There's a an old axiom that says "a teacher teaches, and a baker bakes." Which is to say that you become something by doing it.