Muse Missives: Invitation

// July 6th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, missive

Dear Muse,

You are cordially invited to attend our upcoming creative endeavour.

It will be a simple affair with moderate amounts of paint, paper, string, sweet drinks, balloons, and birdsong provided.

We have taken the liberty of placing a sturdy chair beside the apple tree. We can also organize a faux-Classical Greek fountain if needed. Seriously. We live very close to a Home Depot.

You may be aware that my artistic side is fickle, fizzled, and occasionally crabby. We’re sure you can find a graceful way to be with this slightly hoonish part of me. I will be there to mediate if necessary.

There will be geese wandering the grounds, you may wish to wear boots.

There is no need to bring wine (though feel free), a small bag of bread crusts will suffice.

Breathlessly awaiting your arrival,

Dave.

Singing The World Alive

// June 29th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, singing

“… there never was a world for her

Except the one she sang, and singing made.”

Wallace Stevens

*****

At school we learned about the Australian Aboriginal concept of Song-lines, and the stories of Creator Beings who criss-crossed the continent singing the world alive.

I love the idea of the world being sung into life. Just holding the idea gives me a heightened awareness of the life pulsating all around me, even from supposedly inanimate objects.

*****

I was always self conscious about my own singing abilities. I told myself that I was unable to sing, the same way all people (in Western cultures, anyway) tell themselves they can’t do something.

Singing Memories:

Standing up as the old people sang hymns in church, and being struck dumb in a sea of fear.

The school choirmaster walking behind us, listening as we sang, and banging us on the head with his balled up fist if we were out of tune

Being in a band as a teenager and having to get fall-down drunk to be able to sing.

Hearing my wife sing for the first time. *Bliss*

*****

Singing the world into existence? Not my strong point. But I still love the idea, and think there must be an equivalent way that not-so-great singers contribute to bringing this world into existence.

When I think of singing, what comes to mind is:

The act of opening required in order to let the sound out.

Listening, adjusting the sound as it moves out into the world.

The content, what is being sung.

The effect on others as the sounds reach them, and shape their experience of the world, even if only for a moment.

If I think of singing in this way, then I can see how in some small way, my actions can become a kind of singing, too.

*****

So, in what ways do I sing world alive?

Through:

My drawings and paintings

My arms when I swing my boys around, and when I hold my wife

Words arranged into poems

Stories I make up for our older son

Cooking food for people I love

Reading, and what I choose to read.

Catching insects in cups and escorting them outside safely

Secret rock sculptures I leave in the garden, for people to see, or not.

The kind of work I spend my time doing

The kind of thoughts I spend my time thinking.

My serial failed attempts at maintaining Meditation/Yoga/Vegetarian practices, and my commitment to keep coming back to them.

*****

And when I do actually sing?

When I let my creaky voice come out it has its own wobbly charm. Babies smile, and it’s never really as bad as I make it out to be.

In what ways do you sing the world alive?

The Rarest Angels

// May 27th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // creativity, illustration, poetry

The Idea Catcher

// May 20th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // creativity, illustration

“I have so many ideas that I’m lucky if I don’t trip over them each morning.” J.S.Bach

I love the image of Bach tiptoeing through his room, over the ideas strewn on the floor like yesterday’s underwear.

Isn’t that just how creativity works, too? Ideas are abundant.

Having ideas is much easier than bringing them into the world.

If i’m looking for a good metaphor, I always begin with nature. And the sheer abundance of creative activity in nature amounts to an embarrassment of brilliance–think about the millions of eggs laid by sea turtles on a beach on a single night; the way fruit rots on the ground beneath trees; the outrageousness of Spring where the whole landscape blooms for a few weeks.

Maybe you’ve experienced one of those lazy days lying in the garden, trees swaying above, the drone of bees thick in the background, as idea after idea flows through your mind, only to be swept away as you fall into a nap. Or maybe your ideas arrive in the shower. Or you receive wild visions while stuck in traffic.

Ideas are floating all around us.

The next step involves action. We need to pick up our imaginary butterfly net and snatch the ideas we most resonate with, the ones we commit to working on.

But I’ve noticed something that can stop me from picking up that net and going for it.

Once I commit to an idea I remove it from the safe bubble marked ‘daydream’ and start to make a place for it in the real world. Undertaking this process means I risk mucking it up, or being laughed at,  or ridiculed.

I have piles of notebooks that I keep in a red box, each one filled with sketches, doodles, ideas. I love that box. It’s like a bright red cocoon for my ideas. They sit in the box like fat little grubs, readying themselves for the day they’ll burst out into the world.

Flipping through my notebooks can be like chilling out in one of those covered butterfly exhibits. I can safely watch all my ideas and sketches flap about, both hands tucked in my pockets to avoid squashing anything.

But if I want to create, then I need to get out that net and commit. Problem: I often find a sense of dread rising when I do that.

I think that sense of dread comes from the tension between the ideal version of the idea in my head, and the flawed version which my limited abilities will actually produce.

And it’s true, the flaws will be there. But these flaws are part of the good work that I’m trying to do, too. This is the work of adding beauty and meaning to the world.

And not just any beauty and meaning, but the singular beauty and meaning that can only come filtered through me, and my perfectly flawed life. That’s the only stuff I can bring out into the world.

So, my thing at the moment is to try and be a little more daring. And to snatch these ideas as they float past, then do something with them.

Flap Flap. *swoosh*

The Goat King Sits On A Golden Throne

// May 12th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Sovereignty, creativity, metaphor

Everything was burned.

I stood at the edge of our property where the bush began its descent into the valley. Looking out over the blackened landscape, I saw a white shape shifting behind some tree trunks.

At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, and walked closer to get a look. Then I saw it again.

A white goat had come up from the valley and was walking through looking for green vegetation to eat. It seemed to be floating though the grey smoke still rising from the ground.

*****

In early December, 2001, the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia, was hit with ferocious bush-fires. I had just moved there from Sydney 10 days before the fires hit.

After shifting all my belongings into my new home, I had them all packed up again ready for a possible evacuation.

The house was a rambling 130 year old mess that I shared with two other renters. It sat on 5 acres at the top of a ridge, the bush started a few feet away from our back door and rolled all the way down the valley.

We spent one anxious night sitting on the back verandah watching the fires out to the west. The winds were forecast to be 80 km/hour and headed straight for us. We sat most of the night watching the fiery glow seared across the horizon, waiting for the moment we would have to leave.

The moment never came. The forecast winds only hit 4 km an hour instead of the predicted 80. The next day the local bush-fire brigade came out and did some back-burning behind our house and we were safe again.

The day after the back-burning I went out for a walk to check things out. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a full-blown raging bushfire run through, because the effect of a tightly controlled back-burn was pretty decimating.

Just days before, the under growth had been thick and difficult to navigate. In the week after moving in, my first few attempts to get to the track leading down into the valley leading to the creeks and waterfalls were futile. Each time I ended up turning back, fearful I would lose track of where my new house was.

After the back-burning, there was just an expanse of charred soil, warm underfoot with smoke still slowly rising from it. Dead remnants of trees still stood here and there and a few had fallen and had to be climbed over.

The walk down to the sandstone cliffs that marked the steep drop into the valley now took about five minutes, about a quarter what it had when battling through the undergrowth.

*****

So, here I was. Looking at a goat.

I stood as quietly as possible, and watched it nose around for a while. The goat looked untouched by the charred brush around him. I wondered if it had bolted from a nearby home, frightened by the back-burning.

It was such a strange sight, the animal so clean and domesticated, foraging through ashes.

After watching the goat for a while, I went back to the house and drew a few quick sketches in a notebook. I thought it would be good to use in a piece of art somewhere down the line. Then I pretty much forgot about it..

*****

A few months later, the bush was regenerating. Everything  was thinned right out and it was easier to find the previously overgrown tracks leading down to the public  walks.

I spent at least one day of each weekend walking in the valleys, I usually followed the creeks that spread out through the surrounding area, climbing up waterfalls as they gradually got smaller and smaller then slowed to a trickle at their source.

The Blue Mountains area is famous for its golden sandstone cliffs and ridges, and I would often spot caves high above the creeks, climb up and check them out.

One series of cliffs had these gigantic golden caves that were eroded into the shape of golden waves about to break over the creek at their base.

I tried a few times but never found a path up to the ledges near the cliff tops. Whenever I walked by that creek I’d look up above the tree-line and check them out.

One day I looked up as I walked by and saw a white shape against the sandstone. It was the goat again. He was sitting on his belly, paws close to the lip of the ledge. He surveying the valley as if he was a king sitting on his golden throne.

The goat is a great metaphor for me, as he walks the landscape of my imagination. He represents a model for how I want to be in both my creative life and my ‘feet on the ground’ life. Because, really, they’re both the same thing. To me, he represents the qualities of sovereignty that I want to bring to my life.

He brought the same calm presence to the blackened landscape as he did to the recovering landscape. He walked among the charred debris and sat up on his throne, present and watchful, as the land around him bloomed into green.

Creative growth depends on this ability to maintain Sovereignty over my life, to walk through the blank times when the ideas leave me. That’s when I need to forage calmly, sniffing after any remaining green shoots.

I can also take my place at the golden throne and bring presence to my life.  Here I can cultivate the ability to be watchful, settled, calm within myself. At the same time, remembering that the world around me is magnificent, but can be lost in a blazing moment. Cultivating a sense of humour helps, too. (Another reason a goat makes such a great metaphor for my higher creative self!)

It’s important to find my golden throne, but I also need to remember it’s made of solid rock and shaped through the erosion of weather and time. Not always comfortable. Life experiences, the knowledge distilled from these, shapes who I am, how I process the world and what I have to offer. This is my golden throne.

What is your golden throne? What forces went in to shaping it for you? When you sit on your golden throne what do you see, what perspective does it give you?

Want to learn more about the concept of Sovereignty? Check out this wonderful recording by Hiro Boga or this great post on Havi’s blog

Intuition

// May 6th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, illustration

I’m excited by this month’s theme over at Creative Every Day it’s ‘Intuition’. I look forward to a month of giving my inner control freak a rest, as I relax into pushing paint around and letting images arrive as they see fit!