Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

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.

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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*

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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.

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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.

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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 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.

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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

Illustration Friday: Fearless

// May 7th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // illustration friday

6 Impossible Things: #6 The Upside Down Umbrella

// April 20th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, metaphor

Creativity is a non-linear process. We start out at Point A and end up at Point C, or Point Q, or any other point that happens to not be called Point B.

This is because, on the way from Point A to Point B , impossible things happen that steer us away from our original endpoint and onto fresher, shinier, more startling destinations.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Point B as a destination, just that the creative way to get there probably starts at Point W, or some other ‘non-A’ point.

Anyway the point is: a key feature of the creative life is that seemingly impossible things occur along the way that really kick things along, but only make sense in retrospect.

This is a series of posts presenting 6 impossible analogies for these ‘things’

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6 Impossible Things: #6 The Upside Down Umbrella
When we are in creating mode we often try to shelter ourselves from the world.

Removing ourselves from the bustle of everyday life can give us the solitude we need to gather ourselves and create. It’s important to make the distinction, though, between creative solitude and hiding.

Huddled beneath our black umbrellas, we can be tricked into thinking that being cloistered from the storms of everyday life will be all we need to make our art.

But the desire to cut ourselves completely from the world can bring its own problems.

We need the outside world. Or, at least need to be in relationship with the outside world. What we create is waiting to be birthed into this world, and to make its way through its storms and withering winds.

It’s easy to make the mistake of believing that a creative genius has an inbuilt small golden thimble which, once located, allows them to pour their creativity out into the world.

While its true that we are inherently creative and creativity flows though us, it’s not merely self generated (not by the small ‘thimble-clutching’ self anyway). Your creativity comes form somewhere both inside and outside of you.

There is no thimble. The truth of your creativity is much greater than that. Your creativity is a communion with the whole world, a world that is waiting to pass through you.

Instead of huddling beneath an umbrella, shielded form the world. sometimes we need to let our umbrella be turned inside out, and upside down. To be transformed from a shield into a vessel ready to catch the offerings of the world. Wild muses wait above in the clouds ready to pour their inspiration down on you.

What do you do to turn your umbrella into a vessel for collecting inspiration?

6 Impossible Things: #5 Dream Boat

// April 9th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // creativity, curiosity, illustration

Creativity is a non-linear process. We start out at Point A and end up at Point C, or Point Q, or any other point that happens to not be called Point B.

This is because, on the way from Point A to Point B , impossible things happen that steer us away from our original endpoint and onto fresher, shinier, more startling destinations.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Point B as a destination, just that the creative way to get there probably starts at Point W, or some other ‘non-A’ point.

Anyway the point is: a key feature of the creative life is that seemingly impossible things occur along the way that really kick things along, but only make sense in retrospect.

This is a series of posts presenting 6 impossible analogies for these ‘things’

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6 Impossible Things: #5 Dream Boat

How do we get the rational and intuitive parts of our mind to work together? Here’s one possibility:

A small boat carries you across a dimly lit river that flows at the base of a cave. Images appear: some stay solid, some shift. As the small vessel makes its way across the river you watch these images, remembering. Each image contains something of importance. Each image is a small star, its unique light offering a glimpse into your inner-world.

You can use the rational mind to build a boat for dream-travel. Write down one or two brief questions in a notebook you keep by the bedside. Allow your dreaming mind to  work for you. When you wake up jot down any images you can remember from your dreams, and look at them through the lens of your questions.


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