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

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’

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’

*****

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.

6 Impossible Things: #4 A Penny-Farthing For Your Thoughts

// April 6th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // creativity, creativity theory, 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’

6 Impossible Things: #4 A Penny-Farthing For Your Thoughts.

People often define creative thinking as the kind of thinking that needs to take place ‘outside the box’.

Why? What’s so wrong with the kind of thinking that occurs inside of a box?

Well, it’s cramped for one. ‘Inside the box’ thinking is limited in movement, and often forced to turn back in on itself as it bounces back against those walls. It’s scarcity based too–what with having so little room to move.

The kind of thinking that occurs outside the box is expansive thinking. It’s not cramped or squeezed or oxygen starved, and the ideas are able to move more freely.

So, how do we move from cramped, ‘inside the box’ thinking to expansive ‘outside the box’ thinking? Well, for that we need to find a new vehicle for our thoughts.

The Penny-farthing was invented in 1870. At the time it was considered a modern marvel enabling the rider to travel at up to 15.8 miles per hour. This was much faster than walking, which represented a huge improvement. The secret of the penny-farthing’s power lay in the large wheel’s relationship to the small wheel, which allowed  the rider to generate a huge amount of power for each turn of the pedals.

A metaphor is like a penny-farthing for your thoughts. Metaphors are expansive, they can be selected to fit our needs, they’re adjustable and provide exponential possibilities. Metaphors work in a similar way to the Penny-farthing, too. Instead of incremental step-by-step linear thinking, they allow us to take a larger whole and use it to leverage our thinking process exponentially. Of course, Penny-farthings can seem outdated now, but what if we strapped a jet-pack to the Penny-farthing rider to help things along?

There! Another huge boost in results. This is one of the great things about metaphors, we are allowed to play around and let them morph into something newer and more powerful, depending on our needs.

What metaphors can you (or do you) apply in your creative life? How can you shift these metaphors in order to boost their impact?

6 Impossible Things: #3 The Melancholy Piano

// March 26th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // creativity, creativity theory, 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’

***

#3 The Melancholy Piano:

How do you deal with the unlimited options in front of you once you begin creating? How do you navigate doubt? Once you start, you’re pretty much on your own. Books, classes, exercises, can only take you so far.

If you rely on a paint by the numbers approach it’s not really creating, our task is to embrace uncertainty and allow constant flux and change to help draw out our truest responses.

A  piano floats on the ocean’s surface. Cold water laps at the keyboard coaxing melancholy notes that drift above the water, while a woman dances precariously over the top of the piano. A bare foot slides over polished timber, one arm rises above her head, and she stops–mid-pirouette–to listen to the soft notes rising, feel the shifting surface beneath her. Her feet lift, change direction, and step lightly across the surface of the piano.

The woman, stuck on a piano in the middle of the ocean, makes a dance out of staying afloat. She does this by listening intently to the waves lapping on the keys, feeling the shifting water beneath the piano, and moving her body where it needs to go in the moment.

We too, can aim to engage fully with our materials, our surroundings, our state of mind and heart, to allow the creative process to draw out what most needs to be expressed.

Have you had moments where you were able to let go fully, and allow the creative impulse to rise up as you engaged with your artwork?