Exploring the creative response

In preparation for my first class next weekend, I have begun reading Robert Fritz's book, The Path of Least Resistance. One of the theories Fritz is offering is that we humans are raised to believe that circumstances, not people, have power, and that our job is to react or respond to circumstances.

He proposes that to focus on creativity -- "What can I create?" as opposed to "How can I fix this" will serve as a more productive approach to life, and so this morning I am reading about the three stages of creativity: Conceive of the result you want to create, know what currently exists, and take action.

I confess I'm excited to think that the disciplines I've been learning as an artist these last 15 years or so might apply across a broader spectrum of life, though I'm not sure yet that I agree, either that this is how I go about things, or that the broader application works. But I'm open. And I suspect at this point that's the most important thing I can do or be.

And the most important thing we can ever do in any circumstance is to start where we are, so here I am, starting with this image, which I shot in Anacortes yesterday while killing time before the ferry. I love it, but does it fit the three stages? I didn't know it existed before I saw it, so I could not exactly have conceived it. But I do have in mind -- and have had for some time -- a series of images of damaged or painted metal surfaces actually printed on metal. And anyone who has watched my work for a while knows I have a favorite color spectrum. So you could easily say I conceived of this, even if I didn't quite know what form it would take.

You could also say that's why I'm going to school: I've conceived of a career helping an organization -- or several organizations -- achieve productivity by maximizing the passion and creativity of their work force. I don't quite know what form that career will take, but I have at least conceived of an objective.

Stage two -- knowing what currently exists -- seems valid as well: I don't have surfaces like this lying around my yard, so I need to travel to find them. And if I have to travel to a place like Anacortes, where I know ships are being built and repaired, and I know when the ferry leaves, I can be conscious about bringing my camera and building in time to wander around and shoot whatever looks like it might work, not only within this particular vision, but with other projects I'm currently exploring.

It probably holds true with school, as well: Though I have lots of experience in this arena, I don't have the kinds of credentials to prove my work can be focused there without the usual constructs of marketing, or journalism, or librarianship (the things I DO have credentials for). So I did the research, got discouraged, and then -- because I still had this vision in my head -- when I heard about this program I realized it could be exactly what I was looking for. I knew what existed at the level of need, and worked to learn what existed that could meet that need.

Taking action seems pretty simple: I shot the picture! But I will also then file it with a lot of other similar pictures, and as I gather more and more I will begin weeding them out, and then, when I have what feels like a definitive collection, I'll find a venue to show them and arrange to have them printed -- all of these are actions required to realize this vision.

The career vision seems to work the same way: the action I took was in applying to the school. But I will also need to take the classes, read the books, write the papers, and then, when it feels like I have the knowledge and credentials I need, I'll find a venue where they might be applied and present my skill set in hopes of realizing the vision.

So, yes -- at least on these two levels, this metaphor seems to work for me. How about you? Are you busy reacting or responding to circumstances in your life? Or are you visualizing new possibilities and taking steps to achieve them?

It feels a bit like the difference between seeing the trees and seeing the forest. I wonder if that's the heart of this challenge: expanding our vision to see beyond our immediate circumstances to the possibilities that lie ahead? Guess I'll keep reading and see where it takes me!

Declaring independence

I was up before 5 this morning and spent most of the day on the road; had to deliver a spare car key to our daughter up in the San Juans, which meant 4 different ferry rides total...

I met my husband in the Skagit Valley somewhere in the middle of that and we went to dinner at a lovely little out-of-the-way restaurant called The Rhododendron Cafe; very tasty food.

And I got to go to LaConner, one of my favorite places to go gallery hopping and get inspiration.

But this image comes from the ship yards of Anacortes (I had an extra hour to spend before catching the second ferry, so I poked around a bit). I didn't have to manipulate it too much before it started looking a bit like a really bizarre flag, so I think of it as my Happy Fourth of July present to you!

We live a short way across the water from an Indian Reservation, so the fireworks are already beginning and my dog is lying as close to my feet as is caninely possible; it may be a long night. But I wish you a very happy Independence Day -- and invite you to think what you most need to declare independence from. I've decided to declare independence from my inner judge; we'll see how that goes! In the meantime,

Happy Fourth!

Peace

Oh, my.

Pure bliss.

All three of us -- the dog, my husband and I -- slept through the night, uninterrupted.

Absolute heaven.

And then, this morning, in the closing chapters of Soul Without Shame, I got to read (again) about the joy of presence.

It helped that last night I had begun doing the reading for the courses I begin next week; the books are already inspiring and exciting me.

And then, just before I sat down to meditate, I was presented with this lovely offering from Rumi:

Do not exhaust yourself
like the philosophers who strain to shoot
the high arcs of their thought-arrows.

The more skill you use,
the farther you will be
from what your deepest love wants.

(A Year with Rumi (July 2))

With all that wonder feeding my soul, I was somehow able to release all the machinations and anxieties that have been consuming and occupying my mind for the last week or so and just relax into the present for this morning's meditation period. And blessing of blessings, I had 40 minutes of just ... being.

And so I share with you today another image taken last week when I was on Shaw. It's not perfect, but it is typical of the place -- which is why I love that island so. It makes me think of that wonderful passage from the Gospel of John -- 14:27 --

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, nor let them be afraid.

Peace be with you, my friends.

Peace.

Cranky reflections

Yesterday I dropped off my work for the Lawn Chairs exhibit. They didn't take the mannequin -- didn't even need to see her to make that decision (which didn't surprise me; that's not the sort of gallery they are) -- but they seem to have accepted everything else; my inventory came back to me in an email with a sweet note from my friend Anne about the mix of "lovely, classic, and outlandish" I'd submitted.

So all that's left is the opening, and then I can begin to concentrate on my schooling in earnest: first class is a week from this Saturday. Which means it's definitely time to shift gears -- I have a lot of reading to do before that first class -- but I can feel myself struggling.

Meanwhile my husband, who has been working pretty much full time for the last few weeks gathering signatures for a petition to get the legalization of marijuana on an upcoming ballot (no, he doesn't smoke; none of us do) will be handing in those signatures this afternoon, so he, too, will be in transition mode. What will he do next? Will he start to look for work? Or, having discovered how much fun volunteering can be, will he look for more volunteer opportunities?

Add to this mix our dog, lost in the throes of his annual summer allergies. We finally got him to the groomer yesterday, so his hair is short and all the matted clumps have been removed, but we still have to keep the cone on his head and socks on his back feet to keep him from endlessly scratching and licking his sensitive skin. He woke us around 1:30 with his relentless scratching (thump, thump, thump on the bedroom floor) so we gave him a benadryl and put the socks back on him, but as soon as light began to rise (around 4:15; dawn comes early when you live this far north) he was at it again. So I'm sleep deprived as well; finally gave up tossing and turning and brought him downstairs for breakfast and another benadryl a little after 5.

So it's predictable, really -- "an act of foolish optimism to have posed the question in the first place", I hear John Cleese saying again in that Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch -- that given all the shifts and lack of sleep I woke up pretty cranky. So reading about TRUTH in Soul Without Shame this morning wasn't all that much fun. What is the truth, anyway? Is it what's going on around you? Or how you're feeling in the moment? Does it matter, what and why you're feeling? Or does it only matter how you act on your awareness?

It's kind of amusing, at some level, that the sorts of questions I like to explore here will be questions I'll need to be addressing with classmates on a pretty personal level in these first two courses I'm taking. Because while I'm happy to monologue about them here, I've been sensing a rising resistance to the necessity of learning to dialogue about them with complete strangers. Which may be why I wanted this image for today.

Because one of the truths I'm being faced with this morning is that though I love mirrors, love reflections, love opportunities to mull things over, and love reflective surfaces like the back of this truck, I'm not at all sure I ever really want to see myself reflected back. Some parts of me -- like the cranky grumpy person who woke up this morning annoyed with both her husband and her dog -- would definitely prefer not to be seen. But perhaps instead of being embarrassed or annoyed or frustrated or guilty about this shadowy side of me I should just take pity on her and send her back to bed...

Uncomfortable silence as a deutero-truth

Last fall I flew to Colorado to take a Miksang photography workshop. Miksang is a Tibetan word that translates as ‘Good Eye’, and is based on the Shambhala and Dharma Art teachings of the late meditation master, artist, and scholar Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.

The instructors, Michael and Julie, did a wonderful job of teaching me to see in a new way: I came back with lots of fresh and exciting images, and their way of seeing continues to inform my work. This image, for example, which I shot on Shaw last week, would be a classic Miksang piece: very simple, strong contrasts, conveying a sense of stillness...

And of course it would be perfect for that Patterns exhibit that's coming up in November. But the truth is, well -- I don't actually like it all that much. At least, not in its current state (there's always the chance I could play with it in Photoshop and discover some hidden potential).

And that's the part of being an artist that can be challenging: because coming up with something that's unique, technically and compositionally good isn't really enough. It needs to have soul, and something of the artist in it as well. And though I love this curtain, and this old rotary auction chair, and the way the sun filters through the venetian blinds to add another layer of pattern and texture to the curtain... well, it still doesn't quite do it for me.

But perhaps that's because I've been conditioned to think that an image needs to speak; that it's not enough to convey the silence and stillness of a warm summer afternoon. This morning's reading in Byron Brown's book, Soul Without Shame tells me this:

"The judge gets much of its power from your early experiences of being expected to think and produce words. It is not uncommon for a child to have an empty mind when he is absorbed in playing and interacting with his world. But too often your awareness of having no thoughts came at very unpleasant times, such as when you were expected to answer an adult's question, or you needed to remember something important, or you were so scared or upset you couldn't talk. In those situations, you may have been looked at disapprovingly, accused of hiding something, blamed for not learning, or reprimanded for being disrespectful of elders. Seldom would anyone recognize or appreciate the experience of an empty mind with no answers to what seemed like irrelevant questions.

A blank mind thus became associated with being stupid, feeling lost and alone, or experiencing fear and humiliation. So as an adult, the moment when your thoughts stop becomes a dreaded experience. It is at least embarrassing and at worst potentially damaging if it happens in situations in which you are expected to produce. Because of this, it is easy for the judge to keep you away from such moments of no-thought. The consequence is that your negative associations with empty mind cause you to reject a basic element in the experience of inner peace."

Wow. That explains a lot, doesn't it! I realize, reading this, that a lot of my inner mental machinations are all about creating something to say in the event I am asked a question or expected to explain myself. I find myself wondering if, like my older daughter, I had trouble as a young child forming phrases -- and I can hear some voice taunting me: "What's the matter; cat got your tongue?"

Well, then! No wonder it's so hard to still my mind for meditation: when you release all those thoughts, you risk the possibility of being speechless when that critical moment arises.

I've been driving my daughter's boyfriend to the ferry in the mornings -- he's gotten a summer job working for a lawyer in Seattle -- and yesterday he told me about something called "deutero-truths." A deutero-truth, according to Professor Ken Brashier of Reed College (who was my daughter and her boyfriend's advisor in the religion department at Reed) is an idea you hold but are unaware that you hold, because you've been molded since childhood to see the world a particular way.

We all have them, of course -- the most obvious one to me (and they are by definition more obvious in others than in ourselves)has always the number of grown males who are still held captive by that childhood admonition "Big boys don't cry." A deutero-truth is planted so deeply, and so early in life -- before we learn to question -- that to break from it feels like a life and death issue, and so threateningly scary that we just can't go there.

I wonder if that's why so many folks avoid or struggle with meditation: they're conditioned to think that an empty mind means stupidity and condemnation. And I feel certain that's why so many people are discomfited by new ideas -- especially religious ones. Some deeply planted deutero-truth tells them that even thinking that thought could be life-threatening -- so they just don't go there.

Perhaps this IS a lovely image. Perhaps it doesn't NEED to convey anything beyond a sunny afternoon in a quiet room. I guess I'll just need to spend some time with it and see if I can be open to its silence.

Waiting for the bomb to drop

I grew up in the 50's, which means I grew up in the era of "Duck and Cover;" when people were building bomb shelters and young children watched black and white movies which told us to hide under our school desks and put our hands over our heads if there was an atomic attack -- as if that would have helped!

As I put the final touches on my mannequin and her chair this morning, I was revisiting all the other photos I took of her and playing with them, and I thought this one -- especially if I increased the exposure -- was eerily reminiscent of those bizarre photos of that terrifyingly bright light on all the little fake people standing outside their little houses watching the mushroom cloud going off in the distance. So I've decided to offer her for the exhibit as well, and call her "Waiting for the bomb to drop."

Those of us who grew up in the shadow of the bomb have long been called "The Me Generation." And is it any wonder that, even with the twin threats of global warming and the gulf oil spill -- not to mention a tanking economy -- many of us are continuing to sort of "fiddle while Rome burns?" I'm not sure any of us believed we -- and our society, or even civilization as a whole -- would survive as long as it has/we have. And so it's not surprising when, faced with such calamities, we shrug our shoulders, reach for another glass of wine, or go shopping. Until, of course, the money runs out.

It becomes a sort of endless loop of negativity: the world is going to hell in a handbasket, so why not spend what we've got and enjoy it while we can. And then, of course, the relentless consumption eats at the resources even more, so things get even worse...

I would like to believe that there's a change afoot, a growing awareness of how interconnected we all are with life, that will put a spoke in this wheel . And experiences of community like the ones I've had this past week encourage me in that belief. But another part of me knows that although the mannequin in this image has that look of the 50's about her, and the chair in which she sits is from the same era... well, the attitude she represents, outdated though it may be, is still very much with us.

Sigh.

Coming Home

Where is home for you?

This came up last night in a discussion with our beloved neighbors. We were reconnecting after a crazy busy week, and somehow they got to talking about the ends of their first marriages, and he said he knew he was in trouble when he just no longer wanted to go home.

So his wife asked me -- having read my blog post last week about that feeling of coming home to Shaw -- where home is for me; did I feel good about coming back here after having been there? It was lovely to be able to say yes: there are wonderful things about being there, and being part of that community, but there are also wonderful things about being here, and part of this community.

That was especially fresh in my mind as we talked last night, because I had just come from a truly amazing contemplative worship service. Years ago a group of people -- including the minister -- from our local Presbyterian church went up for some summer courses at the Vancouver School of Theology. While there, they studied under Lynn Bauman and Cynthia Bourgeault, and they brought back with them a new vision of faith and a deepening respect for contemplative prayer.

They brought Bauman, and Bourgeault, and other people with similar interests -- like Richard Rohr -- to the island to speak, and gradually a community of like-minded people began to grow. So now we have these contemplative worship services every 3 months (hopefully we'll soon be increasing the frequency of the meetings), and they are wonderful.

We gather at the home of a couple at the south end of the island who have a large room that makes a lovely worship space. We share dinner and conversation, and then we sit in a circle, open with a prayer, a psalm or a poem, and conduct a sort of non-denominational service that includes more psalms and poems and readings, communion, and a healthy dose of silence -- 3 or 4 10-minute periods of silence.

Last evening we were doubly blessed: Lynn Bauman was in town to help lead us through the service, and we were treated to a beautiful communion liturgy from his book Invocations, a resource for contemplative prayer and for leaders of contemplative prayer gatherings which you can order here. There were some 50 souls gathered in the room, mostly active members of several different churches and denominations around the island and beyond, and there I sat, blessed by a communion of friends, good food, and silence. We chanted from some psalms, and the man and woman on either side of me had beautiful voices so the three of us were inventing lovely harmonies together, even though I'd never met the man to my left before.

And as I sat in the deepening silence, while the music and the sound of the bell died slowly away, I could feel the wings of my heart take flight; feel the oneness resting quietly in the spaces in my heart and cells and in the hearts and the room around me.

This morning in Soul Without Shame I am reading about Value: "At some moment, you have encountered the distinct flavor of feeling worthwhile, feeling that you matter, that something in your very existence has value... It arises in the heart as a sweet, velvet liquid like a luscious, amber nectar...When experienced, this quality gives you a sense of home and a feeling that you have a right to be here."

That's what I mean when I say I feel like I've come home: it's really not a place somewhere else that you go to, it's a sense that you are here, and now, and you belong. And then I read this in Rumi this morning; It's called "The Bright Core of Failure:"

Sometimes you enter the heart.
Sometimes you are born from the soul.
Sometimes you weep a song of separation.
It is all the same glory.

You live in beautiful forms,
and you are the energy that breaks form.
All light, neither this nor that.

Human beings go places on foot.
Angels, with wings.

Even if they find nothing but ruins
and failure, you are the bright core of that.

This, I think, is what Jesus' words in the Gospel of Thomas have to tell us, and this, I think, is the vision of a contemplative faith: that it doesn't matter where we are or what our circumstances may be, there is some bright core of value that lives at the center of things, of us, of the people we encounter, and of our lives. And if we can take the time to open to that, the space to feel it, and the silence to listen for it, that will always be our home -- and we will find ourselves at home wherever we are.