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Creating with the Sublime |
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Creating with the Sublime |
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Welcome This is the first step in the process of learning to create with the sublime. You will begin to learn how to gain the distance to be able to evaluate your work with a critical eye without losing the emotional connection that infuses it with life. You'll begin to understand how a "moment of inspiration" really works and learn how skill, talent, and genius are tools available for your use; not definitions of your ability. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at info@loveandwords.com. There are exercises for you do in each section, you can submit them for feedback or simply send your thoughts if you like before continuing onto the next section. It is also recommended that you download the Mobipocket Reader for Windows or your Mobile device to be able to read the resource books provided. The Mobipocket Reader is free and can be found here. If you are using MAC or Linux you will need to download the text versions of the book files as provided. Inspiration (noun) - Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity. - Divine guidance or influence exerted directly on the mind and soul of humankind. Creative persons live and die by inspiration, so to speak. What has been classically called "the Muse" is the thing or person that an Artist relies on to provide them with the source of their inspiration. Without a Muse, there is no inspired moment. Without an inspired moment, there is no creation. Most blocks to creativity come from a perceived lack of inspiration to the creator. Part of the mythology of being an Artist of any type (painter, musician, writer and so on) is that the greater the Artist, the more painful and prominent the period of being blocked from creating. If creating new work is a relatively smooth and regular process for you then you must be lacking a divinely inspired genius. The category of "Hobbyist" or "Craftsmen" is used to separate those who can produce work consistently from those who must suffer through the process of first being inspired. In modern days, while many crafts are still recognized we have added to the list the scrapbooker and journal writer. These are "hobbies" that are construed as being uninspired because their practitioners tend to be able to sit down on a regular basis and produce. All of this is myth and nonsense. All of this will serve to prevent you from being able to create because it stigmatizes what creation is and it takes the concept of inspiration and removes it from ability and makes of it a chance. Whether you are an oil painter, knitter, sculptor, poet, scrapbooker, novelist, journalist or photographer you are engaged in the process of creating an art. An art, for the purpose of this course, is anything that you create that can exist outside of your interior self; it is in essence, an egg. Yet an unfertilized egg that will never bring forth anything. Where you begin to become an Artist is when you transcend being someone who merely has a habit of creating eggs that never hatch, and become someone who nurtures this life outside of yourself so that it grows into its' purpose. The purpose and glory of an egg after all, is not that the egg exists, but that it will eventually become a chicken. It is the chicken that has the potential to be anything. An Artist creates not from blind chance or from the force of outside influence, but from a developed ability to nurture something from a concept to the full realization of its potential. Inspiration is not a moment that you experience, but an ongoing state of unity of your abilities and intention. Divinely inspired? Perhaps. Sometimes. But more importantly, it is something that you do not have to wait to have happen. The first step in learning how to create with the Sublime is to recognize that being inspired is a process that is ongoing and that you participate in. The Miracle I went to Divinity School. So forgive me if a lot of my language or examples are rooted in a kind of Christian vocabulary - it happens, just like my tendency to use a lot of bad boat metaphors. I lived on a boat for a while. This is my disclaimer; I really could not care less what you believe. I do care that you do believe something (but we will talk about the 'whys' later). In Divinity School one of the things we talked about was that the worst thing that could happen to a person of faith was for them to experience a miracle. It could be a healing, a visitation of some kind, or revelation; but what happened to the person after was a horrible thing. They essentially gave up on their faith. And waited and waited and waited for another miracle to occur. The daily integration of the practice of their faith fell by the wayside. After all, the daily grind of believing without any type of reward was not nearly as exciting and powerfully moving as the moment when the miracle happened. Inspired moments have the same effect on Artists of all types. If you have ever experienced the sheer effortless rush of creating from a place that feels miraculous or like it comes from outside your body, then you know of what I speak. There is no substitute for the absolute magic of the experience. Then the Artist becomes depressed. The act of creating, the sometimes sheer dullness of it or the frustration of trying to find the right way to bring it all together ,pales in comparison to that moment where you just sat down and it flowed. So you wait and wait and wait for it to happen again. And you cease to work towards what you believe about your art because it doesn't feel the same. Even if you recognize that something you have worked at is better then what you produced in your "inspired moment," you don't value it as much because...well...you are aware of the effort that went into it. Exercise Inspiration does not come out of the blue. You may, in a certain moment, make a connection that brings several disparate parts together but that is a part of the mental and emotional processing that is constantly going on within you. The "flash of inspiration" is merely a moment when you are distracted enough that the two sides of your brain can actually communicate and together, things are revealed to you on a conscious level. Prior to this "flash" you are either working from your dominant right side or left side of your brain. But there is no point where the two sides of you are not working. It is just that you have to learn to get them to work together on a conscious level. You have to gain control of this and not rely on something outside of yourself to provide the distraction from your habits to let you notice what you are actually engaged in doing all the time - creating. Most of what we call writer's block or a creative block is simply the person waiting for something to happen that is already going on, but they do not recognize it and are not in the habit of controlling it. Exercise: Make a list of 5 things you have done that have occurred in a "flash of inspiration." You will be using this list in several of these lessons. The 2 Sides of You The first definition of inspiration: - stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity becomes easier to understand when you substitute the terms Left Brain for Mind, and Right Brain for Emotions. The left side of your brain is involved with looking at things in a linear way. It looks for patterns from all the pieces in front of you to find the total meaning of them. The left side of the brain is fond of lists and order. The right side of your brain seeks connections. It starts with the total meaning and then looks for how all the pieces fit into it. The right side of the brain likes to look at pictures, colors, to hear music and from there to form associations and connections. If it is easier for you to listen to these lessons then ten to one the right side of your brain is more dominant. If reading the lesson is easier, then the left side of your brain is more developed. The list you made in the first exercise is very much a left-brain activity. So let's ask the right side of the brain to come in and work too. Exercise Look at your list. Sit and think for a moment about where each thing really began, the idea for them. Think in terms of the six months prior to you doing each thing on your list and write down three things you remember that came before you actually created the item that in hindsight, you can now see were related to it. You don't have to go in order, just read the list over and as things pop into mind that were part of the inspiration, write them down. For Example You might have suddenly been inspired to sit and create a piece about the loneliness of winter. When you sit and let your right brain wander back from the finished piece on your list you may begin to see that two months prior to your being inspired, a close friend moved away. Instead of your normal routine of talking or texting as you waited for the bus in the cold, you were silent and began to notice how people stood apart. You noticed how jackets and scarves formed almost a kind of armor against conversation between strangers. That is when you actually began to work on the piece. The right side of your brain recognized the totality of the loneliness in what surrounded you and how it related to what you were feeling. It took the left side of your brain months to place it in an order that allowed you to create because it was consciously ignorant of the emotional connection and interpretation your right brain had made. Take as Long as You Need Don't force the process - you are not used to asking the two sides of your brain to work together consciously. Read the list and then, as things occur to you over the next day or two, write them down. Then come back and go on to the next section. From 2 to 1 The right and left sides of your brain do not work in alternating sequence, each taking a turn while the other waits. They are constantly working at the same time. Your dominant brain will be the side which you are more aware of and that controls the types of actions that you take. Now, here is something you have to remember about choice and action. - If you are predominantly right brained you still have to use the left side of the brain to do any type of action. - If you are predominantly left brained, you still have to use the right side of the brain in order to have any kind of motivation to choose an action. A person who has received damage to the left side of their brain can learn to make choices and to act, but it will be a messy and disorganized process - not to mention one that is not known for its consistency. But a person who has received damage to their right brain will lack the motivation to even stand. Without the emotional interpretations and influence of the right side of the brain you will lack the motivation to follow any type of logical or rational plan. One of the things I hear most often from people is that they are not "emotional people." We are hardwired to respond first with our emotions, however, we may have been trained throughout the course of our lives to replace those emotions with something else; to the point that we cease to recognize our emotional experience. The right side of your brain holds your emotional history but lacks a sense of time. Everything feels as if it is happening right in the moment. The left side of the brain, with its more logical processes, is more oriented to thinking about the future. If the left brain is left in charge what will happen is that choices made will be selected without an awareness of the appropriateness of the choice to the present circumstances, or an understanding of how it relates to what has happened in the past. A person who only reacts logically fails to integrate history and is then incapable of making connections between seemingly unrelated events that allow a person to solve problems. They can follow a set pattern, but should the pattern be disrupted, they would be incapable of creating a solution. Solutions originate from the connections made by the right brain, but are implemented by the rationale of the left. Creativity is problem solving. Whether your problem be how to design colors in a scarf, arrange a still life, organize a memory page, or write a sonnet about life - you begin with the end. That is where your right side, your emotional mind, is strongest. Your left brain or rational side knows the technical or craft steps but you will not grow as an artist until you learn to create from the area where the two sides of your brain combine. Marsha Linehan called this area the "Wise Mind." It is when the emotions and logic of your brain balance together to do what is needed in the moment. Exercise Take a moment and go back to the list you made again. In the last exercise you began to see where your right brain began to make connections. Now, look at the list and think about what it took for you to make all the things on it happen, the steps involved. Often we do not recognize the effort that it takes to do something and by missing it, we miss the opportunity to see where we could have taken the process to another level. By learning to recognize the influence of both sides of your brain in your finished pieces, you can begin to learn how to push both sides to do even more for you; taking your creative abilities even farther. Skill, Talent, Ability, and Genius (STAG) People often get hung up on such words as skill, talent, ability and genius; misunderstanding what they mean in relation to creativity and adopting their judgmental, social definitions. In order to understand how these things function like tools, you need to relearn their meaning. STAG is an acronym to help you remember that skill, talent, ability and genius are tools for you to learn to use and not limits on your potential. What is Skill? Skill is a learned capacity to create pre-determined results through an action. What is Talent? Talent is a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied through skill. (Buckingham & Coffman. 1999) What is Ability? Ability is your potential for talent. What is Genius? Genius is insight achieved through the realization of your ability. Genius begins when the right brain sees the whole picture, which for many Artists, begins in knowing a title or having an intuitive sense of the finished piece before they have any idea how they will do it. It should be noted that the one word not included in STAG is "gift." A gift, or to be gifted, only means that you have an early, natural inclination towards a certian type of motor control or learning style that gives you a natural aptitude towards acquiring a skill. To be gifted however, in no way implies that you are skilled. All people possess natural gifts, it is simply a matter of discovering where yours lies but in no way does your gift determine the extent of the skill you can learn or the amount of your ability. The Map that Leads to Magic What do you do with all this information? Creativity, although it can be understood scientifically, can only be understood to a certain point without also looking at the elements that many people consider to be the "magic of creativity." The "magic" is that fluid and electric feeling you get when you are experiencing that so called moment of inspiration. Just because you have now learned that those moments are ongoing and can work to recognize them and work with them on a regular basis does not mean you will not have those intuitive flashes. Those are moments of genius that are rooted in the unity of your two minds working together. And... those moments can also encompass the influence of the universal unconscious. Some people are more comfortable referring to this as "divine inspiration," whatever framework of origin you wish to put it in is up to you. This influence is what allows you to make connections that are beyond the scope of your actual experience and history because you are touching a universally shared history. The commonality of symbols in myth and art is one example of how the human race shares certain understandings that have crossed the boundaries of time, geography, culture and contact. The more attuned you are to recognizing and working with both sides of the brain, the better able your right side (because this is where it originates from) will be able to decipher and connect to these universal themes. Understanding the Universal Unconscious The Universal Unconscious, more typically referred to as the Collective Unconscious, is a psychological theory first promoted by Freud and later expanded on by his pupil, Carl Jung. The historical roots of the theory come from a variety of religions that viewed the existence of the Universe, not as beginning and ending with a single point, but as existing within a world in which the relationship between all creatures and things was symbiotic and timeless. Most monotheistic religions and clinical schools of psychiatry have rejected the theory of the Collective Unconscious because it acknowledges the reality of the existence of things that cannot be perceived through rational experimentation. The Collective Unconscious is only revealed through historical investigation and intuitive psychological exploration. Carl Jung summarizes the Collective Unconscious well by saying that the Collective Unconscious is your psychic inheritance or, the reservoir of our experiences as a species; that while we are never directly aware of it, it influences all of our experiences and behaviors. Jung points to instances of deje vu, common mythology among unrelated peoples, universal symbols and other parallels in dreams, fantasies and artistic creation that occur with near simultaneity and common meaning among unrelated peoples; as examples proving the existence of the Collective Unconscious. It is a common language of experience that every human being is born with without having had that experience in their personal life. The Collective Unconscious is the root of our empathy in which our ability to feel and identify with another person is not based upon our understanding through our own experience, but our ability to relate to them based upon an understanding what an experience means in the scope of human life. Jung breaks from Freud in dividing this understanding of the Unconscious into two very unique and unequal levels: the Personal and the Collective. The Personal Unconscious is specific to an individual and can be affected and manipulated by the person's experience and efforts, the Personal Unconscious can change. The Collective Unconscious runs much deeper. It is not, as some people believe, a Universal Mind, but is a shared record of existence. The influence of the Collective Unconscious is on how we integrate our individual experience and understand the world. Depending on how our Personal Unconscious is developed, we can either utilize the knowledge that comes from the Collective Unconscious to understand our experiences and those of others or, we can set up a conflict between our selves and our place in the world around us. What is forgotten in most discussions of the Collective Unconscious is that while we may only see its influence through an understanding or our reactions and behaviors and can opt to behave in ignorance of it; all of our choices in our personal lives affect the future influence of the Collective Unconscious. Our lives become a part of the history of our species that the future is born with. What we do, or choose not to do, can have a culminative effect that can change the nature of humanity. The archetypes that Jung uses to mark the Collective Unconscious exist because they represent the perfection of the reality of human experience. The mother, the child, the hero are all perfections of stages that our psyches move through. Our Personal Unconscious and actions in our social and cultural sphere shapes not only the values of our society but the values of the Collective Unconscious as well. In nihilistic societies, much like our modern Western soceity is evolving into, the consistent rejection of the perfection of life, unity and a dismissal of human value and potential will most likely result in a permanent change to the universal ideals of humanity. New generations will no longer enter life with a notion of what it means not only be alive, but to be a part of the Universe; but will enter waiting only to pass time until death because feelings of worthlessness have been inscribed upon their soul. The experience of being a species ripe with potential and with a firm sense of place in the universe will be replaced with a skewed set of references based upon highly subjective and superficial forms of the Unconscious that have developed because they reflect the Individual more than the Universal. The experience of the Collective or Universal Unconscious is not rooted in the individual experience yet there are many trends that try to force the Universal experience into an individual understanding. Doing so makes the experience one driven by personal ego and the inconsistent Personal Unconscious. By understanding that the Universal Unconscious is something which we share in as a species and that exists beyond our lifetimes, yet can be influenced by them; begins to move a person into living in a symbiotic relationship with the Universe because they have ceased to define the Universe by how it relates to themselves. Instead, they begin to see themselves as an active participant in the timeless existence of the Universe. By exploring the evidence of the influence of the Universal Unconsciousness in your own life you can begin to understand your calling and purpose as a role in the existence of the Universe that only you can fulfill. The symbols that you are drawn to, the stories, the dreams that you have; if you begin to look at these things not just for what they mean to you in your life, but how they place you in a historical context, you begin to discover your unique purpose and potential for contributing to the health and survival of the Universe. The magic involved, is a sense of revelation and purpose that originates from within and connects to what is outside because you recognize that the Universe is not just around you, but within you as well. Making Your Map (exercise) For every item on your list, write down the Skill, Talent, Ability and Genius involved. Starting Something New For every new project you consider, use a journal or make rough notes somewhere that begin to look at those elements as well. This will become your map. In the beginning, focus on Genius and Skill. Start with Genius and describe the big picture, the totality of the idea. Then go to Skill and imagine what you would need to know to complete it (note: I said "know" not "know how to do" you may need to learn about a feeling or have a thought that you need to sit and pursue before you can even begin to think about technique). This is not something that is done in sequential order, but will be constantly revised as you begin to work on the piece. Keep going back to it as you begin working, starting with Genius and reworking your idea of the totality of what you are doing. Using this list will help you to focus your right and left side of the brain onto the project and help them to work in unity with your conscious awareness. Note Some people make notes by drawing pictures, or gathering pictures, or making a playlist of music. Don't question the form that your notes take - the form has to do with your gift. Don't force it to look like someone else's list, find the best way to make your own. Talent and Ability will develop out of the consistency you notice in your approach to what you are working on and what becomes the pattern involved. Keep track of it so you can increase your awareness of it. |