I thought I was going to bemoan living in a house of people, so resistant to knowing the broader world around them and to more openly sharing any differences at all that over time, sharing living space has begun to feel to me like being entombed alive! Yet instead, right now, what I believe I am recognizing is a greater call for me to outwardly express the compassion that is within me with a lot less fear. Even so, it isn't any easier to write than it is to put into action! I am shaking as I write this recognition.
Even in the recent past, I can attest to being totally uncoordinated about how to go about addressing this inner recognition_ but today is the first step to doing, being with and in life all differently. Differently, I do dare say for all of us human beings really!
I am an artist and I know that out of chaos comes creativity. As a human being I know I can come across as not being friendly-like in the soft and fuzzy ways of say, the mainstream mothering female archetype. My own daughter grew up saying, "I am the only one who knows how nice a person you are!" Call it the successful conditioning of fear. I am still a social geek even after all the years of therapy. Twenty years ago, I needed what crazily turned into too much social isolation, to start this big work in my own life in order to feel safe within from the former terrors that were childhood_ he-e-e-y!
To this day my sibs seem to only remain emotional enemies; resistant to mutually clearing up mis-defined family "reality" that only continues sadly instead, to be fierce. Pride dies hard, hard, hard.
Yet, even as I have hooked your curiosity to the universal commonality in my story_ I turn instead, because it is more important, to walk out onto this US socio-economic landscape to testify. I believe that in the bigger picture of life, my social return to community is timed right! My child is doing a fine job in the world even though there were many time that I was treated as though kids raise themselves! You know, grow up in a vacuum for crying outloud! Afford your own sense of recognition is really where we are going...
The real point in writing today then is about:
I - M - A - G - I - N - A - T - I - O - N!
I know my fair share about imagination and how to continuously use it well, as my life has been nothing short of endurance (like the races) without the support of commonality from family and friends for over twenty years now! As a result, I offer a sensitivity that allows me to see how soft many folks have become; how much the mind/intellect has been allowed to run rough-shod over "reality." Reality, you do know this one too when you let yourself! It's the stuff that shows up at the front door of your life without an appointment. Life, not appointment calendars filling up the years of living. No! No! This is not a cliché! In the big picture, I am pointing to TRUSTING your own self to be good enough to be loved, that you are already loving and that we each really are loveable.
In this economic fallout right here in the good old U.S of A., love really is the heart of the matter now! So, I am talking to everyone like the artist. Don't walk away, don't even steal this idea. Let your vanity retire from believing it is in charge. Really, now is the time to self-examine_ not to be targeted but to truly, undeniably hear our own individual and collective truths.
One truth being: we have more in common with one another than not! One of the great truths that has been run over and left for dead on our community and national social highways. MORE in common WITH one another, THAN NOT!
For example, we all really do have more of our basic humanity in common with the mentally ill, the socially ignorant_ plainly, plainly, plainly then, there is more to learn from one another. MORE to observe, taking sentimentality out of observing as much as possible_ only, as much as possible. Sometimes it is simply not possible_ this is part of what makes us human. We are connected... we are connected. We are all connected. No one is left out. No one. Can you really hear this yet?
Artists of all stripes, are you hearing me?! Right this minute I am saying: speak to your truth. Stand naked in this world! Lift everyone up by your commitments to truth, love and freedom. Make art that does not only sell, but rather art that also openly risks telling us again what our collective truths are, about love and freedom! We are a country of human beings who have the greatest opportunities to advance, to evolve in many, many spontaneous, subtle, nuanced, empowered ways! Speak to these truths_ NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, OR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES_ speak to your own capacity to speak in trust of your best possible self_ using the medium that you love best!
Weave our differences together now in new harmonies, in new color combinations, in more poetry, theatre, dance, sculpture, paintings, movies, books of risk! Do what the great predecessors of our industry left to us_ to show others what they resist doing for themselves: to see! To hear! To taste! Touch and be touched in self-respect and safety. Speak and be spoken to, in self-respect and safety! We all flourish like the flowers_ with enough sun, clean soil and flowing water. Dig deep within all you artists and show us this! In this land of the free we have been very free to whine and fight like the spoiled brats this nation has allowed itself to be portrayed by_ long enough!
The mentally ill have dignity. The socially ignorant have dignity_ there is human dignity in all; great capacity for polish, for development_ to embody our own possibility. Reread, "The Agony and the Ecstasy!" Remember Martha Graham’s great quote, about each doing one's own work in this world while we are each alive here?!
What does it take for us to be brave enough to know we are alive while we are here? Many will talk a blue streak about being alive but are nonetheless still asleep for one reason or another. Wake them gently. Ask, what does it take to reach each human being where they are? Put the ego to the side to navigate this set of creative considerations. Then who is actually left out of the call to consider how to respond? Artists show everyone how. Then each one can look inward and collaborate, to creatively speak to what human challenges are at hand in her and his own best ways_ together!
This is the time of artists of all stripes, all mediums and all considerations.
So, we believe that we do not have money in the same ways we are conditioned to believe in currencies of exchange_ create new conditions for transaction! Create new community currencies! New inter-community currencies! New national currencies!! Come on now, all you artists! Shake this up! Examine value! Examine self-value! Make people happy! Make the environment around you friendly. Lift families to feel safe. Let the children tell us what we are missing; what we are not paying enough attention to! All is NOT doom and gloom_ ask what are you agreeing to?!!! Choose! Choose! Choose! You are free to choose! You are free to slow down! Eat more homemade! Make more homemade! Share! Potluck! Visit! Consciously notice!
Ask yourself, ask each other what (you) are really doing? Really listen now. THIS IS truly more a time to relax_ to reconsider. This is a great time to back up and re-access what is working and what collectively and individually we can afford to shed now.
All of our young people need time and space. They are missing that and many do not even know this! Let them make mistakes in order to learn and develop their own creativity!! Let them have their own creative time and space to grow and develop! Remember having this kind of wealth?! Space and time.
No more isolation for anyone!! Shake it up! Mix it up! Talk! Dance! Make music! Move your body! Write! Tell us poems! Show us theatre! Show us movies! Be openly, self-respecting every step of the way! Reveal new ways of being non-reactively courageous in this life!! OF MOVING BEYOND REACTION CONSCIOUSLY.
For the truth in all this economic downturn is: there is a new paradigm of creativity in seeing, in thinking and in doing in this world that is upon us all.
YA-ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!
2 comments:
To timeless rhythms, on all right you artists--shake it up!!,
Wow how can anyone, shake it up like your story at 1215 pm or am no different.
I like your spunk or essence, what others say is not so important but what you say. Your art, the river and body of water coming down the gorge, now that is art ful of life and movement. If I would have wanted a picture a camera would be the order of the day--no, your art is spontaneous.
Last week i bought some fun stuff for pen and ink watercolors--never did one my whole life but for some reason, like the reason to start my art career after 22 years in a marriage that did not go, another wham bam no thank you! Seems that art for me and the creative side comes about the time that change is moving me through another door, least when I want to move through it too.
Come to think about it my art is pretty boring, nice but not much for sales. You speak about mental health, art for me is better than all the meds, keeps me on and even ground and if not painting or doing creative work I'm in big trouble--so maybe instead of giving all those patients pils for being mental give them a paint brush and let them be creative, just might work. A whole lot less expensive, and the doctors might have to take up art when there are no more patients, they might learn to listen, to see, and to taste or touch someone's life and not at their expense.
So for the artist, just like me, who are doing good art but it's not moving or shaking, keeep at what works for you--not the gallery or some other art critic--stay true to who you are as an artist and as a person.
The Lord is my shepard, can you imagine what an artist he would have made with his heart of gold? Peace to you--to your family, to your friends, and even to your enemies, sit at the table of life and help as you may. an artist in the back woods-jimmy
Hi Jimmy_
Thank-you for your very thoughtful post. It sounds as though you are writing from what is your own and I say BRAVO to you! The thoughtful insights in your posts say how much you know by your own experiences! I say to you, how very courageous you are!
I can relate to your revelations concerning mental healthcare and the value for ways to enliven the artist in each of us in our own healing. We do express from inherent creative intelligence, spontaneity, and deserve a world where it is safe to learn to develop a more solid sense of inner worth. How great it would be to retrain all the doctors to learn to recognize these natural human traits more readily, in order to work with each client to bring them forward in all as much as possible for each one wanting to heal!
I am at home within, embracing the teachings that point to: we are each one deeply connected to the very fabric of the cosmos and just that important while here in this life or in the formless. So keep on creating with your life! It is one of the best ways for healing.
Perhaps for Christ it could be said his unconditional heart was/ is his art... an open pathway for all who may choose to look there can consciously find the (again) inherent connection to our essential nature within.
On selling art, I personally have been making of it for many years. I have also tried the exhibition and gallery courting process.
Mostly now as you have said, I continue to practice staying true to my art first_ gathering clarity strength and solidity within over time. I trust this process in my life.
For me, it is a blessing to hear what choices are being made by you to walk through your life experiences. It sounds as though you understand that in life our choices are not always all or nothing. Sometimes, it is appropriate to choose what is right for us and then move on.
Yet, what is right for us out in this world full of many, who are also learning to waken and see; learning to hear consciously as you so rightly put it, holds an opportunity to coordinate what we learn about our own self. I believe the way to put all into action, is to learn from the teachings of a life on the path of compassion.
The Dalai Lama teaches about this awareness-in-action so well. Therefore, I am also one student who is slowly finding truth that this radical loving kindness as the way.
Thich Nhat Hanh is also a good teacher concerning the practices of loving kindness that begin within.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you Jimmy, for stopping by and sharing your thoughts and responses to the reflections of a life in art and well-being posted here. I try to share these posts from the heart openly, in healing support of us all. So it means a lot to me when I get to hear how someone is affected by, thinks about and then responds to what is posted here, to help make this world an everlasting better place.
Again, blessings on your path...
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