I turn my tensions into characters. I give them body parts and hairdos and features--like a wiry, strained neck. Then I lay them in bed and make them tea and rub their bunions and ask them how I can help. It helps to have a friend guide me through this process--a quiet gentle voice that coaxes out the relationship. It always shows me some shadow I haven’t cared for. It always leads to deeper self love and an ability to incorporate the doubt rather than defend against it. (Which is impossible when it stays halfway in denial.)
To incorporate doubt with the help of the friend, that inner voice that coaxes out the whole relationship and deepens self love, what a beautiful and creative art form. Noble, indeed! Blessings, Isabelle.
As a writer who's sometimes pulled to rage on the page, but who also feels dread mingled with sadness when I do so because it never captures the whole of my heart, I'm learning to pause.
I'm learning to take a moment to consider being more contained, less confronting. Not out of fear of making people hate me or hate me harder. But, out of love. Out of seeing that we're all human here, still figuring it out.
Also, about that tension: “Take your well-disciplined strengths and stretch them between two opposing poles. Because inside human beings is where God learns.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Just As The Winged Energy Of Delight, as translated by Robert Bly
I get really worried that I am out of step with time and I’ll miss it. Worry that I am not doing enough with my gifts. And then when I do try and take steps to share I worry it’s too heavy and burdensome- not what people want to be reminded of, even though there is always so much hope in the midst of it.
I’m grateful for this community. It is pouring life into my heart and giving me courage.
Yes, something generative in friction and discomfort. The willingness to stay with it, rather than rush to quick resolution. 'To pay attention', yes, instead of repress or exile. I think this is the big challenge of our times - a togetherness that isn't sameness.
So very tough to do! I think what resonates for me in Pádraig's piece is the concept of staying with an internal tension - working on understanding how internal contradiction isn't a threat to overall integrity - and how that might relate to the external.
Since turning 40, more inclined to stand up for what I believe, to take up space and put voice to things that might sound discordant if all that's desired is harmony. Not easy - but just as accepting all parts of ourselves feels essential to creativity, so does trusting that relationship can happen outside the narrow space of a consensus. (That's the grand hope, in any case!).
I picked up the loaf of bread for Holy Communion that Sunday morning from the same shelf in the same store as I did every other communion Sunday. I was the minister of a small inner city church and made sure the bread was in its proper place before worship began. The communion portion of the service began the same way as we did every other communion Sunday. However, as church members returned to their seats after having received a piece of the bread, there was much more chatter than normal and some were fanning their faces. I soon learned that I had unknowingly served jalapeno bread.
What had I done to the precious body of our dear Lord? What if this got back to the Bishop? Would I be placed on communion probation? My error or worry that morning doesn’t match up with more serious life worries but I did discover the congregation was much more flexible than I thought and they helped me rebound from my guffaw with humor. One church member suggested out loud that if I served jalapeno bread again, beer or wine would be a better coupling than grape juice.
The participants reveled in my error and assured me this would be one communion service they would never forget. In fact, to this day, I still receive comments from folks who were present that fateful Sunday morning. My error and embarrassment led to new reflections on the holy sacrament and provided a long lasting memory for previously bored worship participants who may not have been on fire for church.
Unfortunately, I’m struggling to answer this week’s question. Not because I can’t relate, but because the learning I’m reflecting on has not yet resulted in me sharing my artistic creations (mostly poetry and music, which I create privately). I am instead still very much in the labyrinth with it, though diligently seeking the way out—joyfully when I can, though I can’t describe it as such on this day exactly. More than any other expression of mine, such as banal things like business dealings or pleasant conversation, my actual creativity is more inextricably woven into my feelings about my body. I couldn’t put that into words until this prompt was in front of me. And my path toward acceptance of my body has been long and is perhaps closer to the middle than the end. But in reflecting on the way the vulnerability of sharing my art is perhaps tied to the ability to show love to a piece of my body I’ve not yet made peace with, I wonder if the art will lead the way rather than the flesh, in the same way that action is necessary as a catalyst to shift thought.
This is clearly a bit of a torturous topic for me in case you can’t tell from how my sentences are winding around it. But I hope that in sharing where this question takes me, some other stuck person can see it and relate. The thing that helps me most in any kind of learning and spiritual growth is connection, which draws the unexpected out of me and receives the unexpected from someone else. Critical ingredients. So I am—as ever—grateful for the prompt and for this community of people. I look forward to reading your wisdom. Have a beautiful day wherever you are.
I hear you, I really do!! You worded your response beautifully. And it makes me think if your poetry is anything like your reply, we are the ones missing out. Sometimes you need to let go, release it and see what happens. I very much believe, Tom, the world is waiting for you. What are YOU waiting for? XO
“The thing that helps me most in any kind of learning and spiritual growth is connection, which draws the unexpected out of me and receives the unexpected from someone else. Critical ingredients.” Thank you!!
Tom, I am just getting back here today after reading some of everyone's shares on Sunday. I would say that I am on the back 9 of life (second half) and it has just been the last couple of years that I am starting to become friends with my body. What you have shared here means so much to me. Thank you.
Your vulnerability here is honored, seen, and necessary, I think, for us to enter into the love of ourselves, of others, of the world and of course, of our art in order to embrace life more fully.
"Connection, which draws the unexpected out of me." I have experience the beauty and pain of that through some amazing and intimate friendships. Keep writing, friend.
O my you hit a chord with me this week. I call these worries Tugs with a capital T. Living in a country which increasingly measures Art and the Art of Life in terms of Business and Identity Politics I have learned that these Tugs are my calls to engage them in Art in everything I do as rebellion to these cultural inversions. I define cultural inversions as that which subverses what it means to be singularly human. I have a stone wall that I am painting the word lovingkindness in different languages on stones for the top. And every time I paint a stone and place it I feel a Tug at the smallness of this act. With every imperfectly painted stone I feel I am doing little to nothing to restore actual lovingkindness to this world or even myself and I feel small. And yet I am driven to do this thing. That's the Mystery isn't it? To believe we can make something out of nothing that cannot be measured.... but that it matters! This is the weekend Barbie came out and it horrifies me how far our culture has been taken in by so much that doesn't matter when we should be attending more to the "undertoad" if you are familiar with the World According to Garp. The voice of a sincere poet has never been needed more. I just started a group to read Abraham Joshua Heschel who lived and wrote and spoke of the importance of living an embodied religious life in order to tackle the hard things in life with grace. I see aspiring to live a life that not only acknowledges discomfort but cradles it as deeply religious and deeply poetic. Even the word religion must be reclaimed, its meaning rescued and lifted out of dogma. We've got to take those insecurities and instead of putting them to rest, put them to best use. In an age of AI and Barbie every sincere poet is needed. Tugs serve to remind me nothing truly good can be measured and is valued much too little. Living a life that knows the Tugs are wellsprings of joy and creative spirit if only we cease fleeing from them but practice engaging with them.
“...In order to tackle the hard things in life with grace.” Along with a capital T for Tug (and Business, Identity Politics) I will think of Grace with a capital G.
Thank you for this. Perfect timing. Especially "Things become the focus because they sound interesting, not because they are important. Too much time is spent rebranding a problem rather than solving it"
Oh how I hate this word Brand.
And thank you for "barbie our vision" To me Barbie was from the start and remains everything plastic that distracts from the authentic soul of everuthing. . I am all for entertainment and distraction but not when it tries to pass for what it's not. Barbie through her plastic existence reflects something deeper going on that needs to be noticed.
I struggle most with the “strain between what I think I should be doing and what I am doing,” among other things. Your idea that this is the swamp that lies below creativity and something fruitful can emerge from my particular swamp is so lovely and reminds me of the lotus. I have found, like getting your feet on the ground every morning, keeping up a writing routine is the best way to deal with “the devils.”
When my inner voice told me my words weren't good enough, I used to listen. But now, despite that hoarse old voice, I send them out into the uinverse, old enough to no longer worry if someone likes them.
50 years ago a friend (who later became poet laureate of his state) responded to my poem by asking, “But is it a poem?” I took that to mean “It isn’t a poem,” and stopped writing. Now I realize, I can say “yes.” My writing has value, and poetry is a much richer genre of diverse forms than in those restrictive days. All, keep creating!
I so enjoyed both poems this week and Pádraig’s beautiful insights. And oh dear god, comparison! Hmmm... What worries have I learnt from, and how? Such good and difficult questions! There is a word in Pali, “māna” which is often translated as “conceit” but upon further elaboration it’s described as the comparing mind - the mind that says I’m better than, or worse than, or even equal to - and in Buddhism this comparing habit of mind, māna, is considered one of ten fetters that keep us bound up in a cycle of suffering, and one of the very last to let go, as we move along the path of awakening. It’s rather persistent! This teaching has helped me to remember I’m not uniquely messed up in the ways that worries produced by the comparing habits of mind (not good enough) have led me to inaction, procrastination, paralysis.
When caught up here, it has helped me to ask myself, again and again, what’s here? and listen. Often, it’s an intense fear (that I associate with being young) - what will other people think of me? what will it say about me? It’s a fear of of embarrassment, and also - of being misunderstood. I don’t know enough, I need to learn more before I can create... these are the voices. It has helped me to hear the voices, sometimes see them as caricatures, sometimes as a child who wants to be seen as “good”, who wants to belong, who wants to fit in, but who also wants to be special, and have a chance to talk back, to be in conversation with these voices.
What’s also really helped me is to have a young niece and to see her love of art and creating things and to learn from her freedom in expression - how inspiring! - and to also consciously want to encourage her. When she shares her creations, the way I look, how and what I notice, and also how I feel about her creations has helped me be less harsh and more open with my own.... it also helps me to remember “perfection is the enemy of done”. Lastly, when I can remember that the point of the creative process (whatever that may be) is not to have some perfect product at the end, but it’s for what the process is doing to me, in me, ... that that really is the “point”... the gold. When I can remember that, trust in that, it helps me let go and open into a freer and more relaxed space.
Lastly, when I can remember that the point of the creative process (whatever that may be) is not to have some perfect product at the end, but it’s for what the process is doing to me, in me, ... that that really is the “point”... the gold. When I can remember that, trust in that, it helps me let go and open into a freer and more relaxed space.
Thank you Mona for galvanizing and clarifying comments. The “point” is to let go and flow with the emerging process of creating this “thing” I’m part of planning/creating...a so far inchoate group experience... maybe called Reweaving the web of connection: nurturing hope and awakening imagination for a climate changed world. Also for the Buddhist teaching about comparison. So deadening and so habitual! Onward.
Beautifully said, Mona! "The point of the creative process is not have some perfect product at the end, buts it's for what the process is doing to me." May I quietly whisper it is setting you free, little by little and that's the beauty of it. You always say something so profound and heartfelt and I look forward to reading your replies! Thank you!!
Ahh, you name things so well. And i really appreciate learning of the notion of the "comparing mind." And can see how it has, indeed, dogged my steps over the years. Gotta think on that lots more.
My largest worry about the art I make has been it's acceptance. I make art for others to encounter, I have no interest in it piling up around the studio, unseen - and so I want it to go out into the world and be embraced. However...
Creating from that position or mindset is ill advised. When one makes art for others approval you set yourself up for disappointment and doubt and rejection if it is not embraced or if it is flat out rejected.
The one true thing in this dynamic is that once you put your work out into the world, it is really no longer yours. The final act in the creation of the piece is its engagement with its audience and the artist has little or no control over the viewers reaction.
Finally realizing this - that the life of the work is ultimately a collaboration between the artist and viewer - I was able to let go of the insecurities around it's acceptance and channel them instead toward the attention of the work. Mary Oliver said "Attention is the beginning of devotion." and praised "the redemptive act of true effort." All we can really do is put in the effort, the true effort, and be devoted to the work. It's acceptance by the audience is out of our control but it's collaborative potential with the viewer might just energize your next step. That is a part of why I keep coming back.
I think i long ago steered away from visual art because i knew my inability in those years (of being young and newly escaped from suburban family-hood) not to produce for approval would have been fatal. That meant many missed opportunities to learn. But there ya go. But i did begin then to learn about that "collaboration" of which you write. Yes, art - all of it, visual and performance and musical and literary - is a collaboration (one i idealize as dialogue, but that's a longer discussion). But that notion of collaboration lead me to examining critically how we engage such art in our daily life - i visited a lotta museums and admired a lotta work. But i also discovered Bread and Puppet theatre and their notion of "cheap art" which includes, but is not limited to, all the bits and bobs, framed and unframed paintings and prints, and so on with which we adorn the walls of our homes. I've always been saddened by the ubiquitous practice of erecting in a room only one or two framed paintings/prints. While there are many works deserving of that kind of focus/attention, i find this practice dominates and disappears so many other ways of having art in our lives. It reduces the diversity of dialogue that could be happening to monologue. "Cheap art" <https://breadandpuppet.org/cheap-art/why-cheap-art-manifesto> is certainly about what we produce as art, but it's more about how we engage with that art. Not long after discovering (and working with) Bread and Puppet, I learned of the work of Corita Kent (https://www.corita.org/) which spurred on my own creative practice and showed me so much more of what could done with how we collaborate. My house is a collaboration with its walls splayed with so much art - perhaps excessive to some, but i love the riotous - there is an art in the simple juxtaposition of all the work we have on our walls - it is a boisterous collaboration. And i only wish that more people made such choices which, i believe, would create so much more demand for the work of artists who desire "encounter" and don't wish to their work "piling up around the studio."
Thanks for all these thoughts, Chris. I've definitely heard of Bread & Puppet but I need t refamiliarize myself with it, so thanks for the links. As a Mass resident who longs to be in Vermont at all times, I may need to do an expedition there soon.
Because my wife and I are both artists and live in a very small house, we've installed "chalk rails" in the living room to hold works in progress and pieces that might be heading to galleries and buyers, or coming back from galleries and friends. It's different every day and it serves our purposes. When we are both working toward delivery dates, the work starts to jostle for position in the living room and that unintentional collaborative juxtaposition kicks in. It's transient for sure, but in the moment there are occasional epiphanies.
I also sympathize with my buyers when what they really want is the quiet presence of one piece on the wall of a particular room that they might look to for a moment of transcendence in the daily grind of their hectic lives. What they bring - in total - to the work, I will never know, so the collaboration is beautifully incomplete as well as impermanent. That gap between is important. What the art means to them is theirs alone. What the art means to me is also mine alone.
oooh, a trip to Bread and Puppet is well worth it. I miss it so. Living in Montreal in the 70s and 80s, Vermont was pretty much our back yard. Toronto, alas, not so much. Once the floods abate, it would be a great trip. Just glanced at yours and your wife's websites. Delightful and beautiful work. I noticed your inclusion of wabi sabi in describing your practice. Big fan. Inward Pull is especially touches me (being a pre-computer-age typographer, i'm curious how you applied the letters). And your wife's tarot series - be still my beating heart!
Ahhhh. Thanks! The letters for Inward Pull were done very low tech with cheap stamps and ink pads. I love it though. When I integrate poetry into my work I love the process of slowing down by stamping one letter at a time. No matter the tedium. And Caroline's Tarot Series. Yes. She's wicked smart!
love the lo-tech. I still have sheets and sheets of letraset from ages past (dry and brittle now, but still some usable fragments). And i love letter stamps. So, yes yes yes, to the slow slow one letter-at-a-time stamping!
As a Vermonter who still attends and loves Bread and Puppet, I have been inspired over the years by the magic of their boundless creativity and the full acceptance of imperfection. Enormous puppets dancing to the sweetest shape note harmonies...it is a place that gives license to all kinds of creativity. Hard to articulate the ways it has changed my life...but it is under my skin.
alas, it's been a long while since i've been able to attend. I was a regular from 1980. I last brought them to Toronto in 2007 which was, as you would know, a memorable event. Your mention of imperfection just made a penny drop. I've been a fan of the Japanese notion of wabi sabi for a long while and just re-read an essay about it last week. I've not thought to look at Bread and Puppet through that lens, as it were. And it fits so beautifully. Attending Bread and Puppet and producing some of their shows in Canada has been life-changing for me - "under my skin" describes it exactly!
Mama to three teenagers, two with significant mental illness. If I let them, my worries leave me bedridden. So instead, I try to let worry remind me I’m not alone - everyone is actually suffering, truly. I am not special, I do not especially suffer.
And then I let the worry prompt me, a mantra: My life is beautiful. My family is beautiful. We are perfect just the way we are. I am so grateful.
I did listen as a child being told “there is something wrong with you” those words lurk in dark corners ready and alert when I am stepping out, taking a risk, doing something I know will be beautiful and true. The closeness of God can be a “light for my path”.
I turn my tensions into characters. I give them body parts and hairdos and features--like a wiry, strained neck. Then I lay them in bed and make them tea and rub their bunions and ask them how I can help. It helps to have a friend guide me through this process--a quiet gentle voice that coaxes out the relationship. It always shows me some shadow I haven’t cared for. It always leads to deeper self love and an ability to incorporate the doubt rather than defend against it. (Which is impossible when it stays halfway in denial.)
I love your ideas about “turning tensions into characters, giving by them hairdos and rubbing their bunions.” I will be trying this! Thanks, Isabel!
This process is interesting, to look for shadows uncared for. The first powerful step is acknowledgment ❤️
This is so lovely. I called my inner monster Gloria and I also contemplated inviting her to tea. https://pocketfulofprose.substack.com/p/the-monster-at-the-end-of-the-book
Can’t wait to read!!!
To incorporate doubt with the help of the friend, that inner voice that coaxes out the whole relationship and deepens self love, what a beautiful and creative art form. Noble, indeed! Blessings, Isabelle.
As a writer who's sometimes pulled to rage on the page, but who also feels dread mingled with sadness when I do so because it never captures the whole of my heart, I'm learning to pause.
I'm learning to take a moment to consider being more contained, less confronting. Not out of fear of making people hate me or hate me harder. But, out of love. Out of seeing that we're all human here, still figuring it out.
Also, about that tension: “Take your well-disciplined strengths and stretch them between two opposing poles. Because inside human beings is where God learns.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Just As The Winged Energy Of Delight, as translated by Robert Bly
I’ll be thinking about that Rilke quote for a while.
I first heard it from a live event with David Whyte. It sure does have staying power...
I am in love with your first paragraph. I think it is a whole writing lesson all of itself. I love this whole expression of figuring it out
Thank you, Amy. It's a very alive place of practice for me, that's for sure.
Beautiful!
Thank you, Mona!
Sing it. Play it. Make it. Break it.
Worried the art (you) not perfect enough?
Still do it.
That you don’t have a degree?
Still do it.
There is a run with missed notes?
Still do it.
Learn. Share. Connect. Be.
Thank you!!! Your poem is inspiring me today to do something I might not have done, Karen!
Mona, this makes me happy! I wish you courage!
Oh....make it break it
Love it!!
Wonderful. Sight reading life. Thank you.
Yes. “Share. Connect.”
I get really worried that I am out of step with time and I’ll miss it. Worry that I am not doing enough with my gifts. And then when I do try and take steps to share I worry it’s too heavy and burdensome- not what people want to be reminded of, even though there is always so much hope in the midst of it.
I’m grateful for this community. It is pouring life into my heart and giving me courage.
You are definitely not alone. Thank you for sharing and describing my struggle at times as well.
You are not alone. Keep at it!
Thanks Mary 💜 I intend to.
Yes, something generative in friction and discomfort. The willingness to stay with it, rather than rush to quick resolution. 'To pay attention', yes, instead of repress or exile. I think this is the big challenge of our times - a togetherness that isn't sameness.
Yes! Loneliness came today and I just invited him in. Rumi encourages this in the poem The Guest House. https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/guest-house/
Thank you! Yes - hospitality to all!
Wow, your words are so enlightening.
ooohh so tough to do and you say this so well. I believe you are so right this is the challenge of our times "a togetherness that isn't sameness".
So very tough to do! I think what resonates for me in Pádraig's piece is the concept of staying with an internal tension - working on understanding how internal contradiction isn't a threat to overall integrity - and how that might relate to the external.
Since turning 40, more inclined to stand up for what I believe, to take up space and put voice to things that might sound discordant if all that's desired is harmony. Not easy - but just as accepting all parts of ourselves feels essential to creativity, so does trusting that relationship can happen outside the narrow space of a consensus. (That's the grand hope, in any case!).
We are not in Eden right? I love your musical terms here. Gotta learn to love dissonance. Gotta love Bela Bartok. At least that works for me. :)
'not in Eden' - true, true!
I picked up the loaf of bread for Holy Communion that Sunday morning from the same shelf in the same store as I did every other communion Sunday. I was the minister of a small inner city church and made sure the bread was in its proper place before worship began. The communion portion of the service began the same way as we did every other communion Sunday. However, as church members returned to their seats after having received a piece of the bread, there was much more chatter than normal and some were fanning their faces. I soon learned that I had unknowingly served jalapeno bread.
What had I done to the precious body of our dear Lord? What if this got back to the Bishop? Would I be placed on communion probation? My error or worry that morning doesn’t match up with more serious life worries but I did discover the congregation was much more flexible than I thought and they helped me rebound from my guffaw with humor. One church member suggested out loud that if I served jalapeno bread again, beer or wine would be a better coupling than grape juice.
The participants reveled in my error and assured me this would be one communion service they would never forget. In fact, to this day, I still receive comments from folks who were present that fateful Sunday morning. My error and embarrassment led to new reflections on the holy sacrament and provided a long lasting memory for previously bored worship participants who may not have been on fire for church.
Amazing!
Brilliant! 😂 Wonderful story.
Even if it was amistake, I personally love this. Everyone in the congregation took communion a little more seriously that day!!
hilarious and poignant. Thanks for sharing this wonderful account.
Thanks for the feedback. It is also hilarious that I used guffaw instead of gaffe (a noticeable mistake).
now i'm guffawing about your gaffe using gaffe ;-)
Unfortunately, I’m struggling to answer this week’s question. Not because I can’t relate, but because the learning I’m reflecting on has not yet resulted in me sharing my artistic creations (mostly poetry and music, which I create privately). I am instead still very much in the labyrinth with it, though diligently seeking the way out—joyfully when I can, though I can’t describe it as such on this day exactly. More than any other expression of mine, such as banal things like business dealings or pleasant conversation, my actual creativity is more inextricably woven into my feelings about my body. I couldn’t put that into words until this prompt was in front of me. And my path toward acceptance of my body has been long and is perhaps closer to the middle than the end. But in reflecting on the way the vulnerability of sharing my art is perhaps tied to the ability to show love to a piece of my body I’ve not yet made peace with, I wonder if the art will lead the way rather than the flesh, in the same way that action is necessary as a catalyst to shift thought.
This is clearly a bit of a torturous topic for me in case you can’t tell from how my sentences are winding around it. But I hope that in sharing where this question takes me, some other stuck person can see it and relate. The thing that helps me most in any kind of learning and spiritual growth is connection, which draws the unexpected out of me and receives the unexpected from someone else. Critical ingredients. So I am—as ever—grateful for the prompt and for this community of people. I look forward to reading your wisdom. Have a beautiful day wherever you are.
I hear you, I really do!! You worded your response beautifully. And it makes me think if your poetry is anything like your reply, we are the ones missing out. Sometimes you need to let go, release it and see what happens. I very much believe, Tom, the world is waiting for you. What are YOU waiting for? XO
That’s so very kind, Danielle — thank you. And I will reflect on your question. ;)
“The thing that helps me most in any kind of learning and spiritual growth is connection, which draws the unexpected out of me and receives the unexpected from someone else. Critical ingredients.” Thank you!!
You are so welcome, Mona. I was leaving a note of gratitude on your wonderful post at the exact moment you wrote this. :) I love that.
connection! :) 💞 thank you Tom.
Tom, I am just getting back here today after reading some of everyone's shares on Sunday. I would say that I am on the back 9 of life (second half) and it has just been the last couple of years that I am starting to become friends with my body. What you have shared here means so much to me. Thank you.
Your vulnerability here is honored, seen, and necessary, I think, for us to enter into the love of ourselves, of others, of the world and of course, of our art in order to embrace life more fully.
"Connection, which draws the unexpected out of me." I have experience the beauty and pain of that through some amazing and intimate friendships. Keep writing, friend.
I think art can lead the way. This was beautiful. Thank you!
O my you hit a chord with me this week. I call these worries Tugs with a capital T. Living in a country which increasingly measures Art and the Art of Life in terms of Business and Identity Politics I have learned that these Tugs are my calls to engage them in Art in everything I do as rebellion to these cultural inversions. I define cultural inversions as that which subverses what it means to be singularly human. I have a stone wall that I am painting the word lovingkindness in different languages on stones for the top. And every time I paint a stone and place it I feel a Tug at the smallness of this act. With every imperfectly painted stone I feel I am doing little to nothing to restore actual lovingkindness to this world or even myself and I feel small. And yet I am driven to do this thing. That's the Mystery isn't it? To believe we can make something out of nothing that cannot be measured.... but that it matters! This is the weekend Barbie came out and it horrifies me how far our culture has been taken in by so much that doesn't matter when we should be attending more to the "undertoad" if you are familiar with the World According to Garp. The voice of a sincere poet has never been needed more. I just started a group to read Abraham Joshua Heschel who lived and wrote and spoke of the importance of living an embodied religious life in order to tackle the hard things in life with grace. I see aspiring to live a life that not only acknowledges discomfort but cradles it as deeply religious and deeply poetic. Even the word religion must be reclaimed, its meaning rescued and lifted out of dogma. We've got to take those insecurities and instead of putting them to rest, put them to best use. In an age of AI and Barbie every sincere poet is needed. Tugs serve to remind me nothing truly good can be measured and is valued much too little. Living a life that knows the Tugs are wellsprings of joy and creative spirit if only we cease fleeing from them but practice engaging with them.
“...In order to tackle the hard things in life with grace.” Along with a capital T for Tug (and Business, Identity Politics) I will think of Grace with a capital G.
We have caught the distraction disease - see Torsten Bell https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/23/distraction-disease-we-do-anything-to-avoid-problems-we-face - ‘society as spectacle’ has the tendency to barbie our vision away from what matters. And in itself of course Barbie is an interesting symptom to be acknowledged and an opportunity for a choice to be made. Entertainment will always distract.
Thank you for this. Perfect timing. Especially "Things become the focus because they sound interesting, not because they are important. Too much time is spent rebranding a problem rather than solving it"
Oh how I hate this word Brand.
And thank you for "barbie our vision" To me Barbie was from the start and remains everything plastic that distracts from the authentic soul of everuthing. . I am all for entertainment and distraction but not when it tries to pass for what it's not. Barbie through her plastic existence reflects something deeper going on that needs to be noticed.
I struggle most with the “strain between what I think I should be doing and what I am doing,” among other things. Your idea that this is the swamp that lies below creativity and something fruitful can emerge from my particular swamp is so lovely and reminds me of the lotus. I have found, like getting your feet on the ground every morning, keeping up a writing routine is the best way to deal with “the devils.”
When my inner voice told me my words weren't good enough, I used to listen. But now, despite that hoarse old voice, I send them out into the uinverse, old enough to no longer worry if someone likes them.
50 years ago a friend (who later became poet laureate of his state) responded to my poem by asking, “But is it a poem?” I took that to mean “It isn’t a poem,” and stopped writing. Now I realize, I can say “yes.” My writing has value, and poetry is a much richer genre of diverse forms than in those restrictive days. All, keep creating!
I so enjoyed both poems this week and Pádraig’s beautiful insights. And oh dear god, comparison! Hmmm... What worries have I learnt from, and how? Such good and difficult questions! There is a word in Pali, “māna” which is often translated as “conceit” but upon further elaboration it’s described as the comparing mind - the mind that says I’m better than, or worse than, or even equal to - and in Buddhism this comparing habit of mind, māna, is considered one of ten fetters that keep us bound up in a cycle of suffering, and one of the very last to let go, as we move along the path of awakening. It’s rather persistent! This teaching has helped me to remember I’m not uniquely messed up in the ways that worries produced by the comparing habits of mind (not good enough) have led me to inaction, procrastination, paralysis.
When caught up here, it has helped me to ask myself, again and again, what’s here? and listen. Often, it’s an intense fear (that I associate with being young) - what will other people think of me? what will it say about me? It’s a fear of of embarrassment, and also - of being misunderstood. I don’t know enough, I need to learn more before I can create... these are the voices. It has helped me to hear the voices, sometimes see them as caricatures, sometimes as a child who wants to be seen as “good”, who wants to belong, who wants to fit in, but who also wants to be special, and have a chance to talk back, to be in conversation with these voices.
What’s also really helped me is to have a young niece and to see her love of art and creating things and to learn from her freedom in expression - how inspiring! - and to also consciously want to encourage her. When she shares her creations, the way I look, how and what I notice, and also how I feel about her creations has helped me be less harsh and more open with my own.... it also helps me to remember “perfection is the enemy of done”. Lastly, when I can remember that the point of the creative process (whatever that may be) is not to have some perfect product at the end, but it’s for what the process is doing to me, in me, ... that that really is the “point”... the gold. When I can remember that, trust in that, it helps me let go and open into a freer and more relaxed space.
Lastly, when I can remember that the point of the creative process (whatever that may be) is not to have some perfect product at the end, but it’s for what the process is doing to me, in me, ... that that really is the “point”... the gold. When I can remember that, trust in that, it helps me let go and open into a freer and more relaxed space.
Thank you Mona for galvanizing and clarifying comments. The “point” is to let go and flow with the emerging process of creating this “thing” I’m part of planning/creating...a so far inchoate group experience... maybe called Reweaving the web of connection: nurturing hope and awakening imagination for a climate changed world. Also for the Buddhist teaching about comparison. So deadening and so habitual! Onward.
Oooh! Reweaving the web of connection... love that! And yes, the emerging process... 🙏🏾. Thank you for your kind words. And dang, yes, onwards!!
Beautifully said, Mona! "The point of the creative process is not have some perfect product at the end, buts it's for what the process is doing to me." May I quietly whisper it is setting you free, little by little and that's the beauty of it. You always say something so profound and heartfelt and I look forward to reading your replies! Thank you!!
Ahh, you name things so well. And i really appreciate learning of the notion of the "comparing mind." And can see how it has, indeed, dogged my steps over the years. Gotta think on that lots more.
So much wisdom in this post—thank you for that gift!
If there is something I am writing and find myself moving away from it - I should
“ write into it”
, from a wonderful book
I like- Writing Down The Bones”
By Natalie Goldberg
Also the quote I “When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.” Henry David Thoreau
I love her so much!
My largest worry about the art I make has been it's acceptance. I make art for others to encounter, I have no interest in it piling up around the studio, unseen - and so I want it to go out into the world and be embraced. However...
Creating from that position or mindset is ill advised. When one makes art for others approval you set yourself up for disappointment and doubt and rejection if it is not embraced or if it is flat out rejected.
The one true thing in this dynamic is that once you put your work out into the world, it is really no longer yours. The final act in the creation of the piece is its engagement with its audience and the artist has little or no control over the viewers reaction.
Finally realizing this - that the life of the work is ultimately a collaboration between the artist and viewer - I was able to let go of the insecurities around it's acceptance and channel them instead toward the attention of the work. Mary Oliver said "Attention is the beginning of devotion." and praised "the redemptive act of true effort." All we can really do is put in the effort, the true effort, and be devoted to the work. It's acceptance by the audience is out of our control but it's collaborative potential with the viewer might just energize your next step. That is a part of why I keep coming back.
I think i long ago steered away from visual art because i knew my inability in those years (of being young and newly escaped from suburban family-hood) not to produce for approval would have been fatal. That meant many missed opportunities to learn. But there ya go. But i did begin then to learn about that "collaboration" of which you write. Yes, art - all of it, visual and performance and musical and literary - is a collaboration (one i idealize as dialogue, but that's a longer discussion). But that notion of collaboration lead me to examining critically how we engage such art in our daily life - i visited a lotta museums and admired a lotta work. But i also discovered Bread and Puppet theatre and their notion of "cheap art" which includes, but is not limited to, all the bits and bobs, framed and unframed paintings and prints, and so on with which we adorn the walls of our homes. I've always been saddened by the ubiquitous practice of erecting in a room only one or two framed paintings/prints. While there are many works deserving of that kind of focus/attention, i find this practice dominates and disappears so many other ways of having art in our lives. It reduces the diversity of dialogue that could be happening to monologue. "Cheap art" <https://breadandpuppet.org/cheap-art/why-cheap-art-manifesto> is certainly about what we produce as art, but it's more about how we engage with that art. Not long after discovering (and working with) Bread and Puppet, I learned of the work of Corita Kent (https://www.corita.org/) which spurred on my own creative practice and showed me so much more of what could done with how we collaborate. My house is a collaboration with its walls splayed with so much art - perhaps excessive to some, but i love the riotous - there is an art in the simple juxtaposition of all the work we have on our walls - it is a boisterous collaboration. And i only wish that more people made such choices which, i believe, would create so much more demand for the work of artists who desire "encounter" and don't wish to their work "piling up around the studio."
Thanks for all these thoughts, Chris. I've definitely heard of Bread & Puppet but I need t refamiliarize myself with it, so thanks for the links. As a Mass resident who longs to be in Vermont at all times, I may need to do an expedition there soon.
Because my wife and I are both artists and live in a very small house, we've installed "chalk rails" in the living room to hold works in progress and pieces that might be heading to galleries and buyers, or coming back from galleries and friends. It's different every day and it serves our purposes. When we are both working toward delivery dates, the work starts to jostle for position in the living room and that unintentional collaborative juxtaposition kicks in. It's transient for sure, but in the moment there are occasional epiphanies.
I also sympathize with my buyers when what they really want is the quiet presence of one piece on the wall of a particular room that they might look to for a moment of transcendence in the daily grind of their hectic lives. What they bring - in total - to the work, I will never know, so the collaboration is beautifully incomplete as well as impermanent. That gap between is important. What the art means to them is theirs alone. What the art means to me is also mine alone.
oooh, a trip to Bread and Puppet is well worth it. I miss it so. Living in Montreal in the 70s and 80s, Vermont was pretty much our back yard. Toronto, alas, not so much. Once the floods abate, it would be a great trip. Just glanced at yours and your wife's websites. Delightful and beautiful work. I noticed your inclusion of wabi sabi in describing your practice. Big fan. Inward Pull is especially touches me (being a pre-computer-age typographer, i'm curious how you applied the letters). And your wife's tarot series - be still my beating heart!
Ahhhh. Thanks! The letters for Inward Pull were done very low tech with cheap stamps and ink pads. I love it though. When I integrate poetry into my work I love the process of slowing down by stamping one letter at a time. No matter the tedium. And Caroline's Tarot Series. Yes. She's wicked smart!
love the lo-tech. I still have sheets and sheets of letraset from ages past (dry and brittle now, but still some usable fragments). And i love letter stamps. So, yes yes yes, to the slow slow one letter-at-a-time stamping!
As a Vermonter who still attends and loves Bread and Puppet, I have been inspired over the years by the magic of their boundless creativity and the full acceptance of imperfection. Enormous puppets dancing to the sweetest shape note harmonies...it is a place that gives license to all kinds of creativity. Hard to articulate the ways it has changed my life...but it is under my skin.
alas, it's been a long while since i've been able to attend. I was a regular from 1980. I last brought them to Toronto in 2007 which was, as you would know, a memorable event. Your mention of imperfection just made a penny drop. I've been a fan of the Japanese notion of wabi sabi for a long while and just re-read an essay about it last week. I've not thought to look at Bread and Puppet through that lens, as it were. And it fits so beautifully. Attending Bread and Puppet and producing some of their shows in Canada has been life-changing for me - "under my skin" describes it exactly!
Mama to three teenagers, two with significant mental illness. If I let them, my worries leave me bedridden. So instead, I try to let worry remind me I’m not alone - everyone is actually suffering, truly. I am not special, I do not especially suffer.
And then I let the worry prompt me, a mantra: My life is beautiful. My family is beautiful. We are perfect just the way we are. I am so grateful.
I did listen as a child being told “there is something wrong with you” those words lurk in dark corners ready and alert when I am stepping out, taking a risk, doing something I know will be beautiful and true. The closeness of God can be a “light for my path”.
I am sorry those words were weilded against you. May you reclaim your truth.