When you start on a long journey, trees are trees, water is water, and mountains are mountains. After you have gone some distance, trees are no longer trees, water no longer water, mountains no longer mountains. But after you have travelled a great distance, trees are once again trees, water is once again water,mountains are once again mountains.
-Zen teaching
Making art depends on noticing things–things about yourself, about others, about your subject matter, about the world around you.
The paradox is that to notice things, we must first free ourselves through making things. The release of making work and moving the body, polishes the lens of our hearts and minds so that we are available to see. See ourselves and see the world around us.
In the case of 21.5.800, we are making things with our bodies and with our writing. We are giving form to what’s inside of us in the writing of 800 words, and we are making forms with our bodies whether we are going to yoga class, or taking savasana.
There is a freeing-up that is happening because we are releasing out what we have previously kept inside. The burden of procrastination and fear and isolation is lessening over these 21 days.
Have you noticed you have become more available to yourself and others?
Are you seeing things that previously you would not have noticed because you had your head down with all that was on your mind and with your heavy load?
There’s really nothing worse than not moving and not making art. Especially when those are two things you really want to do.
That’s part of what’s happening for me. I’m noticing things on a deep level. Noticing things in myself and in others.
We become separated from ourselves in big and small ways. Sometimes we wake up and think, “How did I get here?”
We no longer recognize the trees and water and mountains around us. Things feel odd in the new land of living more fully in our truth.
Sometimes our perception of the world flows smoothly and continuously from one state to the next, and sometimes it flips over unexpectedly (an irrevocably) into a different configuration entirely.
The one constant can be our writing and our yoga. We set our anchor there.
These shifts and leaps affect the way we engage the world around us.
For the artist, shifts are a central mechanism of change. The artist thrives on change. It fuels the work. And often, because we avoid and repress for so long, the shift can come at lightening speed.
But this is the task of art–to connect and merge apparently opposite things and reveal the indistinguishable interconnectedness of those apparent opposites.
A reconciliation if you will. Never reductive, never sentimental, but complex, heartbreaking, and always profoundly recognizable in it’s truthful resonance of human experience.
And mostly, we go along for the ride. The glorious ride of unfolding who we are and offering that out to the world.
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{ 7 comments }
I think the reason this project has been so restorative for me is because I’ve been able to remind myself of something so important that I’d forgotten:
Writing & Art are not just things I need to do for others, for public consumption. Rather, it’s a place I can go to retreat, to renew, to process the world and my experiences. It IS an anchor, a resting place, just as much as it is the ship and the mode of expression.
“Have you noticed you have become more available to yourself and others?”
Yes. I feel my capacity expanding. I feel “more”. More patient, more happy, more determined, more confident, more whole, more compassionate, more interested, more open….
This is a “crux” kind of day…one that I’ve dreaded for weeks. I’ve got kids changing states, kids facing stress, a milestone of my own, lots happening. I feel undeniably calm, content, and at peace. I didn’t expect that. I know it’s because of the journey we’ve been walking this month and how I”m being transformed. Somehow everything is getting done, what is not ceases to matter, things are falling into place. I”m serene.
That I can say the last line in truth is it’s very own miracle.
I’m going to think more about this “create/art/life” concept. They are linked.
.-= Tia´s last blog ..Turtles Have Feelings Too. =-.
I see that in reading other’s writings. I can bury myself in reading blog posts, but after a while (days usually) I am less able to focus, less moved, less motivated or inspired until I create again – whether writing, photography, or some other outlet.
Sometimes inspiration comes from without, sometimes from within.
.-= Carlos Velez´s last blog ..Artists at Heart, In Soul, and Out of our Minds =-.
“Have you noticed you have become more available to yourself and others?”
most definitely. before having my children i practiced yoga daily and had an incredible sense of my own power. in the years since i have still practiced yoga but never with as much consistency as i once did. i am happy to be returning to that unique place of personal well-being.
the writing is a given. i always write.
.-= denicekimberly´s last blog ..today i am grateful for… =-.
Reading your words today lulls me so sweetly into the possibilities which the weekend holds. Creativity and yoga!! Blessed. Thank you.
.-= emma´s last blog ..The Bench =-.
Well said, Bindu. Well said.
I hit a wall and thinking it was one thing…found it was another…almost opposite thing…conflicting with each other. Phew. And how not simple and simple can knot right there together.
I must say, things are shaking loose for me, in unexpected ways. This can be exhausting. And I haven’t made the rounds as much as I would like but I cannot tell you how much I am devoted to this practice. What a combination. A conscious intentional combination of writing and yoga to add to studio practice
Now my neck needs to be unkinked about a gazillion degrees.. Sheesh.. who knew?.
But I wanted to let you know. How much I am delighted , puzzled, intrigued and grateful to be a part of #215800.
Yes, this from a painter.
xo
.-= Janice Cartier´s last blog ..Barriers and Islands =-.
“There is a freeing-up that is happening because we are releasing out what we have previously kept inside. The burden of procrastination and fear and isolation is lessening over these 21 days.” Yes!!
I absolutely love the idea that I’m not in it alone. I can feel everyone’s energy moving, creating… And that is so contagious and grounding too. It has unleashed a certain kind of ease and flow that I hope to hold onto or at least know how to get back to, when/if it starts to dissipate again.