~ we have it all already ~
There are flowers in the desert that we didn't know existed. They just need water.
I've been wondering why Meditation has resonated with me so strongly, and I realised last night that it because I've already had some of these thoughts - in relation to making and teaching sculpture.
The main focus of my teaching has always been on bringing out what's naturally there. We don't have to be experienced Sculptors/Artists to make expressive work, complete beginners can have as good an idea and create as strong an image as any experienced sculptor.
I'm an untrained sculptor (as are many) so I had to think my own way through the whole thing. When I began to teach I thought back to how I felt when I started: what the intention was, the focus, the drive. I remembered the fear of being useless and the exhilaration of expression. I recalled what it was that I needed then - and now, for my Classes/Courses, that's what I provide.
The act of creating/expressing comes from so deep within, hard to know from where, but its palpable.
Reading the wonderful book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle has just joined up the dots for me.
As with Meditation, when we're creating, we need to let go, stop thinking, start contacting our deeper selves: the source.
We need to free ourselves from our judgmental minds, from a fear of failure, from a definition of what's "good", from the so-called "conscious" world we spend our lives in. (Conscious? I don't think so)
We need to slow down, wake up, close our eyes to open them again.
And in Art we need to stop looking for something-to-say. All that's needed its that we start listening to our deeper selves.
"I have known it all already..."
(Thank you again, TS Elliot)
Look for Nothing, and you'll find Everything.
"Form is emptiness, Emptiness is form"
(From The Heart Sutra - one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts)
To paraphrase some of what Tolle says: We need to reclaim consciousness from the mind, freeing vast amounts that have been trapped in useless and compulsive thinking.
We need to free ourselves from fear of failure, the constant tormentor that entraps us in the illusion of who we think we are - "this ephemeral and vulnerable form"
We are massive. And its from this that we create.
To quote Tolle directly:
"Every physical object or body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing and will eventually return to nothing. Not only that but even inside every physical body there is more "Nothing" than "Something". Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100% empty space. - so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note".
Nothing and Silence and being present in the Now is the portal to our source - our Being, from which we connect with all creativity in the universe. There is nothing to understand, nothing to learn, certainly nothing one can do a Ph.D. in. If we try to understand it, we'll miss it... All we have to do is be present in the Now.
So, couldn't be easier then! (erchum ... takes a while I understand, but the road's a straight one and we've only got to put one foot in front of the other)
"... Here, Now, Always.
A condition of complete simplicity
Costing not less than everything".
(Elliot where would we be without you?)
~ ~ ~
For more info on the way I teach and the courses I run go to http://www.katenewlyn.com/
