Monika's weekly inner voice drawings:
Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: Hoof beats of creative exploration ....
"What is Art? It is the response of man's creative soul to the call of the Real."
- Rabindranath Tagore
- Rabindranath Tagore
Posts
Who is this..."Clifford, commentator to the stars"? Are you outsourcing your caption writing to People magazine? That's way too much verbal information...how about just "Hoof 'N Plenty"? The creativity is implied, as is the womb (unless it's none of those things, of course). Everybody seems happy, so maybe they're going to a movie. The rocky stubble concerns me, though....
ReplyDeleteI changed it.I am curious to see other people's interpretation.
ReplyDeleteThe rocky stubble just shows that there are bumps on the road to creative expression :)
Monika, I see you are adding a new hue to your view :) This is another remarkable drawing in its integrality of expression and conveyance. For me, this drawing reminds me of my recent meditation circle “impressions,” in which I wrote,
ReplyDeleteConsciousness has three parts---
Perceiver, perceived, and wholeness.
All seeds and mental formations
Are the same. --Vasubandhu
Looking into the rain, we see the sun, the seed, the clouds. Looking into our bodies, we see each other and the whole universe. Looking deeply into the breath, we understand all things.
The quote is from the Buddhist teacher, Vasubandhu’s `20 Verses on Consciousness.’ This drawing is the seed, all things contained within it, and all things emerging from it. And so, creativity is this: not a specific thing but a co-arising of many things sparking the e-motion, the “volitional motioning””-- what I call intention or desire—into the dance or “hoof beats” of life. The larger background green womb enclosing the smaller brown womb contains the confident upright rabbit and the humble fox, who is covered and cloaked with the weighted egoistic “stubble” of dukkha (dis-ease)—the red cape-like headcover is perhaps still some conceit or arrogance or pride (if I were that fox!) as evidenced by the eyes looking vigilantly into the past (behind him).
But, this is the creative: participating in the interconnectedness and thus inclusiveness of all that life is in its joy, suffering, and struggles. I think the creative is that attitude that embraces what life is, as it is, with the wisdom of knowing that what is is only what is at this moment; and what follows in subsequent moments is the harp and hoof-beat (warp and woof :) that we playfully, soulfully, create in the faith, knowing, joy, compassion, and love of who and that we are.
I think one's failure to understand creativity comes from the same misunderstanding of any kind of knowledge or knowing; knowledge of the world, knowledge of self, self knowing, etc. And that misunderstanding engenders the tendency of partial or even isolated views of things. Even the word "thing" is terrible because it gives the impression of a disconnected, isolated existence. And so, creativity is a complex field of many related and dependent parts of expression "in conjunction with," including intention and perception, conceptualizing, one's emotional field, etc. That's why when we see an inner voice drawing, write or hear a poem, listen to music, dance, or meditate, the inter-being of things-- as Thay likes to call it-- just intuitively comes together (IS FELT) as a relative whole or completion. Kristine's "circle of life" is right on in this sense and harkens to Buddhist philosophy's notion of 12 limbs that describe human functioning "in conjunction with" the world. The idea of "samsara" as the "wheel of suffering" is misleading to me because suffering is only a part of the narrative; it is the creative literal transforming!! of suffering, like the alchemist, that speaks to the real nature of samsara. Samsara means "potential" and that's what the creative is: the ever-transforming energic seeding of called life emerging, abiding, and ceasing in a hoof-beat of drum.
ReplyDeleteWOW, you are writing up a storm - the "seed of awareness" is sprouting in a waterfall of great observations :) It's such fun to read the different comments (here & on FACEBOOK) and to see, how the drawing acts as a trigger for our different perceptions. We all saw, in this particular drawing, the spring-like quality of growth (natural, artistic, emotional) and then added the vivid colors of our personal culture to the equation.
ReplyDeleteI like your definition of creativity as "a complex field of many related and dependent parts of expression "in conjunction with,...".
Let's keep connecting our "inner voice drawing to our emotional life" and let our emotional life flow into an inner voice drawing :)