Methods of Re-Creation - Part II
Meditation, Reading Fiction, Meditative Living
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Methods of Re-Creation (Part II)
We’ve been exploring ideas regarding inspiring your Muse. We normally think of a Muse as a force, or being, or a part of our subconscious that delivers inspiration from the Mystery to us. But it’s not a one-way flow from Muse to Artist. You are in a relationship with your Muse and your job is to inspire each other. If you find that your creative wellspring has run dry, that you can no longer hear the Muse’s whisper, and that you can no longer bring forth ideas from the Mystery, you may have been neglecting to properly nourish your Muse.
This series is exploring ways to to just that - to re-create your Muse and yourself so she will, once again, grace your studio, writing desk, or dance space and start inspiring you.
We started our exploration into The Muse a few weeks ago. And, for the next few weeks, I’ll outline ways that I’ve been able to bring my Muse, along with joy back into my life.
If you missed any of the previous articles you can catch up by clicking the article name below:
Methods of Re-Creation - Part I
(Journaling, Nature, Creative Play)
On to today’s post:
Meditation
Meditation, what can I say about meditation? Meditation is the primary undertaking that brought me back creatively, as well as opened a path to renewed joy. Meditation opened a crack in the dark shell that had encased my soul. Meditation opened the “eye within the I” inside of me.
Mediation is a a kind of workout for your mind that also, when you do it long enough, brings creative and spiritual rewards. Meditation is refreshing. Meditation, I have come to believe, when one experiences meditative joy, processes and destroys the negativity and trauma that we experience on a day to day basis and allows that negativity to dissipate and be released from our bodies. That is why when people start meditating, things often seem to get worse before they get better — all the stored negativity starts coming out in big chunks. But eventually, it gets better and then meditating daily “clears out” the little bit of negativity we build up each day.
Think of it this way: Sleep restores your body's ability to function physically. Similarly, meditation restores your soul’s ability to function creatively. Meditation may seem like a "waste of time," but, if you want to be creative, it is a necessary “waste of time,” just as sleep in a necessary “waste” of time if you want to function at your peak physical or mental capability.
Meditation, however, takes time. So, even though I emphasize devotion over discipline, meditation does require discipline in the beginning. You have to commit to many weeks to even months (I committed to an hour a day for 90 days when I started). Meditation feels weird and boring at first, but, once you do it regularly for a few weeks, things start to change and amazing experiences appear. I was quite fortunate to experience a very intense spiritual experience extremely early in my meditative journey (and more intense than most I’ve had since). That experience hooked me, but the process does take time. Meditation is the slowest of these techniques for re-creation, but, in my opinion, it is also the most powerful.
I highly recommend meditating, but I also recommend combining it with other techniques I’m listing here. Don’t limit yourself to just one! One easy and powerful technique is to meditate outside - that’s a great way to both meditate and connect with (and notice) the sublime qualities of nature.
Reading Fiction
There are few things in life as luxurious and as fulfilling as a lazy Sunday spent reading a great book, and I recently indulged myself by reading Moby Dick, which, amazingly, I had never read. I think we underrate the power of fiction, and especially classic fiction in the modern world.
We've become a rational, nihilistic, free-market society driven (mostly) by commercial interests. These interests will, if we're not careful, eat up everything in sight. Commerce will even eat up our souls if we allow them inside of us by giving them too much of our sacred attention – if we pay attention to them. If there is an almighty dollar to be made, then someone will try to make it.
Reading has been reduced (for most who still read) to reading non-fiction to become “more productive.” People want to be more efficient. However, The Artists — us — we are the alchemists of the modern world. We don’t need to be more efficient. We need to be more effective; more effective at creativity. The Muse becomes creative in proportion to the creative nutrition contained in the ideas you feed her — and those ideas are not found in “how to” books - they are found in magical worlds of fantasy, in future civilizations, in mysteries, in horror stories, and in love stories. Those nourishing ideas are found in the “lies” of fiction which, often, are the places we find the deepest truths. Those ideas are found in books — real books — fiction.
Fiction seeds our mind palace — a place where Muses visit, and sometimes live.
The realm of my mind palace is a chapel of creativity. Ceilings have been painted by elven Michaelangelos, hidden doors lead to hidden passages containing the wondrous treasure of adventure into secret places unknown. Old maps, orreries, and astrological timepieces live side by side with computer screens, and technological marvels as yet un-invented. My holographic and android companions have befriended dwarven acquaintances. We have, together, delved deep into the earth seeking riches beyond mithril and have escaped via wormholes to galaxies that existed a long time ago and far, far away.
Everyone must build their own mind palace – a place where they can retreat into magical solitude – at least everyone who wishes to remain sane, for where else can you turn if you truly wish to see alchemy work and desire for the mundane to become the magical? The only way to share part of one's mind palace with another is Art. And one major way to truly seed your mind palace is by reading great fiction.
Self-Awareness and Meditative Living
Meditation helps with self awareness. Awareness is another word for consciousness and consciousness is another word for your true self, your essence, what I’ve been calling The Sovereign Artist Within.
Meditative living, on the other hand, is an attempt to be meditative in all daily acts. It is more difficult, in the beginning, than regular sitting meditation, but it gets easier over time.
When referring to this idea, some people use the term “mindful.” But that is a misnomer to me. Your mind is what gets in the way of meditative states, with its incessant thinking, and yammering and worrying. You don’t want peace of mind, you want peace from mind.
Being “mindful” is all the rage these days. And while people who use the term ‘mindful’ are referring to what I’m calling “meditative living,” I feel that “Mind full” goes the wrong direction.
What you’re going for is “mind empty” and “soul full.”
Soulful.
Live Soulfully, not mindfully. Zen isn’t thinking about God while washing the dishes. Zen is turning the act of washing the dishes into worship, by giving the present act the full attention of your soul.
In a meditative life, you go through tasks observing and noticing but not “thinking” on a logical level. In other words, the internal narrative stops and you become fully present.
I keep telling my wife that I want to do the dishes each night because I actually enjoy it now! She thinks I’m joking. But (when I’m living soulfully), the feel of the water, the reflecting light off the dishes, and the drops of water bouncing off the dishes! The experience is amazing! She still thinks I’m full of it. And I am! I’m full of something called consciousness (but she thinks it’s something else!, lol).
In any case, when in a meditative state like this, everything is okay and there’s nothing to worry about, life simply flows easily. You feel the flow of the current — the current moment. It is being “in the zone” not just when creating, but when doing everything and, through the alchemy of meditative living, every act becomes an act of creation. In fact, it is in these states, and often when washing dishes that I have my most creative ideas!
This piece is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, The Sovereign Artist.
Inside of each of us lies a divine force - The Sovereign Artist within - a remarkable force to bring joy, peace, creativity and love back into our lives. This approach to the creative process saved me, and it can save you too, perhaps it can save us all. Connecting with The Sovereign Artist manifests as an explosion of creativity, peace, and quiet inner joy. It transforms the artist into a reflection of itself - sovereign, free, joyful and loving. If that is of interest, please click the button below to join the book’s waitlist.
Creatively,
Clintavo
Sum Ergo Creo
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Wonderful stuff. And it pairs well with Ray Bradbury's sublime advice in his essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse," which is collected in his equally sublime book ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING. https://raybradbury.ru/stuff/zen_in_the_art_of_writing.pdf