This phrase caught my eye - the balance we artists create between waking up the masses to the mess that is our current civilization, and the joyous ritual of rejection of that culture in creating our own scared response. To open others' eyes really requires both actions - first to let them know what the problems might be, then to address how to transcend those problems.

Burning man can embody either response, which is why the experience is so different for different people. and I do have a body of work which has attempted to do this - you can see a brief youtube version here - and importantly, this work is showing at the local public library - hoping to education lots of folks who otherwise don't pay attention. (Sorry about the shameless self-promotion, but I do believe in what I am doing with my work, and I think it adds to the dialog.)

-Em http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZPTDqB6xtM

 

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

www.etstudio.net

<p>

This may be one of the strongest calls to arms I have seen in a long time.

</P><p>

Reader from Oregon, thank you so much for asking this question.

</P><p>

Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

</P><p>

Part of the new paradigm, in my opinion, is artists working these issues out in the public space, not in the back of some bourgeois cafe. Really a fantastic excachange with a lot to think about...Specifically, the role of the writer in our society--a question I will never get tired of--but asking it in the form of "what kind of spell does he cast?" really brings it to life for me.

</P><p>

I am undecided on the Road; the fact that someone can make sentences that beautiful clearly has value, the ability to hammer a plot nexus into a blade that sharp is an amazing human achievement, and the fact that our society appreciates it during the authors life time is awesome.

</P><p>

I find it interesting that asking the question ("what kind of spell does he cast?") of Dickens and or of Blake results in very very different answers. In fact, I do not think I could imagine two more dissimilar incanters. However, the awareness that they create is the same. Perhaps the uniqueness of the invocation is not as important as the result?

</P><p>

What I really wanted to comment on was "some other form of social existence that would naturally create different expressive forms." One of the many things I find unique about this time is that the "social existence" that I have seems to be created by the "expressive form" I am in, not the other way around. The creation appears to move from the technology or space to the social group that uses it, not the other way.

</P><p>

The speed with which new expressive forms are emerging seems to have surpassed memes ability to adapt, and the ideas to fill the forms often take a long time to mature.

</P><p>

I think that encouraging their maturity is tricky business. Important obviously. But something that would require a lot of the skills McCarthy clearly has to do well. Trying to force this may have very unpredictable results--which I think what the reader from Oregon is pointing to.

</P><p>

Question romantic notions is great advice. Focus on current causes and conditions is obviously a great idea. But the real goal is to add authenticity to the act of "creat(ing) new forms of complex awareness and adding subtle dimensions to human experience"

</P><p>

Thanks for this Daniel!

</P>

<br>

As Ever, David S

 

I think this is similar to what Emerson wrote when he talked about the poet being the true doctor.

But I have to question the idea that there is ever anything necessary about a state of alarm or that one form of inspired, healing art is truly better than another.

 

For example, Chris Hedges, while brilliant, is also incredibly heady. In this sense his "art" can only reach a very limited audience. I think if we took every single person capable of comprehending and being moved by people like Gurdjev (sp), Steiner, Hedges, and other intelligensia-spiritu-politicians, and gathered them together, we would have perhaps enough people on the entire planet to fill a few football stadiums.

 

The truth is that only 30 percent of Americans have a college education. What I think poetry, the novel, film, theatre, music, and other variations of performing arts have going for them is that they are interactive.

 

While I think we need our Intelligensia-politica of spirit, I also think that we need people who are blasting energy primarily out of their chest, not head. I don't think one is better than the other; I just think we need both.

 

So while Daniel feels like writing the intellectual spirit manifesto for the golden age, I feel like writing something more like poetry or creative non-fiction or fiction, etc. The implication I hear from Daniel's suggestion is that this implies some sort of selfishness, but I think that it's only a matter of personal preference.

 

Some people need a yoga class or a good dance in the rain to lift consciousness towards the "reality" of our situation---far more than an intellectual manifesto or political speech. I think we have to ask ourselves, "what is planetary consciousness?" What can it ever be aside from specific instances of interpersonal relationship?

 

I mean, for the Beat poets we also had the New York School of poetry and painters---a kind of romanticism of the interior landscape, driven by joy and not politics.

 

I think there is a reason that the Beats had substance abuse problems, had serious women problems, etc. When we make a call to arms, we have to ask ourselves where the anger and alarm is coming from. While I totally agree with Daniel about a sense of urgency, I also think that this has to be balanced with a sense of play and also a descending out of the head and into the Heart.

 

I say that, globally, more people would be moved to see change in the world through beautiful poetry, song and dance than they would yet another intellectual manifesto or critique of the ages. The global language of spirit comes from the heart, working in unity with the head.

 

Intellectualism is awesome, but it's a refined product, like coke. That's why it's not a global language. Because it's an expensive product, and it's an elite product.

People generally resent intellectualism not because they don't understand it or are lazy, but because it truly doesn't say anything that unique in comparison to the intuition, the heart, and the senses. And intellectuals usually, because of dependency on intellect as a defense mechanism, think that it is an entirely unique and independent language.

 

So, while I fully support this idea of Daniel's about not writing a novel because he's writing something intellectual or feels like being political, I have to see the benefit of novel writing still, in the midst. There's plenty of resources in vision to address all sorts of needs.

 

Expressing ourselves is awesome! We don't need a political revolution without a revolution of interpersonal relationships. I think personal expression in art, guided by this vision, is just as valid as anything else. And the suppression of that, to me, would be a kind of intellectual-spiritu fascism. "We're responding to radically different conditions,"-----maybe they're not radically different, maybe they're just what they are, and there is nothing at stake at all in the infinite.

 

Maybe we should learn an urgency that fears less of death and pain. I see a healthy balance in your books so far, Daniel---a personal and literary exploration and political commentary synthesis. Adam Elenbaas

What do you guys think of Saul Williams?

Coded Language

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jzY2-GRDiPM

 

It seems like he is onto something.

 

Like Eckhart Tolle tellls us, we like to live in pain. Perhaps if we challenge ourselves to greater vision, we can let that pain body go. I am sitting here looking at my easle with my latest work in progress, an acrylic i themed "crawling hell's halls for You". One half is hell, the other half is beauty, and the heavy canvas veil is in need of removal for greater veiwing. It is up to us to pull that veil with our own "eye".

 Cheers :)

Thanks Adam, that was great.

Daniel - well said, the point about eco-cide is important.

 

Art is maleable and evolving. Often it turns repetitous. Both scenarios can be used to the planet's advantage. Art and creative expression can be great fun, important, vital and so on, but it's worth vastly expanding upon what is generally considered art or expression. Solar panels for example are a great expression of humankind's relationship with the sun and with sustaining life.

Like the species, it may be assumed that art has a limited lifespan.

"I believe that a picture, a work of art, lives and dies just as we do... That is, it lives from the time it's conceived and created, for some fifty or sixty years, it varies, and then the work dies... Art history begins only after the death of the work... In that sense, I believe that the history of art is extremely random... I am convinced that the works on view in museums and those we consider to be exceptional, do not represent the finest achievements in the world... Basically, only the mediocre works created in the past have survived." -Marcel Duchamp

However, yes, music is different. It lives and dies simultaneously, forever. It is in Steiner's words "pure etheric experience". Of course, shamans heal with song and sing worlds into existence. With the arts, new worlds can be sung into view and into inter-action.

When expressions are celebrating and bringing into being new and healthy ways of living, people get excited, they want to help, contribute, build, take part. 

"The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you must seduce the senses to it". -Nietzsche

Now, many are sensing crisis on the planet. On one hand it is not particulaly abstract. It is obvious what is to be done to remedy the situation. Yet, to the intertia and whirlpool of time and history - a sustainable planet is an abstract notion. In other words, to the 'we' of 2007, the picture is clear. But to the concretized ideologies of the ever-present-past, solutions are blurred or obscured.

What may be considered art, now, is that which makes things clear and alive.

 

"...what we need to do is push the art pedal to the floor." -Terence McKenna

Regarding this I've come to feel that it is not about making tons and tons of 'artifacts' but more about turning every act, every expression into art. Where everything is malleable and evolving. Where absurdity and profundity or laughter and fear or life and death exist simultanesouly and harmoniously.

What if it is not so much an "eco-cide" or planetary suicide, but simply time for the planet to die, to regenerate, to shed its skin. What if it is therefore an era to celebrate, to literally call into being, through art and magic, imagery and song, technology and expression, an evolved environment.

In the beginning there was the word. In the end there began the image (the more perfect logos).

The art of now is in imagining, and bringing into being, a clarity and joy able to stretch across and beyond limited lifespans.

This topic is so dense I don’t even know were to begin… First of all, everything we know about art is based in a world that includes time as a factor, but what exactly IS time?

In a recent Ayahuasca trip I was presented with what I perceived to be the world without time. Everything was still here and functional but my internal relationship to it all had changed drastically; there was no feeling of loss or gain. All art relies on these emotions inherent in time. In a world without time there are no opposites, everything becomes one functional organism on an emotional level, and I think this might be where we are headed (who knows).

If time ceases then the raping of the planet will also slow down to a crawl because all of the “pseudo needs” inherent in Western Culture become meaningless and unnecessary. It's almost as if time is the current set of emotions we are given to cope with life. Clocks just provide us with a numbering system that allows us to organizer ourselves, but I don’t think they would become obsolete in a world without time. After this trip a lot of art I used to like lost its meaning. This was both a curse and a blessing, but in the end life goes on and I am having a richer experience with what I now see as art.

What do you think? Is time just a set of emotions? If so then we will need a new word that describes what we are actually measuring when we look at our watch to see how far away lunch is. Does this even make sense?

EDIT:

So I guess to answer the question posed by this article: "What is the mission of art and poetry in a time of accelerating planetary transformation?"

Nothing. There is no mission; art is just what happens naturally when humans have free time. It only means what you make it mean.

To all who are contributing to this important discussion, Upon reading the posts, I was reminded of a myth and lesson related to me by means of a Joseph Campbell book entitled "Myths to live by". I find that this passage provides a very reasonable and helpful perspective on the chaotic dramas unfolding before us all and what the artist's reaction should be. I hope it helps some of you out there as it has helped me.

 In reference to Eastern Philosophies (versus Western Philosophy), Campbell writes: "But to Enjoy this world requires something more than mere good health and good spirits; for this world, as we surely know, is horrendous. "All life", said the Buddha, "Is sorrowful"; and so, indeed, it is. Life consuming life: that is the essence of its being, which is forever a becoming. "The world", said the Buddha, "is an ever-burning fire". And so it is. And that is what one has to affirm, with a yea! a dance!, a knowing, solemn, stately dance of the mystic bliss beyond pain that is at the heart of every mythic rite. 

And so, to conclude, let me recount now a really marvelous Hindu legend to this point, from the infinitely rich mythology of the god Shiva and his glorious world-goddess Parvati. The occasion was of a time when there came before this great divinity an audacious demon who had just overthrown the ruling gods of the world and now came to confront the highest of all with a non-negotioable demand, namely, that the god should hand over his goddess to the demon.
 Well, what Shiva did in reply was simply to open that mystic third eye in the middle of his forehead, and paff! a lightning bolt hit the earth and there was suddenly a second demon, even larger than the first. He was a great lean thing with a lionlike head, hair waving to the quarters of the world, and his nature was sheer hunger. He had been brought into being to eat up the first, and was clearly fit to do so. The first thought: "So what should I do now?" and with a very fortunate decision threw himself upon Shiva's mercy. Now it is a well-known theological rule that when you throw yourself on a god's mercy, the god cannot refuse to protect you; and so Shiva had now to guard and protect the first demon from the second. Which left the second, however, without meat to quell his hunger and in anguish he asked Shiva, "Whom, then, do I eat?" to which the god replied, "Well, let's see: why not eat yourself?" And with that, no sooner said than begun. Commencing with his feet, teeth chopping away, that grim phenomenon came right on up the line, through his own belly, on up through the chest and neck, until all that remained was a face. And the god, thereupon, was enchanted. For here at last was a perfect image of the monsterous thing that is life, which lives on itself. And to that sunlike mask, which was now all that was left of that lionlike vision of hunger, Shiva said, exalting, "I shall call you 'Face of Glory,' Krittimukha, and you shall shine above the doors to all my temples. No one who refuses to honor and worship you will come ever to the knowledge of me."

The obvious lesson of all of which is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and the glory of that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think - and their name is legion - that they know how the universe could have been better that it is, how it would have been had the created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think - as do many - "Let me first correct society, then get around to myself" are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God's peace. All societies are evil, sorroeful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who as not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. That is the meaning of the monsterous Kirttimukha, "Face of Glory," over the entrances to the sanctuaries of the god of yoga, whose bride is the goddess of life. No one can know this god and goddess who will not bow to that mask in reverence and pass humbly through."

Good luck to all in your artistic journeys. 

Thinking and writing and talking about art isn't usually experienced as art. Art appeals to other aspects of human experience than the intellect.

And it's really different things to different people. 4 example, Alex Gray's work doesn't qualify as "art" in someone's personal arts academy. Craft, yes, but not art.

DP wrote:

It may be that certain types of individual artistic ambitions (which I have as well) could be put on hold until we have transmuted the gathering darkness into light.

The transmutation can only be Art.
Magic.
Life!

It can be really hard to put the internal verbal commentary on hold for a while and really experience directly, but only then can Art be grokked to a satisfactory degree of fullness.

Antonin Artaud spent WW2 in a mental hospital, and was released when the war ended. That guy grokked too much ?

The KLF burned £1,000,000 in cash in public.

Paul Addis burned early.

Picasso's Guernica.

Tibetan Tankas.

Passionflowers. Jaguars.Peacocks.Dragonflies.

Art, Life, Magic, Beauty, Grace, Harmony...These exist against all odds, purely a miracle.

The real thing is NOT a simulation!

A recent vision involved shining , luminous dancers and music makers, dancing, light as feathers , among the rubble and discord and colourless ugly and lifeless mess. The dancers were untouched but touching , transmuting the disharmony into a new kind of harmony , in the same way as chaos spontaneously organises into beautiful and meaningful patterns.

Arty blah!

Hi everyone. Thanks for speaking up, I love this discussion. It cuts through. We should not worry when personal visions occur in isolation or paranoia. even when they become popular. our fear of someone's hopeless futurevisions is us focusing our conscious energy on it, in that fearful color. doesnt that give those visions even greater weight in the Mind? if we are determined to be positiveminded, then we must do so even when looking at negativity (subjective) itself: the most personal and darkest paranoid visions of possible futures are the right wakeup call to someone. while positive action yielding progress is a must, while it is primary, the wakeup calls we each seek out, tho secondary, are not less. and the most horrifying vision still feeds our store of matter to be transmuted. i often read for wakeup calls, and i love Dan's writing for it as much as i love Philip K Dick's. i mention these two because good ol Dan P's vision is urgent yet anti-paranoia, while Dick's semi-fictions resound in the psyche at deep levels while often VERY paranoid. this paranoia, suffering via fear and isolation, can be discerned against. Phil Dick opened my head to the concept of 'noosphere' but i also took his paranoia on for awhile -- and im glad i did it. maybe it hindered me somehow, but i am not dead so that does not matter -- that memory of paranoid isolation, imagined into metaphysical extremes, is a rolling force pushing at my back. a hit song expressing personal suffering rallies our hearts in agreement -- so with every word of that song comes the responsibility of the artist to be meticulous with her word choices. but her responsibility is not to make sure that anyone who hears it coms away feeling like everythingll be alright -- her responsibility is merely to say exactly what she is saying, to be as human as she knows how. if a listener will hero-worship and take the artist's romantic yearnings as example to follow, they are at fault BY CHOICE. the artist has not determined anyone's reaction in advance -- they merely created. we all set examples for eachother. what you learn from my example is relative to your position. it is out of my control. Pinchbeck set a great example, calling Streiber out -- but Streiber ALSO sets an example to be learned from -- i think that interview shows just what Streiber's example teaches Dan Pinchbeck. maybe Whitleys example says more of "What NOT to do" -- thats my call, your (Dan) call. the crisis we face is extreme and universal, but suffering will always be a personal experience. it isolates. maybe this seems counterproductive to some, but people do what they have to and no one has to like it. i suffer sometimes, maybe often, and i do not expect a grand positive shift of consciousness to stop that. i do not see how mass compassion to its most extreme will delete suffering. i do not mind because suffering's use is my choice. this reality is full of kinks and bugs in our many heads -- but i know someyous'd see a bug in my program where i'd see my most promising aspect. WE MUST HAVE HOPE, our compassion must be the spine of our futurevisions -- but i think we should not worry when visions occur in paranoia and isolation. p>"eclipse the golden mirror and that reflection is set free"

uhsentchaknees

 (superarbitrary) ore (metarelevant)

 

A tower (owhatowear?) (to where!?)

ov phallusea

o-man, (o-men), o-these

(S)centuries ov s(cent)ries

ov this, sans 3 l-and-e

in-dust, tree-us

in dust, (d)ries us

in-hair-ent t(o) te.ase (eh, a sea?)

we delease (are)RR(our) weedy lease

co(e)llective [co]mp[la{p}se]n.(sie.ze)!

 

(metarelevant) gon (superarbitrary)

 

 

oh this love! nykolas [nicolas] nykolad..

Throughout history artists of every ilk have strived to bring forth an expression of life's experience into matter.

Along the way, whether by intention or not, artists have been teaching the world's people to realize the "artist" within each living soul.

Technology, if its potential is even approached, will soon eliminate the necessity of human function. If we are to perpetuate, it seems humans will have no other role than artist. In one sense this might fulfill an historical quest, but it will also undoubtedly render artistic expression to the mundane.

New, or novel approaches to something resembling what we once knew as "Art" will only be revealed once humans have transitioned into a "non-functional" paradigm.

SMILE!!

'..."we know how to speak many false things as though they were true; but we know, when we will, to utter true things."So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they plucked and gave me a rod, a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing, and breathed into me a divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things there were aforetime; and they bade me sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally, but ever to sing of themselves both first and last....happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from his mouth. For though a man have sorrow and grief in his newly-troubled soul and live in dread because his heart is distressed, yet, when a singer, the servant of the Muses, chants the glorious deeds of men of old and the blessed gods who inhabit Olympus, at once he forgets his heaviness and remembers not his sorrows at all; but the gifts of the goddesses soon turn him away from these.'

 

Hesiod's Theogeny...(circa 700 BC)

 

Hesiod sings that the purposes of art are to connect us to the spiritual (the Gods)...to manifests beauty for its own sake, generating itself from itself... to celebrates life... to links us to origins... to be a prophetic bridge to the future. All this sounds to me like the kind of art that Daniel speaks of.

 

Yet it is 'given'. An artist is empowered to create by something beyond herself. Though what the Muses bring is by definition inspired it can be 'false' as well as 'true'. Connecting creatively to the transpersonal forces can be a tricky business. Their purposes are not ours to own or control. Art arises from realms which are fundamentally 'other', ambiguous and uncontrollable, enlightening and deceptive, life- affirming and deeply destructive.

 

Maybe art is best understood by experiencing it, entering into it, sometimes being intoxicated by it. Art can be psychotropic, even entheogenic. It teaches, translates and transforms, takes us places, introduces us to imaginal beings and we return from the journey somehow changed. But this may may be for good or ill. It's truth is in its authenticity and its openness to any and all experience.

 

'Nothing is true which forces us to exclude' (Camus)

 

 

 

For me art is becoming about shamanic relationships. I no longer read fiction. My childhood view was that it was through the mysterious that I would gain knowledge, and I had a bookshelf of the ‘unexplained’. As a teenager I had somehow lost that grip, and the rational friendship of fiction, the tortured artist, the existential abyss, made me feel that there was more. Later Philip K Dick, Mervin Peake and Kurt Vonnegut reminded me about mystery, imagination and humour. But fiction still became part of my history, and subjectively part of world history. For my children they are at the beginning of that history, and for myself it is over. I am back with my book shelf of the ‘unexplained.’ I now make as much as I can. I sculpt, I make clothes, I make clocks and mirrors and attempt permaculture plots, and in everything I make, I see the same pursuit, which has also been intellectual. We have just had a tidal surge in the UK, travelling down the coast where I live. Exactly a week before hand I had stood on the beach. The conditions of the sea were so unusual that day, that I have never seen that sea- familiar to me- behave in that way. It was so calm that nothing moved and so silent that the seagulls seemed disorientated by their own sound. The colour of the sky and the sea were completely indistinguishable. The sky, and sea, and silence seemed to merge into one shape. But at some point while I was standing there, I thought that I could not imagine how this sea could ever come back to life. I realise now, that this was ‘the calm before the storm’, but it was also an opportunity for me to interact with a truly awesome creative consciousness. I am still learning how to slot myself into those moments, which I now understand form part of the gateways I was seeking as a child. Our environment is seeking friends, not just to save its forests – because we need those too- but it also wants other things from us. I feel that it misses the shamanic co-creators.

There Once was a Tibetan Monk,

Who Simpered on his Toes,

But whence the change would come about,

His Body did not know.

His chant it pealed in honest quest,

Of Nature as his kin,

But lack lustre remained his life,

'til his chakras drew him in....

 

Focus is Resonance...

Total Integration is a Standing Wave Pattern

First, thanks to Adam Elenbaas for a very eloquently written letter to Daniel. As I understand it, most well known authors do not always get such thoughtful and well-written correspondence with love and respect emanating from it, while still voicing concerns about things the author has said or written. Thanks Adam!

On Thu, 11/08/2007 - 16:43, Morgan Maher said: "How you dance is up to you."

This is what I believe is truly missing right now in our world: You. Yes you, the person reading this right now.

First, let me say to those who are not missing from the world (i.e. Daniel, Adam, and others), who contribute often to the world's cultural, social, and political communities: thank you. I appreciate when you voice something I believe. I also appreciate when you voice something that I do not believe, therefore causing me to question why. This is a challenge that brings about consciousness of my choices and why I choose to believe what I believe.

For those of you who restrain your contributions to the world's cultural, social, and political communities, the rest of this text is for you. Many of you are looking for leaders and guidance, waiting to see/experience/hear the next article, book, artwork, or song from people you look up to for inspiration. I think it is wonderful should you find someone who inspires you so.

However I suggest that right now, our society, politics, and culture all could use more individual creative voices that you (the person reading this right now) can fill by expressing yourself.

I agree with Adam about Burning Man, and how (as a newbie to Burning Man) I found little inspiration from others outside of my own camp. The problem is not a lack of creativity or inspiration to be found. The problem is a lack of creativity or inspiration to be created.

If you see a deficit of creativity and voice in your community, fill that gap. If you are seeking inspiration and find none, share who you are with others. They will either give back inspiration, or you will find that you yourself can create inspiration for others.

Giving back to the community is what made my experience at Burning Man so amazing. Even amid so many people who rather than inspiring me, were inspired by me, I found an eternal gratitude for the appreciation people had for my creativity and impact on their lives. I am flattered that so much as one person thought my artwork (a DNA helix hanging from a dome) was worth taking a picture of. I am moved beyond words that people would choose to use sacred space I helped create to be the site of their wedding. Wow!

As for the question of whether to create negative or positive, don't look for answers from anyone but within. I'm not going to tell anyone they should be negative or positive. Deep down, I know I want to see this world raise into a positive force that cleanses the world in light. But at the same time, beings of light do not tell you where to go. They simply open the door, and show you where they've been.

I believe in creating negativity in the world for caution, catharsis, or connection. I do not believe in creating negativity for greed, power, domination, ego, alarmism, fear, or terror. These are two completely different worlds for me.

But even still, I support a fully conscious choice to choose one world or the other. When someone makes a conscious choice about the energy they are creating in the world (whether negative or positive, for healing or greed), it raises the collective awareness of the world so we may know our collective Self and where we stand. Knowing how we will die is the first step to cheating death.

I personally censor my negativity. Often I realize that my "caution" is really ego. Or perhaps my "connection" is really greed. Consciously analyzing one's actions and expressions creates a clearing for authentic communication. The only time I share negativity is for caution, catharsis, and connection, and even then I censor myself so I need only share something that is not being shared already. Those whom I share with I believe need to hear it (for caution or connection) or I believe are able to sustain themselves throughout my venting (for catharsis).

So the moral of my story is simply this: choose consciously. When there is no guidance to be found, choose yourself. Be guidance yourself if you see fit. When someone says, "Be positive," choose yourself to be positive or negative. When you find yourself having negative thoughts, question why and if it is something you wish to continue. Know that you are making a conscious choice. Choose the how, the what, the who, and the consequences of your actions and expressions based on what you know.

Unlike so many of my friends, I am not out to make the world a happier or healthier place. I am simply out to make you a little more conscientious of your actions (or lack thereof) and, more importantly, how you express yourself. Choose consciously.

Even if I have never met you or don't even know of your existence, know that I am a stand for your most authentic expression. Express yourself consciously.

Daniel, I agree that we all as citizens-poets, visual artists, shopkeepers, parents, and politicians-must "break open our heads". We now move beyond self-expression into activism for a singular goal.

I agree with Daniel. Our artistic medium, our spiritual path, our actions - we must enjoy all of them. But also, we must carry them out with a circumspective understanding of their probable effect. Hedonism defers to altruism; artistic joy defers to compassionate intention.

 

I wanted to be a philosopher. I have some good ideas. I strung them together like beads along an unrefined, but well-connected mental narrative. I've always wanted to make those ideas the basis for a philosophy masters degree. As I age, the ideas of those unborn essays make more and more sense and seem increasingly worthwhile.

 

Despite all that, the ideas become irrelevant when juxtaposed with the desperate circumstances incurred by our changing climate and the accompanying deadly political brinkmanship. Now I want to become a better speaker, and I want to know more and more about the truth: that hard-to-swallow, non-mainstream, but nonetheless well-documented and ultimately irrefutable truth. I want to use my ability to organize ideas to help me speak loudly and incisively about the formidable obstacles to collective awakening - and how to remove those obstacles.

 

My toastmasters club is going to shit their pants next time I stand in front of them and talk.

 

I am frustrated at how long its taking me to become the person I need to become to take the kind of action I want to take. But I'm growing. Now when I make choices my id and ego take a backseat to my super-ego.

 

Daniel, I think any conscious steering of our will has to be carefully considered. I cannot act if I don't know the right action; so the pondering and reflecting part of this awakening is important and may take time. Furthermore, to some extent, an artist must relinquish control to a divine will. Would Quetzalcoatl have spoken to you if you had never set foot in Gabon because you judged your motives to be selfish when set against the big picture? Be patient with the sluggish pace of social change and keep positive. I think people will find their calling, and formulate plans that suit their skills. Sound ideas presented calmly and powerfully are the clappers in the bells of social change.

 

I must learn my art, I must clean my soul, and I must learn to face adversity courageously. I might be a retail salesman, I might only write because I need money, but I am finding my muse, my monk, my warrior. And with perserverance, humility, and self-mastery goddammit I will make my difference - large or small.

 

Great thread

- bhj

What a great topic. What great posts. Good for the poet for asking. I'll bet he's got something powerful fermenting in his head already and he doesn't know it, that's maybe what moved him to write? & D.P.'s answer was thoughtful and wise, too. It's a complicated matter... The folks who mentioned myth are on to something. The collective unconscious is wiser than we are and that's where all true art comes from, anyway. That's the only reason artists can be antennae of a culture - because they are sensitive enough to tune into that big field. You can't always choose what comes to you, but you sure can choose not to be a voicebox for the voices of death. In Navajo culture, Hataałii are singers and they are medicine men too. Music and poetry are not compartmentalized; houses are sung into being, babies are sung into the world. This problem with dead art or crippled art is so multifaceted - not only has the connection between art and everyday life eroded but our culture is so skiwampus right now it twists up our ability to respond to art in a life-affirming way. If we weren't in such bad shape maybe McCarthy's book would show us our shadows and we'd know we didn't want to go down The Road he's describing. Instead, it's feeding this mania for apocalypse that seems to have been just waiting to take root & take over. I don't think our lonely little human heads by themselves are enough ... all comes down to community and collaboration, both with other people and with that murky underworld of the collective unconscious. We have to just let go of the shore and get busy. There's no way to rationlize our way to finding what art to make, we've just got to get to making it and it will start finding its form, I think. (Apologies for all the Jungian jargon in this post ... I don't have better terms at hand!)

Maybe it's just a question of keeping Faith in the face of such seemingly hopeless circumstances? Which is not to say complacency is an option. Darwinian natural selection is famously cruel when it comes to eliminating passivity. The message I take away from McCarthy's "The Road" is exactly compassion, at all cost, against all odds, in the face of utter devastation.

I have faith that such extensive ruin is utterly unnecessary. But only if we seize every opportunity for compassion possible. This is the stand I'm taking.

I am a photographer. Although I question the legitimacy of what I'm doing constantly, and keep my mind as open as I can to more effective, sustainable ways of being in the world, nothing else -as of yet- offers me such a potent means of discovering and bearing witness to the wonder and beauty of life as it is. Faced with amazement, I am inspired to love and care for life and to try to communicate that sustaining sense of wonder.

www.philipheying.com

The community of RealitySandwich is an enjoyable inspiring place to share these concerns. Cheers and luck to all.