The Creative Vortex

Creative spiral?  Creative vortex!  Today I feel as if my brain was going down the plughole.  Sitting at the screen for hours, working out what I really want to say.  Writing the first draft was the easy bit:  this is obviously the equivalent of teenage years for my book.  It refuses to do what I want, and seems to have a mind of its own.  But at times I am stunned by the sheer fluency of what I have written, the beauty of the similes and brilliance of the metaphors employed.  Can I really have produced this?  Perhaps, as Robert Graves might say, it is the Mythic speaking through me.... The really appropriate metaphor for my mind is one of those coin whirlers that collect money for charity:  everything is spiralling round and around , but hopefully soon the penny will drop! 

The Creative Spiral (The Artists's Way)

In her book 'The Artist's Way', Julia Cameron talks about the 'creative spiral' in which we may return to a task with new tools and inspiration.  Living is a constant act of creation and re-creation:  we circle some of the same issues over and over, each time at a different level.  Like climbing a mountain, the important thing is not to head straight for the top, but to set off along the best path.  She also talks about the dangers of 'perfectionism' which can be used as an excuse for procrastination. Perfectionism is not really aobut getting things right.  We may like to think that we have high standards, but really we are putting off the day when we have to move on.  A work of art - a painting or a book - is never really finished, but after a certain point you must let it be.
'Life Script' is currently in it third chrysallis incarnation.  My original book was a fairly academic little monograph on myth and archetype.  A wonderful woman called Wendy Lazear pointed out to me how it could be turned into something much more.  The second version was much more practical, but still read rather like a text book.  I had to take three months away from it before I could see the changes that needed to be made. A few days after I had made the decision to revise again, I got a letter from a trusted source telling me exactly the same thing.  Synchronicity in action!  So now, it is being restructured and polished to make it more accessible: a handbook for living, which was what I had always wanted to write.
So this will be the final version. Good luck with your own artistic journey.  And I hope you like my book!

Epiphany: Three Kings Day - Gold, Myrrh & Frankincense

Epiphany:  Three Kings Day.  This is when the Christmas crib scene is completed:  the magi arrive, bearing gifts.  Rather than kings, they were actually astronomers and alchemists, concerned with the spiritual realm.  The gift of  gold symbolized their hope that the newborn infant would be a king; the myrrh, that he would be a healer; and the frankincense, that he would be a priest.  In other words, the Messiah would have domination over the mind, body and spirit.   Legend tells that Joseph used the gold to pay the innkeeper;  the myrrh, a pungent ointment, he rubbed on the infant's chest; and the frankincense he burned to drive smells out of the stable. 
There is a beautiful poem by TS Eliot entitled 'Journey of the Magi':
"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbert...."
The journey of the three wise men is a spiritual path: such ways are never easy, and we may miss the life we left behind. Eliot's poem has a bitter taste.  But somewhere on the road is an epiphany, a moment of realization and enlightenment, which gives meaning to the journey of life.  

New Year, New Decade

New Year, New Decade!  What are your new year's resolutions?  Not the ambitious ones you announce, slightly tipsy, when someone asks you at a party on the big night; nor the virtuous ones you make, feeling slightly wistful, when the next day dawns and finds life much the same  as it was before (which we all know it will be, but still can't help hoping otherwise, just in case...) No, the resolutions that matter are the groundswell ones that creep into your conscious from below, that you find lounging in your mind like intruders because you had no idea you felt that way, the things you recognize as inevitable and undeniable but had never thought you could do anything about.  And actually you can, and this is the time to do it and from that small change everything will be different.  And having acknowledged this you feel scared and a little reluctant, because there is always a sense of loss lurking beneath the excitement of new possibilities but all it takes is one tiny change and then the momentum of events will lead you on.  And you know it is the right decision because once you have made it, it feels utterly right.