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Showing posts from April, 2018

Art and Practice as Anxiety

Anxiety. Even the word itself can throw some people into panic mode. As artists, we are used to living on the edge where anxiety also lives. But we have a choice, a choice to invite anxiety in, or to let it go.
I was recently reading something from a musician who was hired for a big time gig alongside many musicians they had always looked up to. Their first thought was not, “This is great,” but, “What am I doing here?” This is a typical response when we let anxiety take over.
What am I doing here?
It's so easy to get hung up on this. But the important thing to look at is that someone thought you belonged there and hired you. Now you have a choice: to accept that you belong there, or not. Everyone belongs somewhere, so why not here, why not in this particular situation? Everyone has something unique to offer. Why can't your uniqueness be enough?
Ah, but anxiety taps you on the shoulder and whispers in your ear, “You don't belong here.” The first thing to learn is that anx…

Art and Practice as Potential

April 23, 2018 

Photo by ACI Limited Potential. We all have it. We are all born with it. But as artists, we tend to cultivate it more than others. For what is our yet to be produced work, but potential.
The key to using our potential is to invite it in, to make friends with it. Too often we become frightened of the what if and chase it away.
What if I was successful? What if I was creative? What if I was open to my own inner thoughts and imagination?
What if we made potential a daily part of our practice? Potential is the seed of creation that we plant in the fertile ground of our minds. But like an actual seed, it needs to be tended, nurtured, in order to bear fruit.
As part of our daily practice, we should meditate each morning on our potential for the day. Think about what we are going to work on and where we are going to take it. Keep it in our minds, water it with our thoughts, nourish it with work throughout the day. Try this fo…

Art and Practice of Experience

April 16, 2018 

—Sharon Salzberg, “Mindfulness and Difficult Emotions”

Art and Practice as Grasping

- Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Sonets To Orpheus

It's important to realize that this grasping is driven by fear. Once we realize that, we can move past it. Re…

Art and Practice as Symbol
 Symbols. As long as man has been around he has been fascinated with symbols. Early cave drawing are often full of them. Indeed, priests, medicine men, shamen, and others have spoken through symbols throughout history. The alchemists, magi, and philosophers were all about symbols and their meanings. They searched for the connections between all things, both the seen, and the unseen.
A symbol can never be fully interpreted. It can only be experienced.P. D. Ouspensky (1878-1947), The One And The Many (PARABOLA magazine, Fall 1999)
P. D. Ouspensky
“The study of symbols, their construction and meaning, formed a very important part of the preparation of receiving objective knowledge and it was in itself a test because a literal or formal understanding of symbols at once made it impossible to receive any further knowledge…” Ibid

The Ritual of Symbols

Spiritual practice is often full of symbols and symbolism. Whatever art you do is most likely full of symbols. For myself, the Gong is very symbolic…