Hello friends,
Did you read that thing about how nothing is real any more and we are all living in a collapsed time vortex hell-realm of AI bots responding to other AI bots while the our minds slide off the plate into a slush fund of attention which feeds angry internet billionaires who aren’t even real humans? And did you see those AI generated videos which mean we definitely can not believe our own eyes when we look at screens anymore? I did.
And it got me thinking about what is real and what is the meaning of my life and also what is post-traumatic growth when it is coming home for dinner, and is it really the end of the world or is it just the end of colonial patriarchy and I should really do something about that apple core that has been sitting on my desk for three days and also probably quit my job of being liked and become a better ally starting yesterday.
The mind is a busy beast isn’t it? It has more to say e.g. People who are born deaf but recover hearing later in life are often surprised that the sun does not make a sound. Rattlesnake. Ambush. I am surprised that the human mind is inaudible like the sun. The mind of a spider lives in its web. When the web breaks, the spider acts as if it has had a stroke. My mind inhabits… (well that’s a secret).
See all those words up there? I know there is a poem arriving somewhere in them. Soon I will return to those words, find the poem, and sharpen it like a pencil.
Will is a word that I like. It is not something that I simply hope for, pray for, or dream of. No, it means that use the agency that I have to make it happen. I will make the time to find the poem in those words. It’s important to me.
When I show up for my poems consistently, the poems start to feel more safe with me. They trust that if they have something to say, I will be an ear that will listen and help them to find a way into form.
The tender fragments, the softest cues make their way to me in the dark. ‘I don’t know who I am becoming!’ they tell me. ‘Am I brilliant? Am I a monster?’ I tell them I don’t know either, but I’ll stay with them while we find out.
There are awkward, jangly lines lingering on the edge of my consciousness who are sure they don’t belong. I am not sure about them either. But when I come back day after day, week after week, we get used to each other. Eventually we are brave enough to look each other in the eye.
So much of being an artist is about practicing being a safe enough space for the art to arrive. It’s about learning not to judge the creative impulses prematurely, or shut them out entirely.
We can develop a secure attachment bond with our own creative power. This is something we are born with, but it is a relationship that often gets interrupted.
When we bring our intention, our will, to repairing and strengthening this relationship, that’s when the magic happens.
With love,
Rata
P.S. What conversations do you have (or not) with your art? Reply/comment and tell me. I always love to hear from you.
P.P.S. Any last people wanting to join Path of the Poetic Heart? This is a 10 week online course to make the space and get the support to write the poetry you want to write. WE START NEXT WEEK!!!
"So much of being an artist is about practicing being a safe enough space for the art to arrive." This, absolutely.