There are many of us. We are interconnected through our dedication to whatever creative pursuit we engage in. In locations all over the world, and with heart and inspiration, we focus on the sustaining work that uses our full capacities. I think of us all as working separately together in an invisible creative monastery. I like to imagine that some noble purpose is synchronized through our actions. Daily, weekly, or when moved to do so, so many human beings are involved in some sort of unfolding of the implicate, surfacing the unseen or unconscious, bringing to light glimmering clues that announce themselves subtly, a call to follow. Taking this route leaves worldly considerations aside, going into the cave or shed or hut or studio, and just allowing that opening out.
Sweet soul, thank you for sharing the creative, individual monastic concept of connection through creative space. I am quilting and thinking about drawing railroad lines, linking spaces and love and potential. My pens haven't yet touched paper, still in an imagining phase.
Just went back and saw this. Can you direct me to how I can read your book "Attars"? Here, in my little office where I can see the woods and the houses of neighbors, I often have the same sense you describe here so well. I recently went to see the monastery at Montserrah in Spain. There the monks have perched above the monestary in an assortment of limestone caves that riddle the curiously peaked and ragged hill looming over the buildings. If I could attach a photo of a seventeenth century painting of the place that I saw in the museum there, I would love to show you. It looks like something directly out of Tibet. At any rate, your energy and your words give life to my heart. The light, the vibration, flowing from cell to cell, cave to cave, is more real than the electric current that lights our rooms at night.
Personally, I'm working to build connections and community in non-local spaces.
Perhaps consider the internet as the nervous system of humanity, and in it's infancy,
like the first neural systems some primitive fish that had just few dozen neurons connected and firing to control some minor movements.
The nervous system was not the fish, and the internet is not humanity.
But it (and we) can evolve to higher forms, like the fishes that crawled to land and slowly spawned all the later terrestrial animals.
Billions of humans can now be in communication with each other, and like primitive neurons fire away, sometimes forward, sometimes backward, sometimes just random spasms.
Can my tiny spasmodic firings build a neural net of self-empowered meditators?
I don't know, but I hope so, and work towards this most ever day.
I know very few things for sure,
but I'm pretty sure evolution isn't over yet.
I think writers and quilters and potters and painters are nudging humanity towards ever greater connection.
I'd explain my creative monastery this way: I actually don't recall my writing because I enter what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow" (a word so overused now). He was my mentor when I was sent by my corporate job to U of Chicago's management school before I was promoted—and before I had the courage to move on to the work that had been calling me. I remain indebted to Csikszentmihalyi and all the other professors in the program who corralled me into a meeting to tell me I had the artist's persona. I may write about this experience soon and how it changed my life. Glad to have found you, Carol Sill.
Carol, I am catching up with your Amuse-bouche delights. I do love your "creatively monastic" description. I resonate. I am sitting by my Christmas tree this morning, in our home on Vancouver Island, connecting to you, on Saltspring. Good Morning, sister of words and messages. Continue to weave your magic.
Love "Creative Monastery". Makes me want to leave the Big Island for Salt Spring!
Sweet soul, thank you for sharing the creative, individual monastic concept of connection through creative space. I am quilting and thinking about drawing railroad lines, linking spaces and love and potential. My pens haven't yet touched paper, still in an imagining phase.
I look forward to the amuse bouche thoughts!
Just went back and saw this. Can you direct me to how I can read your book "Attars"? Here, in my little office where I can see the woods and the houses of neighbors, I often have the same sense you describe here so well. I recently went to see the monastery at Montserrah in Spain. There the monks have perched above the monestary in an assortment of limestone caves that riddle the curiously peaked and ragged hill looming over the buildings. If I could attach a photo of a seventeenth century painting of the place that I saw in the museum there, I would love to show you. It looks like something directly out of Tibet. At any rate, your energy and your words give life to my heart. The light, the vibration, flowing from cell to cell, cave to cave, is more real than the electric current that lights our rooms at night.
This is a wonderful thought. Love to think of us all sending creative clues out into the ethers.
A beautiful post. Alas, I could never be a monk.
Personally, I'm working to build connections and community in non-local spaces.
Perhaps consider the internet as the nervous system of humanity, and in it's infancy,
like the first neural systems some primitive fish that had just few dozen neurons connected and firing to control some minor movements.
The nervous system was not the fish, and the internet is not humanity.
But it (and we) can evolve to higher forms, like the fishes that crawled to land and slowly spawned all the later terrestrial animals.
Billions of humans can now be in communication with each other, and like primitive neurons fire away, sometimes forward, sometimes backward, sometimes just random spasms.
Can my tiny spasmodic firings build a neural net of self-empowered meditators?
I don't know, but I hope so, and work towards this most ever day.
I know very few things for sure,
but I'm pretty sure evolution isn't over yet.
I think writers and quilters and potters and painters are nudging humanity towards ever greater connection.
==>Jim
You had me with "unfolding of the implicate."
I'd explain my creative monastery this way: I actually don't recall my writing because I enter what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow" (a word so overused now). He was my mentor when I was sent by my corporate job to U of Chicago's management school before I was promoted—and before I had the courage to move on to the work that had been calling me. I remain indebted to Csikszentmihalyi and all the other professors in the program who corralled me into a meeting to tell me I had the artist's persona. I may write about this experience soon and how it changed my life. Glad to have found you, Carol Sill.
Carol, I am catching up with your Amuse-bouche delights. I do love your "creatively monastic" description. I resonate. I am sitting by my Christmas tree this morning, in our home on Vancouver Island, connecting to you, on Saltspring. Good Morning, sister of words and messages. Continue to weave your magic.