Good day. I was running through many emails hitting delete on most. I stopped at yours. I am a painter, not a writer… oh I write Morning Pages, have done so for a couple decades but nobody ever sees that. But your writing solicited a response because Ray Bradbury’s list of words for writing could easily be adapted to painting, or maybe a page of random marks or brush strokes to get things going, so I say Thank you
Thanks, Les! I'm glad this resonated with you. I definitely see what you mean about the parallel applications to painting. So many principles of creative practice and philosophy cross lines of form like, remaining applicable to all.
Love how you frame Bradbury’s noun lists as a way of tracking what the daemon-muse is already doing beneath conscious thought; it feels less like ‘choosing’ a subject and more like discovering a destiny that was waiting there all along. Probably one of many reasons why Clive Barker (my favorite author) cites Bradbury as one of his inspirations.
How do you see this practice interacting with seasons of a writer’s life when the nouns that rise up are dark, repetitive or seemingly commercially ‘unusable’? is that precisely when we’re most obligated to follow them anyway?
I'm glad it resonates, Solomon. And yes, I'd suggest the situation is exactly as you speculate: When what keeps coming up during a given creative and life-level season is like you describe, that likely means we need to stay with it to understand it, or at least to let it express itself, until the situation changes of its own accord. Now, that said, it's also possible for us to be in a position of misalignment. What feels like uncomfortable or otherwise problematic arisings might be a call to get quiet and reflect on how and where a disjunction or disharmony may be present. Victoria Nelson is exceptionally strong with wise counsel about this kind of thing in her ON WRITER'S BLOCK, where she talks about, for instance, the different kinds of silence that can enter a writer's life, and the way a feeling of creative block may indicate that "we" (the ego) may be fixated on trying to write something, or write it in some particular way, that isn't what our deep self, what I'd call the daemon muse, wants and needs to do -- which would mean it's not really what *we*, holistically identified, want and need to do. So discernment is called for.
in indigneous Maya belief the repeating mishaps are a sign of what you just said: pointing to the direction in which we should be going. Mayan "Astrology" is typically how that is navigated withing the culture.
"We" being the ego and its desires not being aligned with the daemon muse is pure gold advice. Reminiscent of the Holy Guardian Angel concept or True Will (insert your favorite culture's zinger for chasing destiny) and making the most impact with one's life.
Love the Maya info, which is from a culture mostly unfamiliar to me, though I've read a bit. Glad you're here to speak of it. Thank you. And yes, the HGA is definitely in play here as one resonant model of all this.
Good day. I was running through many emails hitting delete on most. I stopped at yours. I am a painter, not a writer… oh I write Morning Pages, have done so for a couple decades but nobody ever sees that. But your writing solicited a response because Ray Bradbury’s list of words for writing could easily be adapted to painting, or maybe a page of random marks or brush strokes to get things going, so I say Thank you
Thanks, Les! I'm glad this resonated with you. I definitely see what you mean about the parallel applications to painting. So many principles of creative practice and philosophy cross lines of form like, remaining applicable to all.
Love how you frame Bradbury’s noun lists as a way of tracking what the daemon-muse is already doing beneath conscious thought; it feels less like ‘choosing’ a subject and more like discovering a destiny that was waiting there all along. Probably one of many reasons why Clive Barker (my favorite author) cites Bradbury as one of his inspirations.
How do you see this practice interacting with seasons of a writer’s life when the nouns that rise up are dark, repetitive or seemingly commercially ‘unusable’? is that precisely when we’re most obligated to follow them anyway?
I'm glad it resonates, Solomon. And yes, I'd suggest the situation is exactly as you speculate: When what keeps coming up during a given creative and life-level season is like you describe, that likely means we need to stay with it to understand it, or at least to let it express itself, until the situation changes of its own accord. Now, that said, it's also possible for us to be in a position of misalignment. What feels like uncomfortable or otherwise problematic arisings might be a call to get quiet and reflect on how and where a disjunction or disharmony may be present. Victoria Nelson is exceptionally strong with wise counsel about this kind of thing in her ON WRITER'S BLOCK, where she talks about, for instance, the different kinds of silence that can enter a writer's life, and the way a feeling of creative block may indicate that "we" (the ego) may be fixated on trying to write something, or write it in some particular way, that isn't what our deep self, what I'd call the daemon muse, wants and needs to do -- which would mean it's not really what *we*, holistically identified, want and need to do. So discernment is called for.
in indigneous Maya belief the repeating mishaps are a sign of what you just said: pointing to the direction in which we should be going. Mayan "Astrology" is typically how that is navigated withing the culture.
"We" being the ego and its desires not being aligned with the daemon muse is pure gold advice. Reminiscent of the Holy Guardian Angel concept or True Will (insert your favorite culture's zinger for chasing destiny) and making the most impact with one's life.
Love the Maya info, which is from a culture mostly unfamiliar to me, though I've read a bit. Glad you're here to speak of it. Thank you. And yes, the HGA is definitely in play here as one resonant model of all this.
Love this, Matt. Timely too. Thank you!
🙏