The late, great mythologist and teacher Joseph Campbell advised his students to “follow their bliss.” He told them to expect synchronicity, which he defined as “helping hands.” “Follow your bliss,” he taught, “and the Universe will open doors for you.” An octogenarian when he became famed as a teacher, he had decades of teaching experience […]
In the moment of creation, we are ageless
In the moment of creation, we are ageless. We feel both young at heart and old and wise. “Artists work until the end,” my photographer friend Robert said to me yesterday. Yes, they do. This is why retirement from one career— even if it is our major career— is not, by any means, “the end.” […]
Risk: Leap and [then] the net will appear
I belive in risk. I don’t believe in luck. I do believe in synchronicity. You may call this semantic quibbling, but I don’t think so. Luck is something that happens to us. Synchronicity is something that begins in our consciousness. Risk is something we undertake. Luck is passive. We trigger synchronicity. We trigger it through […]
Social Media and Creative Energy
For many artists, social media is a mixed blessing. Easily addictive yet highly connective, it works best for us as an addition to our art rather than as a substitute for it. The danger of social media is that in our hunger for connection, we pour out our creative energies into a barrage of emails, […]
Let Yourself Write
If we didn’t have to worry about being published and being judged, how many of us would write a novel just for the joy of making one? Why should we think of writing a novel as something we couldn’t try– the way an amateur carpenter might build a simple bookcase or even a picnic table? […]
Finish Something
As artists, we often complain about our inability to begin. If only I had the nerve to start X– a novel, a short story, the rewrite on our play, the photo series we’re “thinking” of. I would like to suggest that you start somewhere else– start with finishing something. There must be some obscure law […]
Creative Weather
Try this: During a sustained period of work, artists require special care. We must be vigilant to not abuse our health and well-being. We must actively nurture ourselves. For each of us, the act of nurturing differs. Take pen in hand. Number from 1 to 10. List ten concrete ways in which you can support […]
Keep on keeping on…
Very often, it is perseverance– not talent– which wins the day. Too often, we become discouraged by a single rejection. We forget that negative criticism is only one person’s opinion. Discouraged, we fail to go forward. This is where we often need the help of a “Believing Mirror”– someone who sees our potential and the […]
Beating the Blues
I believe that what is really painful is not practicing our creativity. It, to me, smacks of unrequited love: the wishing, the yearning, and the inability to engage. A great way to experiment with this is the next time “the blues” strike, try making something. Anything. A pot of chili, a cabinet, a wild paint […]
Accepting Ourselves… and our true delights
Sometimes as artists, we practice a self-loathing aesthetic that is like what adolescents do in terms of their physicality. This is a self-loathing that sets in and says whatever we are, it is not as good or as beautiful as whatever it is the other one has. If we are small, dark and exotic, we […]
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