Preliminary Notes For The Creation Of A New Heron Dance Book.
Originally entitled Sing Us The Song Only You Can Sing
now titled
Sample Two Page Spreads
Planned publication date: February 2024
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The book will explore the use of journaling
in doing creative work
and creating a life.
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There is only one success:
to be able to spend the rest of your life in your own way.
- Christopher Morley
Introduction:
Sing The Song Only You Can Sing:
Creating A Life And Doing Creative Work On Your Own Terms
All that matters is what you love
and what you love is who you are . . .
- This Ecstasy, John Squadra
This is not a book about achieving significant financial success as a road to happiness. Nor is the book attempt to advance the argument that money doesn’t matter. It does. It is good to have a car that is reliable and safe, to set aside money for retirement, for a strategic reserve so that you can do your creative work without constant financial worry, it is good to have health insurance, and live comfortably. But this book is about living a different set of values than those of the dominant culture. It is about living a meaningful life. It is about using the opportunity life has given each of us to find inner success, inner peace and harmony, by using our uniqueness to contribute to the lives of others.
Chapter 1
The Journey Starts With An Expression
Of Gratitude
We are each a unique creation of a creative universe. The creative journey, the journey of celebrating, of honoring, your uniqueness has an element of the sacred about it. In keeping with that, I start the day with a quote or interview excerpt that expresses gratitude for the mystery, for the Great Dance of Life.
Chapter 2
Before action, thought.
Everything creative evolves out of the still point.
The source of your power is your still point. Your power comes from harmony with your inner world. That relationship is nurtured in silence, in solitude, in reflection.
Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance.
- T.S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton”, the first of the Four Quartets, republished in Eliot’s Collected Poems.
Chapter 3
What Is The Objective?
What is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life.
-Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
In an interesting way, living life on your own terms requires contributing to the lives of others. Getting everything you can out of life involves giving everything you can. The key questions:
What is the maximum contribution you can make to the lives of others, given your background, skills, experience, personality?
Where does that potential contribution intersect with your area(s) of interest, passion, excitement about life?
Chapter 4
Think small.
Do something unique and important in some small market.
The objective: to do work that is deeply meaningful and fulfilling, while still having a high-quality nonwork life.
To accomplish that objective, find a point of leverage so you can live outside the systems of the mainstream culture -- politics, big business, Wall Street. How do you make a living without participating in the status struggle, the life of desire, that the mainstream culture obsessively chases?
Small markets are better. Small markets attract less competition from highly skilled, big money in search of an above average return. You want to operate in a small market where unique skill rather than capital make the difference. And, to the extent possible, where unique skill rather than hard work make the difference. You don’t want to be better than, you want to be the only.
Chapter Five
Be consistent. Have self-discipline. Have patience
The path of diving down, deep inside, finding your uniqueness, your internal beauty, and then mastering it, and offering it to the world, is not the easy path. It is not the secure path. You will experience disappointments, rejection, setbacks. You have to know that, and expect that, as you start out. You do it in pursuit of the deep satisfaction that can ultimately be found there. Anything worthwhile, anything unique, will take time to be accepted. First you show commitment. Then the market shows commitment. That’s just how it goes.
Chapter Six
How Good Was My Failure Today?
Failure is a crucial part of the journey
Ninety-five percent of the results of creativity are garbage. Derek Sivers has been very inspiration to me in the sense of asking himself, “How good was my failure today? What did I try that didn’t work?” That for me is a real inspiration. To every day try and do something that I could have failed at. That is part of the process. That acceptance of small failures.
- Kevin Kelly on CreativeLive
Living a creative life involves an element of the sacred
Through creative work, we glimpse an inner landscape that is beyond our understanding. Art offers a portal into realities that otherwise may remain unseen. All of this supports the contention that creative work has a sacred element in the sense that it is a manifestation, a continuation, of the creative force of the universe. The implication of humans as the products of a dynamic universe, created in order that it can reflect back upon itself, is that our internal world, our imagination, our levels of consciousness, also possess an element of sacredness.
The more experience a person has, the more simplicity is profound.
- Keith Jarrett, pianist. Jarrett’s album, The Melody At Night, With You offers an interesting and beautiful example of minimalist music.
Simplicity contributes to financial independence -- allows you the freedom to say no to activities and projects whose sole contribution to your life would be to cover overhead. Simplicity contributes to independence from the dominant culture, its preoccupation with the trivial, its rush to get places of superficial importance. Simplicity enhances your ability to create work of beauty, to deal in truth.
There is a current of energy, a life force inside you,
that is seeking to grow.
Something inside each of us is seeking to manifest, to emerge, to birth. A potential, a gift, a uniqueness. It could be a creative work, it could be a contribution to the lives of others. It is, in some way, a continuity, a current of energy, a life force seeking to grow.
How would you describe the current of energy, the life force inside you, that is seeking to grow? What do you do to nurture that relationship? How you nurture that relationship will determine the quality of your life.
Follow your bliss!
Wait, follow your bliss? Really?
The goal of life
is to make your heartbeat
match the beat of the universe,
to match your nature with Nature.The goal of life is to be a vehicle
for something higher.
- Joseph Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion. Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon
“Follow your bliss,” the phrase coined by Joseph Campbell, has come in for a certain amount of derision of late. Similarly, Marsha Sinetar’s “Do what you love, and the money will follow,” has been criticized as overly simplistic and optimistic. It probably is, but it isn’t without value.
Think Through Carefully Your Relationship With Money
People engaged in unique, creative work need to carefully think through the role of money in their lives. A lot of important, deeply meaningful work does not pay well. For that work to see the light of day, for it to survive the inevitable resistance, an artist needs to plan for a variety of possible outcomes including financial adversity. But money must serve the work, not the other way around. If the sole purpose of a creative work is to make money, will lack life-giving energy. Good decisions allow us to live our “inner music.” Poor decisions lead to a life of “quiet desperation”.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the
grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
- Walter Bagehot
A long interval of still and musing meditation is expensive. To come to fruition, a great work needs a reserve so that it can survive the inevitable setbacks, crises and mistakes.
Put Careful Thought Into The Rhythm Of Your Life
You can’t go deep until you slow down.
- Tess Gallagher, poet.
A balanced life is based on its own rhythm. If you don’t set your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your life will move at the speed of the culture around us, which moves too fast.
The space we make for quiet time affects our thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives. It is important to bring thought to this most crucial area of our lives.
Quality Is A Philosophy Of Life
A quality life, a good life, is underrated perhaps because it has a price. It takes thought, effort. It’s not just go with the flow. It is dig down deep. Treat your life with the respect that a precious gift deserves.
However Simple, Make Your Home A Place Of Beauty,
A Refuge Against The World
You need a sanctuary on this path. My thought is create your home with simple, beautiful things. Handmade things. Things someone poured their soul into during the process of creation. Handmade things made with love. Make a home that celebrates natural things and natural beauty, artistic beauty.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Jimi Hendrix
Be receptive to the Source, whatever that mysterious force may be. Listen. Meditate. Read. Pay attention. Take seriously recurring suggestions from friends and others that you may be immediately inclined to reject. It may be the universe trying to bring an important new idea into your awareness.
Anger Dissipates Energy. Surrender.
Anger and surrender are major challenges for me. I’m an intense person. I need to constantly work to control my inclination to get angry at people, businesses that disappoint me. I have difficulty, and overreact, to people who don’t care. Particularly if I am dependent on them. The problem is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t care. Way too many to change or fight.
People don’t care because caring makes us vulnerable. Or because caring entails effort. Why bother? Many instead put their energy into figuring out the minimum amount of effort required to get by, and then becomes expert in how to do that.
The other problem, the real problem: after getting angry I think less of myself. For days. I lose self-respect. I lose inner peace.
Nurture a quiet relationship with nature.
Nurture a quiet relationship with beauty.
There are people who can live without goose music, and people who can't.
- Jim O'Connor
A field of wildflowers swaying in the wind. The hush of an old growth forest. The wonder of birds in flight, the beauty of their song. The mystery of a flock of geese floating across a wilderness lake at sunrise. We came from wilderness; we evolved in wilderness. A part of us still resonates there.
Frequent walks in the woods can contribute peace and serenity to a human life. A close relationship with nature requires serenity.
Choose your friends carefully; choose your tribe carefully.
Protect your time; protect your energy.
Just as some paths give you energy, and some take it away, some people give you energy and some take it away. It is important, in living a quality life on your own terms, and doing work that is unique, that you put thought into relationships. It is important that you put energy into relationships that enhance your energy. The path of creating unique work is often discouraging, particularly in the early stages. Kindred spirits will build your energy.
Seek the stable center in relationships: relationship with yourself, relationship with your work, relationship with others. Serve harmony. Serve beauty. If you can’t find the peaceful center in a relationship, withdraw.
Friends. . . they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.
- Thoreau, in his journal
Tune into your moods. What do they tell you?
The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.
- Henry David Thoreau in his journal, from Thoreau And The Art Of Life.
An old poet comes to watch his or her moods carefully, intently. An old poet is wary of moods, but moods can offer insight. An old poet feeds on, draws creative inspiration from, moods.
A primary objective of living a quality life on your own terms is focusing energy where it will have the most impact. Discerning those directions, discerning the correct path for you, on which your efforts, energy and momentum will grow to have a maximum beneficial impact on the world takes careful thought and access to a level below conscious thought. Tuning into your moods can be helpful in that regard.
Signs You Are On Your Path. Signs You Are Getting It Right
There are many pathways in this life and it doesn’t matter which one you take, for they all have a common destination, and that is the grave.
But some paths give you energy, and some take it away.
- Miguel de Cervantes
On some paths energy gains momentum, on some it dissipates. On some paths your inner life gains from your work, and your work gains from your inner life. The first sign you are getting it right: You feel your power, your energy, building.
Create Something Beautiful (To You).
. . . a first rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
- Abraham Maslow
If we do creative work in our day job, it may be best to let the field lie fallow, to read or meditate or sleep during our downtime. Downtime nourishes creative work. Burnout is a real thing. And so this “gentle art” applies mostly to those of us not engaged in creative work in our day job.
The root of creativity is in the murky waters of deep imagination, and the creative process requires a rested, relaxed mind. The objective is to do your best work for a long time.
Everyone engaged in creative work experiences resistance to some degree. Don’t think that you are alone in experiencing resistance. You are not. Successful artists, musicians, novelists etc. develop ways to deal with it.
The Buddha said that the greatest of all footprints is that of the elephant, and the greatest meditation is that on death.
- Dhammapada, Buddhist Holy Book
The processes of life co-exist with the processes of death. Good health, and life itself, are temporary. Part of treating life with reverence is recognizing that the ultimate reality is death. The mystery of death -- a fitting conclusion to the mystery of life. When we pretend that death doesn't exist, that there is a technological fix, that death is something that happens just to others, or that will happen to us at some date in the very distant future, we are free to put off living, put off courage, for tomorrow. But living a full life, pursuing our dreams, pursuing our potential, pursuing the goodness that is in each of us is preparing for, recognizing, the inevitableness of death.
The world lacks for people who care about their work, and the courage to offer their beauty to others. We need that from you.
Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius; power and magic in it. Begin it now.
- Goethe