AELEFTON.WORDPRESS.COM

Dear Readers,

In keeping with the roving nature of this blog, I've picking up and moving on. Please visit my new website:

aelefton.wordpress.com

I look forward to continuing the conversation in new spaces!

AE

Returning to the World

Image Credit: NASA

I have just finished Martin Buber's extraordinary work, "I and Thou", and am still reeling from the experience. Every page in my book has been underlined, notes scribbled in the margins - confirmations, questions, refutations (yes, I'm one of those sacrilegious souls who writes in books). So here is one passage that left me deeply thoughtful about how we talk about "progress" and "development". This passage helped clarify for me where the true evolution of humanity is leading - first into our depths, then back into the world:

"The sickness of our age is unlike that of any other and yet belongs to the sicknesses of all. The history of cultures is not a stadium of eons in which one runner after another must cover the same circle of death, cheerfully and unconsciously. A nameless path leads through their ascensions and declines. It is not a path of progress and development...but only the unheard of return - the breakthrough. Shall we have to follow this path all the way to the end, to the test of the final darkness? But where there is danger what saves grows too." (Emphasis added.)

Buber speaks of "the unheard of return" - meaning our return to the actual, lived world of human encounters and relationships. For Buber, this is the essential direction of all true change - returning to the world from a place of aloneness, struggle, alienation. Of course, we must first descend into our darkness before we can return. But it is the process of return that redeems our darkness, gives it meaning, and ultimately, heals us.

Honouring the Intuitive Mind

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. 

We have created a society that honors the servant 

and has forgotten the gift." 

~ Albert Einstein

In his now-famous TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson describes how schools kill creativity. He asserts that all children are innately creative, yet we socialize them into conformity by measuring them against a "standard" that is biased and even harmful. He advocates different solutions to this problem, which I will not elaborate here. What I'd like to do, instead, is think about what nourishes our creativity - which includes honouring our intuitive minds.

I recently read an interview with the Andrei A. Tarkovsky, the son of famous Russian film director, Andrei Tarkovsky (remembered for Solaris, among other works). Mr. Tarkovsky spoke about the spiritual lineage of Russia, and how this lineage, so deeply ingrained in the culture, is the unquestioned foundation of all Russia's great works of art, literature, and film.

I was reminded of the Firebird, a mythical creature of Russian folklore. It is said that when one of her feathers drops to earth, another art form is born.

For me, it was astonishing to read Tarkovsky's unabashed admission of the centrality of the divine in creative pursuits. In the West, there has been a not-so-subtle overthrow of God or anything hinting at religion or mysticism in much of contemporary art (perhaps starting as far back as the Enlightenment).

Let me be clear: I am not advocating a return to the religiosity of, say, the Middle Ages or even the Renaissance. But I feel we now worship rationality and its associates (utility, efficiency, price) to the detriment of wisdom, experience, reflection - in other words, our "intuitive mind". Just as the union of science and faith is necessary to achieve a fuller conception of truth, reason and intuition are equally vital in connecting mind, heart, and gut.

It is this unity - of intellect, emotion, and intuition - that informs creativity. (Note: I do not say, "is" creativity. That's another discussion.) Art that is purely conceptual feels sterile and empty. Art that is purely emotive lacks clarity and the power to move beyond catharsis. And intuitive art - by which I mean art that springs from somewhere deeper than consciousness - is inexpressible without the languages of mind and heart to give it form.

There are two words in Einstein's famous quote that bear exploration: servant and gift. I have written in an earlier entry about "servant leadership", and I feel service itself is an essential part of the creative process. When we serve others, we step out of our own whirlpool of self, with all its problems, confusions, and obsessions. The very act of opening to another in a stance of service also opens us to creative energies. This is because we have to submit to the will of the universe and stop trying to control the outcome. And once we give up control, we are signalling our willingness to be transformed.

Thomas Merton described spiritual transformation in similar terms:

"...in order to make this leap our of ourselves we have to be willing to let go of everything that is our own - all our own plans, all our own hesitations, all our own judgments...That does not mean that we give up thinking and acting: but that we are ready for any change that God's action may make in our lives.

 "On this readiness to change depends our whole destiny."

I feel the same can be said of creativity. Creativity requires, at core, a willingness to fundamentally change how we see ourselves and the world. And this willingness to change in never confined to logic or reason - though it does make use of them. Our brains provide the heat of motion and concentration that moves us toward the precipice of some real or mental leap. But it is here, at this point of utter unknowingness when all familiar stars disappear from the sky, that thinking too much is not a good idea. This is the moment when we need a wisdom deeper than rationality or emotion.

To prepare ourselves for this moment, we must honour and nourish our intuitive mind just as much as our bodies and mental capacities. Nourishing our intuitive mind means:

(1) Acknowledging its power. We cannot control our intuition - at best, we can open ourselves to it, listen to it, and protect it. 

(2) Befriending its eccentricities. To do this, we must spend enough time alone in order to reconnect our intuitive mind with our reason and emotions. This may mean engaging in solitary activities like walking or mountain climbing. But it also can mean prayer and meditation. 

(3) Serving others. Service is how we learn empathy, acceptance, how to give, but also how to receive the unexpected gifts that both friends and strangers offer. These values heighten our sensitivity to true connection, helping us distinguish between intuition and cognitive/emotional noise. And true connection = intuition.

This is, of course, a very partial and incomplete list. But it is a start. Writers often speak of "submission" in terms of sending poems or stories to editors in the hope of publication. But I believe creativity requires another kind of submission.

Creativity requires offering ourselves to wisdom's wisdom. This is the "sacred gift," and it demands nothing less than our entire being.