Creative Block: The other side of a cruel wall

What's with the dragonflies? First of all, it's what sparked my most recent creative spring. Second, it always seems to symbolize the feeling of creativity, it is fast, it is there one moment than gone, it is beautifully colored and often elusive-much like Creativity. This will be a new series I am working on.

The ability to create has two sides, although the two sides are divided into a kaleidoscope of feelings and possibilities. In the process of being creative is an amazing rapturous feeling where you see all possibilities and connect that which doesn’t necessarily connect.

The other side is not so sweet. I can pinpoint several feelings and processes in each: the state of waiting to be creative, being creative and than dealing with not being able to be creative.

Creativity acts and reacts with everything in ones life. It’s the way we see things, process things and how we function on a daily basis. It has been the best of and the worst of living for me.

Let’s start with the creative feeling. When you’re there, everything seems to create itself. You have stored over many months or years the tools you use. It is just a matter of being open enough to allow the mechanics to flow. The feeling is dramatic, beautiful in its simplicity and rewarding in the feeling of seeing things develop almost magically.

After, even sometimes immediately after, the feeling of sadness surrounds the loss of that amazing feeling. It’s like a beautiful addiction, you feel like you’ll never feel that wonderful feeling again much like a person who feels amazing after a sporting event-it’s an endorphine rush that you crave.

A period of appreciation for the feeling of creativity but a melancholy much like leaving a friend that you will dearly miss follows. You get busy with life, you maintain, food seems bland and the sunset is just a sunset.

While the time between rapture varies, the longer it lags the more sadness and agitation that follows. The feeling turns to full-blown depression when you can’t seem to find any connection with anything creative as Life and pleasure seems mundane.

The eruption of the creative inspiration is much like a coming storm. You know there is a tension in the air, there is something coming and you can feel it. A great

Agitation and anxiousness follows the feeling as you are eager to begin.

There are so many facets to the process between the block and the euphoria of creating again but I will not make a long post even longer. I would consider it mania when so many ideas all demand attention at the same side. It can make for a very long stressful drive home.

I have stopped to pull over and write notes, the only problem with this is, it’s almost like interfering with the flow as once it is written out the idea loses its edge and intangibles. I feel like the idea begins in memory but it must grow and ferment, writing any part of it down puts the thought in the logic side and you lose all the intricacies of the inspiration.

After and during the mania is a feeling of intense creation, agitation and reward. You cling to that feeling as long as you can until the feeling and inspirations dim and its back to living with the danger of the mundane looming over your shoulder.

I have always marveled at a sunset, while others looked at it with a beautiful comment, I would have a deeper more inspired response. When I just look at the sunset as pretty or nice, I know I am not in the creative zone.

When you’ve met and known the fickle friend; creativity, you are never the same and time without that friend is daunting.

A Question of Tolerance

If we want a better government we need to have less tolerance for deceit and more demand for so called transparency in our government officials.

It’s time we take our country back.  We need to stop being republican or democrat, stop being black or white or Hispanic. It needs to be US, all of us against a government of tyranny and politics as usual.

All of the freedoms that have been fought for and marched for are at stake by a government that insists its their job to take care of us. We need to grow up as a nation and become active in our own country and the health and vigor of its free state.

I notice we keep electing the same names. We keep electing what ever the elites decide is our candidate to vote for than hold our noses while we’re forced to vote for politicians we hope are not quite as filthy as the rest.

We ignore our government passing on laws they make for us. We ignore their semantics, lies and cover-ups, “we didn’t know about that”, “we are as outraged as you” are and the most famous “what difference does it make”; all of these statements are an example of don’t worry, we’ll take care of this.

Another infamous quote that explains our problems in Washington-“you’re going to have to wait for it to pass”. A monstrosity law that few of us have read that fundamentally changes America is forced on us with a  “we know better than you attitude” is unacceptable in a free country.

Laws can not be enforced to some and not all. The public shouldn’t have one insurance plan while the government has their own. This is why you have a government that thinks its royalty. It’s our money we make and we take care of our own people better than any nanny state government could ever hope for.

Aside from expecting more from our governments we need to expect more from ourselves. Let’s stop being victims, stop allowing lawyers and politicians to divide us and convince us we are projects to fix and pander to. We need to rebuild a color- blind society that is proud of its successes, that know and name our enemies and protects our own with the ferocity of a mother grizzly.

It’s time we take our country back. A lot has been done for this great country that we are lucky to live in, only we can save our own freedoms and maintain a country we can be proud of.

An Unsigned Portrait

This portrait I will never sign, it was never mine. Even though the colors are 
familiar and the strokes are uniquely a piece of me, I have barely laid a brush 
on the canvas. In fact, more of my flaws you will see than any of my strengths. 
 
I have stood in awe, as this work became itself. I have not even the slightest 
knowledge nor understanding of the medium and yet I welcomed the idea of 
creating it, a small piece of the artist is that which is created as just a 
whisper, not too much detail and yet enough to clarify the artists vision. 
 
In this particular work, I must admit the painting has taught me more than I 
could ever explain. Now as it becomes theirs’, a work that will be shared with 
the world, I seem to be more clueless than ever before. 
 
I can’t articulate the purpose or vision; it is so far beyond the comprehension 
of a mere artist. The strokes I have taken in recent seem more discordant than 
ever, it seems I can only damage the canvas and being an artist and a creative 
person seems more like a detriment than a virtue. 
 
I am clumsy, my colors are unsure and even worse than all of this, I am so 
irrelevant. And yet the finishing touches beg for my attention. I keep my 
distance, I sort of need to these days because the closer I get to perfecting 
the masterpiece, the more I realize it has nothing to do with me and it is not 
mine. So I won’t be signing this canvas, I wont be taking a bow to the audience 
no more than I could stand in judgment of my lack of skill-the painting has 
become itself, I have been barely present and yet the lack of myself has meant 
everything in its creation. 
 
I won’t sign this work, I will leave it to the audience to decide and they will 
finish it. They will never see the beauty I see, nor understand its amazing 
virtue-only I can see this and my deep love for it has made me the worst critic. 
I can only judge myself in its shadow and I never come up as nothing but a hack 
painter, a novice, a word smith without words to describe… so this painting, 
this beautiful amazing painting will never be signed. 

Winter Jasmine

Icy fingers climb the spine

But you remind me of spring

Out of the ice your spindly tines

Frozen right before my eyes

You insist its spring

You remind me every time I pass

Rich yellow flowers defy the senses

While other flowers sleep in silence

You’re awake

You haunt me with the intangible scent

The sunlight through winter curtains

Another evening spent

I wait for the sunlight to melt the ice

Wait for the cold to leave the spine

Bees on lost scent trails

Ants from burrows deep in the ground

You insist its spring

A fragrance bold and loud

Beside the ghosts of summer

Broken stems. Black and grey

I planted you last winter thaw

So convince me,  spring is on its way…

Treading Water

I want your peace, you give it as a gift

I only lick the edge of the plate

Ignoring the state of bliss

I bask in dark water

It’s how I comfortably swim

As I drown in a slow whirlpool

I won’t ask again, I’ve seen my shadow on the bottom

And my eyes were always scared

I trusted you

The thin skin of the water

A blackness I can barely discern

And a thirst I can not contain

I remain in this water

Smelling the memories of winter

And fall

How cold the bottom seems and distant

Like memories

Of so many summers gone

And all of the children

That have passed on to be parents

Watching children

Treading water

I wish I could feel the safety you insist

And the fact that the mortal coil

Only persists

As long as I’m breathing

And as long as the water evades my lungs

Welcome it in and I sink to the bottom

I trusted you

You never failed me

I’ve failed you

And the shadow on the bottom that stared back in fear

Was only the remnants and entanglements

The love and beauty of a fleeting year….

The Hole

Perched on the edge of that hole

The wet soil of cold November

Frost on the ground

The plywood planks never saved me

The distance falling

Never covered the hole

The heart

Still beating young and naïve

The sprout in winter

Wake to the winter ice

That hole

Buried deep inside me

And keeps me

Awake at night

The gaping wound

The earth and all its hollow glory

Never saying once

It was sorry

Only the edge of the soil

Is discernable the ground will never settle

Never heal

You lay in silence in the empty shadows

Your not there

I know that now

And you never were

Around us

All around us

And the evil silent hole

Would never keep you

Only me

In its violent graces

Keeps me crafting words out of a shadow

Keeps me searching for something precious

I lost in the hallows…..