Partnering with the Unknown
Partnering with the Unknown
I’m always struck at how magical and unexpected the process of partnering with the unknown can be when we’re contemplating doing something creative.
My specialty is Ekphrasis Poetry. I found it is an excellent way to pay renewed attention to the past masters and their art. It inspires us to turn “their art” into “our art” via films, paintings, poetry, or even clay sculptures. None of us write alone without carrying on our back the whisperings of others.
Like in my book Sculpting the Heart’s Poetry while Conversing with the Masters, Ekphrasis Poetry makes an excellent conversation between two pieces of art. We should all wish to thank Picasso, Chagall, and all the other artists that have come before us.
Music and Art
Most of us get a kind of emotional fuel from looking at the past’s art and music. They rather give us a foundation on which to build our dreams. There is no such thing as writer’s block or procrastination when we use others’ ideas to inspire us. Poetically speaking, I think most poets are as honeybees hungrily searching through a grand buffet of literature, film, and art for that speck of pollen we can turn into honey.
Positive Thinking
Writing poetry, journaling, and art-making are creative ways to turn the burning inside our heads into positive thinking, researching, and recording. When writing poetry, we can’t help but confront our past circumstances to break their hold over us. This form of healing is called Poem Therapy.
At least on a conscious level, I am not always aware of how much the unknown drives my art. The reality is too restrictive, so I like to play connect-the-dots with Picasso. He walks with me and talks with me. I am expanding his ideas into my own. It is said the human mind is like an umbrella. It functions best when open.
When sculpting our heart’s poetry, it is good to approach our art as poetry as if it were a game.
We need to play connect-the-dots with words and feelings, paying close attention to the sound and flow of our memories, as well as their arrangement on the page. It is never too late to be what you were meant to be.
We all can stand proudly by taking a leap of faith in God, his angels, muses, our special purpose, and ourselves. This is how we make friends with the ‘unknown.’ It is our job not to limit the ways in which God and his angels can appear to us.
Spirituality
When they are around, they hug us with possibilities. Of course, when we focus on our higher selves’ spiritual side, we are attracting interest in God and his angel messengers. We’ve all experienced phone perceptions, doorbell cues, and feelings of déjà vu. Who’s to say there isn’t another plain trying to remind us that humans are not alone in their trials here on earth?
In fact, it is getting hard to tell facts from fiction, what with the media giving so much attention to mediums, ghost hunters, and psychics. Science has in an apologetic way been proving the existence of ideas for a few years now once trampled under the feet of rationalism.
It takes only one mindful step to commune with the messengers of God and angels purposely. We can do this by direct invitation, especially through prayer, meditation, and visualization projects like art-making and writing. Everyone should think positively rather than negatively for an acceptable outcome. The Buddhists say the only reality is what is here, what is happening between you and me?
If this is true, I worry if my words can live up to such distinction. Picasso, Matisse, and Jung believed in every spontaneous action. There is a consequential story that begins within us and works its way out through the tips of our fingers. When we’re playing connect-the-dots with our subconscious mind, it can point out the obvious of which our conscious intellect has failed to grasp.
911
Most of us have experienced unruly goosebumps and hair standing up on our arms. This happens when our subconscious is trying to tell us something is not right or unnerving. This happened to me and all those who witnessed the Twin Towers’ horrific collapse on 9-11.
See for yourself this eight-foot steel Cross shot deep into the ground between the two collapsing Towers for all to see. It stood in defiance, much like the Cross where Jesus died, resurrected from the ruins of hate, and left as a reminder of what hate, jealousy, and stupidity can do. This dramatic steel Cross served as a sign for all unbelievers and believers as well – – but sent by whom?
Perhaps, our faith in God and angels is anchored via an inner knowing or awareness; many of us warmly accept, and sadly, many of us resist so much like the terrorists that took so many lives that day.
The most important thing we learn from disasters like 911 and subsequent grief is the lesson of forgiveness, which is the hardest of all to learn. The second most important thing we learn is love will sustain all who believe that we have a collective and universal purpose as humans. Perhaps it is our collective consciousness that is attracting other plains of existence to us.
I want to think we are becoming loving and creative enough to invite paranormal phenomena into our lives as mentors and partners in the universe. On the other side of the coin, perhaps God and his angels will become our only means of surviving a world gone mad.
Motherhood
We all want very much to feel that we are never alone, and there is a spiritual presence close to us. There is something unforgettable about fighting our way out of the birthing canal into the loving arms of a new mother and inexplicable light. It seems like earthly circumstances only seem to multiply those natural yearnings we were born with when infants.
Somewhere above the clouds, past the moon and stars, is a world of joy, love, imagination, and creativity. Down here on the third rock from the Sun, that is our genius, too, and we must not forget to make friends with God and his angel messengers. Enjoy my poems below:
* * *
Saint Raphael, Angel of the Sun
Saint Raphael comes to us to heal what is not right with his wisdom and grace; it can happen in the twinkling of an eye, he is my muse, and I am his,
Saint Raphael gets his power from the sun, and he stokes our passions with delight, burning the midnight oils for us, with a voracity of unparalleled love.
He glistens in the day for us and glows at night with wings and horned-head as handsome as any can be, when wrestling with Satan and his demons for our souls,
Saint Raphael is my muse, and I am his, he whispers in my ears at night,
“Let your passions flow for others like
the moving of water and you Heal thyself along with others.”
Uplifted by Angels
I am an 11:11 Angel, and I pray to be a celestial artisan, that my soul be sprinkled with passionate thoughts when I’m tired, let their angelic wings fan me with healing energetic breezes,
let them light my eyes with the lamps of wisdom so I can see what is right or wrong, and give me the creative license of mixing pain and pleasure, terror and hope.
Bless me with celestial knowing, wit, wryness, color, and an angelic sense of timing, wake me out of a sound sleep and give me words to translate pain and loneliness into a form I can understand,
and let my optimism fall like seeds to the moist warm ground to take root in the footsteps of others.
Bird of God
I like to begin poetry by exploring phrases,
I am…I am a poet…but then I think
“What is a poet?”
Whateveritis, I think,
it must have food for the soul,
It must have generous folds of
thoughts,
and Love,
Whateveritis, I think,
it must be arrogant,
to coach the sun to rise,
to kiss the day goodbye,
and Hope,
Whateveritis, I think,
Its ecstasy remains intact,
With the Birds of God
for Companions.
Nice work Joyce. Great exploration of creativity and spirituality and the ways you have found them to connect.
The following sentence needs a comma or two. “I am not always aware at least on a conscious level how much the unknown drives my art.” A comma after “aware” and after “level”, works best.
Good introduction and summarizing sentence after your beautiful opening poem. “I’m always struck at how magical and unexpected the process of partnering with the unknown can be when we’re contemplating doing something creative.”
Thanks Gabriel, I agree with you about the commas. Sometimes my fingers work faster than my mind. And, sometimes it is vice versa.