Okay, two posts in one day! In keeping with my previous post, I am taking action and have signed up to write a novel next month on the National Novel Writing Month website. Yes, I commit to answer to an external force - the National Novel Writing Month family or 'NaNoWriMo' - everyday for a month starting November 1st!
Check out the website. It's really fun. And then sign up to write a novel next month at:
I have friends in Austin, Paris and Baltimore who have signed on to write a novel in November. Yippee, my own little writing group! Won't you join us? I will tell you what I will be working on in a future post. Curious, are you?
I confess - I have been a reluctant writer. When words and ideas are flowing, it's extraordinary but it does not necessarily come easy. I am not one of those people that has to write every day or die, one who lives to write. And I loath re-writes! In other words, I can find many other things to do rather than sit at my little humble table and set fingers to keys. Writing is, for me, a labor of...I wouldn't say "love"...but rather "the love of word magic," how they fall out of the air into my mind and on to the paper.
Alice Walker expresses perfectly what I have grown to understand about the act of writing. One must have faith in one's gifts. If you show up, get the work done and you will have won. I claim this as my meditation. It relieves the pressure to create and writers actually have a lot of help. I recall attending a panel discussion in which Walker described living in New York as she was just starting The Color Purple. One day she was standing in a forest of Manhattan skyscrapers looking up at a small slice a available sky and heard a voice in her head say, "What is this shit?!" It was one of her characters speaking in no uncertain terms on her feelings about life in the big city and she was not impressed. I like to think it was Celie. New York City was cramping her style, her story bouncing off all that stone and concrete. Walker said at that moment she knew that to write The Color Purple she had to move to the country, be among trees, flowers, grasses, nature's beauty. Soon thereafter she relocated to Northern California where she now lives and works.
I always loved that story, the magic of it, the spiritual help that was so strongly present in Walker's telling of the story. Since then I have heard many writers describe the phenomenon of their characters speaking to them and often correcting them. That is the gift that all writers and Creatives have available to them; a transcendental energy that speaks, directs and guides our hearts and hands. It tells us what happened next...and then...and then. All we have to do is show up. I am meant to write and I commit to showing up. Dragging my reluctant self to my writing table, sit on my slightly uncomfortable chair and getting the work done. The stories that we each collect in a lifetime is our own unique truth to express and share. We are obliged to do so.
We were born to create, to express our innate selves with paint, cloth, words, images. It is our genetic heritage. In the past, as often is today, making art was an act of reverence, the spirit expressing its deepest reflection. Ancient artists, our ancestors, who recreated their world on cave walls leave us awed with wonder. The stories the images tell intrigue, amaze and confound us. Were our fore fathers and mothers so different from us in their need to create, to share their inner world with such beautiful mark making? Could they have known that ten of thousands of years hence we would be humbled before the sheer magnificence and power of their creations? How lucky we are to stand in the shadow of their timeless brilliance, knowing that we, too, have access to the same creative spark that gave birth to these exquisite images that have lasted for millennia.
A recent discovery reveals another layer of how these rock painters created their masterpieces. Here is the New York Times article about a 100,000-year-old artist workshop found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa, home of the Mother of Us All. For the Creative, the implications of this discovery is staggering and very inspiring:
I came across this thought-provoking blog entry by Ishtar Babilu Dingir. In it she reflects on our growing understanding of who these cave artists were, what inspired their work, and how the scientific approach to studying rock art falls far short of grasping its intrinsic value to our knowledge of age-old shamanic traditions:
The Creative Alliance has been abuzz the last week in anticipation of the Kindred the Family Soul concert tonight. And having just attended the second show, I know why. Married couple Fatin Dantzler and Aja Graydon are the founding members of Kindred the Family Soul. Their six-member group plays music reminiscent of the the very best of the r&b and soul music of the 70s and 80s. All 140 of us rocking to a single beat with a solid bass line that had everyone in their feet, fancy shoes and all. But that's only part of what makes Kindred the Family Soul so very appealing and inspiring.
Their new release - Love Has No Recession - expresses their guiding philosophy of love and family. It's about commitment, partnership and joy in the presence of each other. One could see the pride they had for one another and what they have created together, not the least of which is six beautiful children and that energy permeated the audience. It was an amazing show. At the end we poured out of the theater happy and full of laughter and lining up to purchase cd's. Music, creativity and commerce at its most awesome.
Take a moment to visit their website, check out them out on their on-line reality show and buy their music! Live in the grove.
