Kissing Chaos

Today, as I sit down at my desk attempting to write something that will matter to someone, I am surrounded by chaos. I can taste it in my coffee, smell it in my sweat, and feel it in the ends of my fingers as they tap the keys, putting words end to end to pull something, anything, interesting, understandable and useful out of the vast, dark, void of chaos. And suddenly, after a millennium in the creative process, I find I have finally come to enjoy the dark, shadowy kiss of chaos.

But I wasn't always like this; and, even now there are days that I will do anything I can to avoid kissing chaos. I will rearrange my space, re order my files, or wander off to a more productive, organized realm of reality TV or the internet. Yes, friends, the internet is organized compared to chaos. For chaos doesn't have happy little hyperlinks or smiley little facebook statuses.

Chaos is a place where good ideas go to die. And without the diligent little fingers of the Creatives, all good ideas will stay there--dead. Without us, nothing interesting will come of the fertile and terrifying darkness beneath the cliffs of chaos. For terror is the fiery fuel of the creative process.

And it is in this fiery fuel that I repeatedly find my self. For in my life as muse, I am constantly called upon by those standing at the edge of the abyss. Often times they don't even know they've called me until they see me standing next to them, overlooking the edge of the greatest leap of faith in their lives.

They may be contemplating divorce, career change, or their first novel. But whatever the calling, I come--cheerfully armed with a grateful heart, a compassionate smile, a curious mind, and a courage-building push off the cliff. For if not for muses, and their pushing and tossing of Creatives into the abyss, many would contemplate the jump for their entire lives. For most of us are not really ready to kiss chaos.

Chaos messes with our human need for order and predictability. We want to wake up each morning and see that the world has not really changed that much. We watch the "news" each morning to make sure that people are still living and dying the same way they've done it for hundreds of years. We really don't want to know what the REAL news is and what it might require of us.

Well, most people don't anyway. But there are some of us (they call us crazy, they call us creative) who are ready for the real news. We eat, drink and breathe new. We think chaos is just about the coolest thing that ever existed. We peer eagerly into the dark, the deep, the shadow! We wake each morning and work to remember our dreams. We step up to the keyboard, the canvas, the romance, and easily make a thousand chaotic choices in the time it takes for a normal person to drive-thru and get their Starbucks.

And it is these people that I live for, that I love, and that I come to when called to the edge. I look forward to your summons, day or night, so that hand-in-hand we can push past the terror, take our leap of faith and sweetly kiss chaos one more time.

xoxox

Amazing Adventures of SuperMuse

"Artists are like superheros. They have their real lives, like normal, nerdy, Clark Kent, and then they have these alter-egos that go around saving the world by creating stuff." said DJ ManRich, while sipping warm Turkish coffee and reclining on the mussed coverlet of my bed.

I ran my fingers through his soft, Suessian mohawk and thought "Hmmmmm....yes that's true."

So many of my creator friends are stuck in dreary day jobs, but at 5 o'clock (AM or PM, we artists live through the strangest employment arrangements to pay for our art supplies), we rise from our day jobs and don our amusing artistic personae and start our play jobs.

As alter-egos, we SuperMuses run madly through the world casting art left, right and anywhere in between. We move so fast and look so different from our day selves, that we are unrecognizable to anyone from our day lives.

Our day life friends may see us flashing across the street or lounging at the corner gallery, but they have no idea that we are the same person who tosses their pizza, serves them coffee, or, god forbid, teaches their children to read.

And so was born, the idea, the inspiration for the Amazing Adventures of SuperMuse! coming soon to a blog near you

Blog guilt

Just watched Julie and Julia and mid-movie it dawned on me that I have a blog and have not posted it to more than six months.

I am a bad blogger mother. If this blog was a child, the CPS would have been banging on my door taking the poor thing away. If this blog was a dog, he would have moved in with the neighbors. If this blog was my friend, well, wait, good friends put up with you ignoring them for long periods of time, right? Isn't that part of being a good friend? You just have to apologize really nice and then they just go right back to being friends with you, right. Hmmm...

ME: Hey blog its so good to see you! (hug) Sorry I haven't been in contact. I mean, Wow, it's been forever hasn't it? I have been so busy, you wouldn't believe it.
BlOG: Really, busy doing what? Writing your book?
ME: Book? Um. Yeah. I did get some of that done. And...um I've been writing a lot of poetry. And I've made a bunch of collages and well, I met this really great friend.
BLOG: Yeah, I know. I read it on your Facebook.
ME: Oh...are you on FB?
BLOG: You seem to have a lot of time for facebook. Five to ten updates a day....And I saw your tweets.
ME: You're on twitter?!
BLOG: Your MySpace page seems to get a lot of your attention too.
ME: Well it's just that, well you know, those are part of my business.
BLOG: I used to be your business. Now I'm just sitting here alone waiting, just waiting. You know I was your first friend. When you had no one else, you had me. And now I'm just left on the side of the digital highway. Isolated on the internets. You never take me out anymore. You never bring me flowers. You never--
BUZZZZ
ME: Oh that's my phone. excuse me for a second blog...

So you want to be Creative...

As a Guide to Creativity, lots of people tell me they WANT to be more Creative. They see the creative life as a playful life, filled with happy happenings and exciting adventures. They imagine themselves living on a sunny, tropical island, painting brilliant landscapes and being served sweet drinks by beautiful muses in pastel dresses.

But, in my four decades of living the Creative life, and in the thousands of years of creative lives I have studied, I have yet to see this creative imagining come true. Because, the truth is, my creative initiates, the creative life is NOT anything like we imagine.

For when we give our lives over to the muses, their first mission is to turn our current lives upside down and inside out. It is only when we survive and thrive in this first turning, that we truly begin to live a Creative life.

So, if you DARE to be creative, prepare yourself for the turning. Give up the dream that you have any control over the whats and wherefores of your future. Give up believing that your plans and imaginings will come true. Give over control of your life to the muses, strap on your seat belt and prepare for the most frightening ride of your life.

Who knows, if the muses as kind and the fates are forgiving, you may end up on a sunny island, drinking sweet drinks and painting brilliant landscapes. Just don't bet on it.

Lost and Found--The END!

Today is your Birthday...it's my birthday too YEAH! That's all the lyrics I remember to that song, so i will stop singing now. Did you not know i was singing? We must invent an e-note that shows song. Actually, someone probably has already done that and I don't know it because I don't know my e-notes (except WTF? and LOL). You don't have to know such things in the CC.

Here in the CC (creative chaos), it's very easy not to know things that could be of major importance in the "real" world--like passwords. Mine has been lost in space since the day after I created this blog--and that's my excuse for not posting here. Today, for my birthday, the universe "found" my password. So, I am back in the CC.

Welcome back to me and you who might have been awaiting notes from me and the CC.

I am fully emmersed in the COMPLETE Cycle of a Creative Circle. Indeed our entire culture is emmersed in the COMPLETION Cycle of a Creative Circle. Well, actually, more accurately, most of the people in our culture are still enduring the ENDING of the old culture (the consumer culture). This is why our entire world is in an economic and spiritual depression. Well, again more accurately, this is why THEY are in an economic and spiritual depression. Most of US in the CC are NOT. We are in the process of transitioning to the New Culture--the Creative Culture.

WE, have made the CHOICE and taken the first step into the Creative Culture, moving forward in spite of fear and terror, and beginning to CONNECT with our selves, our subjects and our source.

If you who are reading this still feels lost in a spiritual and economic depression, you probably have not ENDED yet. Here's my advice for you, COMPLETE the last circle. How do you do this? It is, as most CC Cycles are, both simple and complex. Here are the steps you need to take
1. make a list of all that has ENDED for you (i.e. all my wants met whenever i want them met, all the stuff I'd ever want, your job, my economic "freedom", my feelings of security, etc)
2. grieve those losses (cry, scream, yell, rant) and mediate these losses into your life
3. organize and purge your stuff and your life (keep only what you love, use or need, and donate everything else to charity, downsize your shelter, cut out relationships and commitments that drain you of spiritual energy)
4. take the gifts of your past experiences (i.e. your last president may have been a major idiot, but you learned to recognize good leadership by living through the bad)
5. express feelings about the ENDING and gratitude for what you have
6. Celebrate the end--have a party with yourself, your community and your friends--eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we BEGIN the Creative Circle.
creatively yours,
A. Muse

Night Vision

Blocked on a project?
Sleep on it.
Began an orange canvas last night with no idea what it would become. Woke this morning with a vision of blue suede guitar. Painting it now.