Pique Your Imagination

The world between what is seen and known and the unseen and barely known, explored by the imagination and prompted by a curious spirit, pricks the conscious mind and tugs at the heart. There it is, and is not, a timeless space of dimensionless being. It exists, more than anywhere else in song, story, poem and prayer.

Throngs stream into stadiums and arenas to see contests between teams or solo competitors, or into theaters to listen to singers, hoping that there may be a glimpse  into the mystery of life and beyond, giving voice literally to that which might elevate the mind and transform ordinariness, spark  something with possibility.  We listen for the lilt in the voice or the moistness of the eyes that tells us that emotion is rising, that the heart of the singer is affected, that something is afoot.  We hope to become different, to have our senses expanded, the impossible reeled in and made near.  We have words for the experience of accessing the unknown:  Transcendent, uplifting, divine, and surreal.

We may view a piece of art, a painting, a photograph, or we may sense in some way that something special, unusual or undefinable is upon us. It may be fleeting and transient, but we know those moments as breathtaking and memorable.

On the other hand, when life is only drudgery and slop, hope and possibility drift away to the cold reaches of the night.  We sag, we worry, we cannot sing.  We cannot even breathe very well.

It is certain that living things, humans certainly, need those transitory moments when the dimensions of ordinary life change, when time stands still and when creativity and imagination are in full bloom.  We need to have time to let our minds wander, to drift undisciplined and unruly into the state of dimensionless being.

Ask any artist what I mean, and they will tell you:  Time stands still or means nothing, and it is as if they become a tool for the creative force of life itself.

Sometimes, I imagine I can step into pictures and exist in them.  I exchange my mundane existence for a walk in new worlds known to no one else.  I let my mind wander far into the realm of imagination.  It is as if I can push the edges of the painting's frame or photograph's edges aside and climb into a different state of mind.

Nothing is possible.  That is, nothingness is possible, even probable, when we do not live in between worlds at least part of the day.  The cues that beckon us to the dance of creativity are for our eyes and ears to catch and relay to our hearts, which beat more strongly when we do.  A backlit field of wheat at dawn, a fleeting smile, the ringing note of a trumpet in the woods are talismans for the torch of imagination that must be sparked if we are to be alive fully.

What piques your interest, stirs your heart, speaks to your eternal spirit?  Are you dancing lively, you tender creator of your own possibility?

Long Cool Bug

Two feet below my nose is a long black bug - like a stretch-limo fly - strolling around on a plant. The bug - iridescent blue and pinched at the waist - can walk around upside down as well as it can right side up. It is possibly the first time in my life I have ever seen such a bug, but I don't think I can remember every bug I've ever seen. It's a cool bug, not the kind that suddenly leaps into my face or chews up my plants. A Johnny Depp bug. A bug, pure and simple.

What strikes me about the bug is that it is going along living its bug life whether I have ever seen it before or not, whether I know what it's called or not.  That I don't understand its life or what it is called doesn't affect the bug.  I watch it, don't feel a need to kill, swat, whack or torment it. I realize that it's teaching me something.

Sometimes I wonder what other people think of me, how they see me, how I affect them.  I even get a little anxious about it now and again.  If they tell me how they feel, I usually believe them, but sometimes I even wonder about that, too.  I actually do things at times so that the person I'm with will approve of me, like me better or think I'm cool. I've probably never been cool, especially since I loved to go to the library and read magazines and books during my spare time at school, and I never jumped off of high places with bungee cords tied to my ankles.  So, being an uncool and quiet person, I wonder what people think of me at times. It has never done me any good to care.

It seems not to matter to the bug. The bug is living a casual bug's routine life regardless of what I think of it or not. I think it's pretty freeing not to care, to be bug-like. I know this begs the question: What if I kill the bug?  Shouldn't it be more concerned?  Maybe.  It doesn't seem to notice me, up in the air above it, 3,000 times bigger than it is, capable of annihilating it.

I have been known to fret a lot about these kinds of things. Does he love me?  Did they like me?  Was I nice enough, smart enough? Did I impress them?  I think that when I just stop caring and become oblivious to judgements by others, I get to the point of being able to walk on a leaf up side down.  Or the human equivalent of that.  I am more likely to reach my potential if I pay attention to what my heart and mind are telling me, pay attention to the truth of the matter, when I walk my walk unconcerned, right side up or up side down.

One in Seven Billion, Totally Unique

What is your purpose in life and how do you know if you've found it?  Getting back to the clues the universe leaves around, the fingerprints of your talent and gifts, I believe you know early on what fascinates you, pulls you into its realm of possibility.  Math?  Dance?  Texture?  Words?  Patterns?  Ideas?  No one knows the things you know in exactly the way you know them or will ever live the sequence of events you have lived through.  Horrors and joys, love and anger in the places you have known them make you able to do what only you can do, create only as you can.

There are things that you discount because they are simple to you.  You have not pushed the boundaries of what you can do with your talent if the thing is easy to you or boring.  If the thing that you love to do is difficult but fascinating, do it; something about that fascination is a clue to you about your essential qualities, the you that is nobody else.  Maybe there is something you feel is crucially important to work on and cannot let go of.  That's what's working you; your gifts are being brought to bear.

The most frustrating tragedies in life are often due to a denial of true self.  The great loss of talent and potential through oppression and too-early death is an immeasurable tragedy.  But poor self-esteem, lack of awareness of possibility and a sense of false obligation to standards imposed by others are potentially as ruinous to us as death is.  Often in society we feel obliged to do what others tell us to do, believing they understand our destinies and our hearts better than we understand our own.  But that's impossible.  Nobody knows you like you, and no one sees the situation just like you do.  Witnesses to crimes and catastrophes all have tell a different version of what happened - they all literally saw something different than the other witnesses did.

In a way, the uniqueness of our personal existence leads to loneliness and a sense of separateness.  We may say, "No one sees it like I do; no one understands me," and it's the truth.  In my opinion, I want to see it like no one else does.  I don't want to be the same as anyone else.  I was born me, and that is who I must be.  However, if I forge ahead without considering the giving of my gifts to the world, my talents will become burdens, to me and to my community.

I don't believe that talent or purpose is so easy to recognize that we can just sit under a shade tree until the apple of opportunity falls into our laps.  Joseph Campbell said he wished the term he coined "follow your bliss" had been expressed as "follow your blisters."  It's a trudge, a lifelong journey undertaken to express our talent and find purpose in life.  Who doesn't ask, "Why am I here?"  I have, many times. Seems to me my purpose is to find my purpose, and I'm still trying to figure it out.