Mar 25 2008
On Prayer & Making Art
My Silence
My silence bridges the gulf between my life’s success
and my life’s failure.
My silence does not magnify my defects.
Nor does it connive at them.
My silence transforms my defects into strength indomitable.My silence is a climbing flame that warms my world of despair.
My silence is my inner light.
No problem of mine can defy solution.
My silence is a selfless distributor of joy to ever-widening horizons.In my silence I become a man of sterling character,
a prolific writer, a voracious reader, a divine lover,
a profound inspirer and a triumphant liberator.In my deep silence I never become a victim to ignorance,
the greatest calamity that can befall any human being.
In my growing silence I am convinced that even as a man on this earth I shall be able to reach heights, transcendental, divine.
My glowing silence alone can accelerate my
Godward march.My spreading silence makes me see, feel and possess satisfaction,
unalloyed satisfaction.
No more have I to let loose a tirade of tenebrous dissatisfaction.In activity and vitality I proudly and wrongly feel that
I shall have to take care of the whole world.
In the heart of silence I humbly and unmistakably realise
That it is the Divinity within the world that took care,
takes care and shall for ever take care of the entire world.Silence is my unceasing petition.
Silence is my unreserved preparation.
Silence is my unlimited realisation.
Silence is the unfathomable fount of my life here on earth, there in Heaven.What God’s Silence is . . .
is the Eternal Truth.
What God’s Silence serves is the Eternal Purpose.
What God’s Silence becomes is the inevitable Fulfilment.
-Sri Chinmoy
My as I said in my last post, my entire trip was about plugging into the present moment. I experienced the freedom and energy that gives. This first began to happen when I was drawing. I would begin a drawing with energy. My hand flowed easily in its work but at a certain point the ease would be gone. It wasn’t clear to me what to do next. Typically I would have pushed through this sensation to complete my drawing. Instead I listened to what my energy was telling me. I honored my internal clock and set the drawing aside until I was moved again to work. When I picked up the drawing again, my energy restored, it felt as if the drawing completed itself. All my struggle in the process of creation evaporated with my surrender to following the energy.
I believe that internal rhythm, the ebb and flow of energy, is the direct voice of the Divine. The Divine voice is too often drowned out by the external pressures of our everyday obligations, our busyness, and the internal pressures of our self imposed expectations. This is why silence is sacred. It allows us the space to hear and engage the One.
As I began to honor this Divine rhythm within during drawing, I began to understand viscerally something I have known intellectually for a very long time. Time does not exist anywhere but on Earth. The Divine world is not impacted by time and thus to really pray effectively to the Divine I knew I needed to remove time from the equation. Now instead of praying for things to come, for example, “Dear God, please give me the patience I need” I now pray, “Dear God/All That Is, I am patient.” The first prayer brings me situations in which to become more patient, the second calls the Divine into present time, connects me with God without future or past as God is, pure Being, without future or past, beginning or end. That’s when I realized that everything that I do in present time is a prayer: my art, my time with my family, even sitting in traffic or expressing anger.
Prayer is the interface between the Self-Knowing Divine, what we would call “God,” and humanity, the unconscious Divine. Since, as mystics tell us, there is nothing which is not God, it is merely our lack of consciousness which denies Divine presence in every moment and in everything. To experience the present moment is to strengthen our consciousness of the beloved One. When we listen in that moment, we hear the Divine and we are at prayer. Every moment of this type of prayer floods the world with more Light. I believe this is the real reason for creating art whatever anyone’s intellectual ideas about it may be. Making art is the soul’s way of reaching out and connecting with the Divine, it is the artist’s prayer.
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3 things I’m grateful for today:
1) Being able to go grocery shopping
2) Writing this blog entry
3) Finding scarlet runner bean seeds
I am happy that you are recovering and enjoyed reading this thoughtful post. What strikes me is that we are too easily led away from our silence; the center of which contains the truth.
I’ve been thinking about this post. And then I was reading an essay by Denise Levertov on organic poetry and came across this, which reminded me of you:
“To contemplate comes from ‘templum, temple, a place, a space for observation, marked out by the augur.’ It means, not simply to observe, to regard, but to do these things in the presence of a god. And to meditate is ‘to keep the mind in a state of contemplation’; its synonym is “to muse,’ and to muse comes from a word meaning ‘to stand with open mouth”not so comical if we think of ‘inspiration’—to breathe in.
So—as the poet stands openmouthed in the temple of life, contemplating his experience, there come to him the first words of the Poem: the words which are to be his way in to the poem, if there is to be a poem. The pressure of demand and the meditation on its elements culminate in a moment of vision, of crystallization, in which some inkling of the correspondence between those elements occurs; and it occurs as words. If he forces a beginning before this point, it won’t work.”
This is beautiful.
Hi Sybil,
I stopped to visit again and wish you well. I hope you continue to improve. Best wishes ph/
Your description of your working practice reminded me of a piece that I’d written about three contemporary artists:
Albert Herbert’s method of creating added a further level of reconciliation to his work. He has explained that a painting usually starts with some idea that could be put into words but that when he begins to paint he becomes fully involved in “the struggle to harmonise shapes, colours and textures”. This can go on for several months with the original idea becoming lost in the paint only to re-emerge as something quite different. In this way he both draws his images from his subconscious and integrates them into the wholeness of the painting.
His approach tallies with that of another contemporary painter, Ken Kiff. Kiff, too, argues that his subconscious images only achieve meaning through the process of shaping and forming the painting. The painting, as a whole, must be discovered, by the artist, bit by bit. This has to happen in order “for the thing to really grow together and be significantly all part of the same growing thing”. In this growth there can be a sense of peace, completeness and wholeness despite the presence, at times, of disturbing imagery.
Cecil Collins, too, came to use a similar approach to a united development of image and form. He called this process the Matrix. Collins’ use of the Matrix involved the following; he would choose two complementary colours, then, with his eyes shut he would paint a number of brush strokes. He would then open his eyes and consider the marks on the paper or canvas. As he looked images would suggest themselves and he would select and paint the one that he wished to impose as the predominate image. The point of the Matrix was to “penetrate deeper into the creative imagination so that it is that which speaks to the artist and not the shallower levels of the mind … The Matrix … stands for all the hidden desires of the soul”.
Drew, Thanks you and welcome! Jonathan & Gartenfische, as always, I learn something beautiful from your responses. Princess, & Jan, thanks for stopping by and adding beauty to my blog.