Imagine a World
Perspectives from The Artist's Road
As we think about what a challenging and eventful year this has been so far, our thoughts converge on two things: how big and full of surprises this world is; and, how varied and sometimes in opposition the differing perspectives and realities we humans inhabiting it have. For all we know, reality may, in large part, just be wishful and possibly imaginative thinking by each individual. We all look out from where we stand and judge the world by our positions on it. Some have lofty views, unencumbered by inconvenience and rife with free time. Others look out from the obligations of family and career, which may leave precious little free time to consider much else. Still others have to scrap for every morsel and may live in a dangerous environment, so their world view is necessarily limited to daily survival. There are so many different points of view in the world that it is amazing that we can ever come together to agree on anything, even the color of a stop sign.
As artists, one of our primary jobs is to periodically set aside, mentally, what we think the world is at the moment and engage our thoughts with what might be. We do this, also, from where we individually stand, using all of our life experiences, our genders, ethnicities, biases, hopes and dreams to imagine something not yet in existence. What a tremendous ability and freedom that is—to assume the power of the gods and fashion something new from almost nothing:
“A miraculous event unfolds when we throw the lead of our personal story into the transformative flames of creativity. Our hardship is transmuted into something golden. With that gold we heal ourselves and redeem the world. As with any spiritual practice, this creative alchemy requires a leap of faith. When we show up to make art, we need to first get still enough to hear what wants to be expressed through us, and then we need to step out of the way and let it. We must be willing to abide in a space of not knowing before we can settle into knowing. Such a space is sacred. It is liminal, and it is numinous. It is frightening and enlivening. It demands no less than everything, and it gives back tenfold”.
Mirabai Starr -
Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics
When we finally share our creations with the world, we gift to it an enlarged view of reality–broader, deeper, and full of possibilities never conceived until that moment. As another year approaches, I believe that it is the creative people who have the abilities and skills to imagine and create a new, better and more beautiful shape for the unfolding future. And perhaps, help heal this wonderfully precious world in the process.
Perhaps one of the most valuable capacities of an artist is learning to recognise the limits of our own perspective while still creating from it. Imagination gives us a way to move beyond what already exists without pretending we can ever stand outside our own experience.
Truly POWERFUL thoughts! I completely agree.