Re: smelly old belly

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: : As for art, even that gets corrupted by the formation of subcultures clinging to that candle flicker of inspiration they found while the real truth is in conflagration just out of their sight. I think it's just as you said, the conflagration is too wild, too untameable. The candle is easier to get a handle on. : i agree, though i'd say the work itself isn't corrupted, assuming it was pure to begin with, and of course there isn't much that is 100% on target. : : While you and many others pursue this fire in your art, I have taken the path of pursueing it in sublimity. I guess I read too much Thoreau or Coleridge. TO me, the quickest way to rid myself of the fear of loosing myself is to thrust myself into situations where I am not in control. Thus I run into the gale, dive into the stormy sea. CLimb to the peak, or slog into the swamp to confront the sublimity of God as displayed in his creation by wiping myself clean of all but the barest instinct to survive and to follow that siren song. And in such situations, no other vestiges of self can remain. I am confronted with what I beleive, with how I have lied. Even coming here to Japan I'm finding was an excercise in this techinique...and what a good one. By the time I finally got here and recovered my senses enough to reflect at all, I had no pride left...at all...really. Unfortunately that damn body keeps crawling back out of the grave (nod to PS) : i think your version of pursuing a shaman's path is closer to what we think of when we think of shamanism. some guy (probably from an indigenous culture / tribe) goes out alone into the woods. maybe he fasts for several days. he prays. he is out there to seek a vision, or a dream. some internal symbol that will give him power. power to hunt, or to kill (if he seeks to be a warrior), or to heal. his consciousness is pointed internally. the power of his symbol, or symbols, will determine, for him, the strength of his life and his success or lack of it in attaining his goals. many people would go many times until they had discovered for themselves what they were seeking. : i am experiencing this same phenomenon, although i almost sort of tripped over it. i was seeking very purposefully symbols, metaphors, ideas, that i could bring out of what i think of as the "dream state", or a waking dream state. as i'd felt that the story behind my novel came, to some degree, from this place already, i was interested to continue investigating to see what would come of it. i have been recording my dreams since i was very young, so doing this sort of thing wasn't much of a stretch. : i have often wondered about bill's dreams. about how they have intersected his waking reality in very real ways. knowing bill as i do, i never doubted his claims along those lines. but it was always something a bit beyond me, beyond my powers. but i am finding now that the metaphors, the symbols, whatever you want to call them, are very real and have a power all their own. and they seem to be stitching things together in interesting ways. almost as though there is a power at work. : for instance, my main character's name is Ben. i know a guy named Ben. i told him i was naming my main character after him. almost jokingly, but in a way, sort of not. well, in the book, which i'd told Ben almost nothing about, there is a scene where Ben (the character) goes to sleep in a pod. a pod growing on the end of a big stalk/branch thing coming off of a tree. : so i was talking to him this week and he described a bunk he is sleeping in at his dorm. ben is the son of a good friend of mine, and we all have lunch together about once a week. well, he has boarded the thing up so that his roommate can watch tv and he can sleep. so i said, you are sleeping in a pod. and he said, yeah, i'm sleeping in a pod. and we all chuckled. and then i told him about the scene in the book. i was probably more astounded than they were, but still, we all had a bit of a moment. : stuff like that keeps happening. somehow it is about realization, the realization that everything is one thing, interconnected. time is one thing. place is one thing. different people are all together. somehow. something like that. i am finding that *my* metaphors are sprinkled all throughout myths from cultures all over the world. so i am experiencing Jung's collective unconscious in a very real way. the similarities, i am realizing, arise out of something intrinsic to every human life. : so i am a guy who is creating a myth. a real myth, whether anyone ends up classifying it as such. i know this because of the symbols / metaphors which have arisen in my mind. i know this also because these symbols seem to have an actual power. and i can feel them at times, like diaphonous gems in my mind. as though i can feel the outlines of them with invisible fingers. : and i'll tell you this. whoever wants to say that christianity is "just a myth" really ought to write one before saying that. i have been taking notes, as you can see, about the differences between the jesus experience and the shamanic one. i'm still sorting it out. but i can say that what i have experienced does in no way lead me to the conclusion that christians are wrong to concretize anything about jesus. in the end it is about power. christianity brings power to ordinary people. i have needed very much to experience my own isolate shamanic power. i know this now. it is the path that any artist who is any good must in some way tread. but what i have seen and felt does not make any religious experience i have had null and void. it only adds to the mix. : : As for creating, I once studied under a professor, whom I quoted previously, who taught that the maker's knowledge is the deepest form. I think this is the power you mention. To my mind the maker's knowledge, the truly original response, the inside out knowledge, is only possible in us because we share the image of God. While his creative power can bring things into such being as we call physical reality, ours can only create in a limited sense, by using elements of his reality or in the space he allows us inside our minds (like a novel). : can't say i disagree here, although i would say that what i have discovered seems to hint at limitless possibilities. i'm not creating "actual universes" or anything, but i am definitely finding a participation in the divine nature. this is pretty much prima facia within the context of this experience. actually i would go farther and say i have *found* the divine nature in myself. in a way similar to how hindus view it. : : It may be dark and smelly and scary where you are, but look forward to the day you get puked because that day you'll be on the right beach...still lost, and scrambling back int othe water, but a hell of alot closer to the right spot in spite of yourself. : : I think I'll make a t-shirt that says "whale puke". : hehe. i like it. : sometimes it feels dark and smelly. but mostly it feels really fantastically good. there are a few moments in your life that promise intense joy. creating and participating in this metaphorical journey creative process thing is one of them. : putting everything in context can be very intense and somewhat frightening. but overall i am in a good place. in fact i wouldn't be anywhere else.

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