Red Thread Letter #782 : Quivering Edge of the Creative
MUSEA : Centers for Intentional Creativity
FEATURED ONLINE EVENTS
Life Book 2020 offered by Tamara Laporte of Willowing Arts – I am one of the teachers for this amazing yearlong creativity course – starting now! Come see. The value and offerings are truly incredible!
Legend Cosmic Cowgirls Course begins next week – Come along on a six week painting adventure to meet your Oracle and Ally!
For a full listing of upcoming MUSEA events, go here: www.schoolofintentionalcreativity.org
UPCOMING In person events with Shiloh Sophia
Tiburon, Sonoma and New York
“Discovering Pleasure” by Shiloh Sophia ~ Summer 2019 Painting
Quivering Edge of the Creative
Somewhere in the middle
the muse changes her tone with you.
In the middle of writing the novel
or the middle of the big painting
or both, if you are lucky,
then something strange
this way comes.
The voice you knew as your own,
the one that had limited access
to the archive of the known,
reveals to you,
the hidden library.
You thought only mad-women
willing to hover on the quivering edge
could gain access.
Have you finally arrived?
Some say there is a price to pay
when you enter through the gate
which leads to the rest of consciousness.
The gate which exists past the dark roots
and on the inside of hot stars
and surely in the cupped hand
of a lover, whispering.
Somewhere in the middle of
making art the edge of madness
and genius slips on a dress
of moss green gossamer
with a hem made of ocean foam.
This is when you stop doing the laundry
all together and run out of underpants.
You go commando and wear less and less
clothing, even your painting apron
seems like too much fuss.
This is when eating becomes
an inconvenience and potato chips
and chocolate become a food group.
The household may have to fend food
for themselves or better yet,
they take themselves out of the house
to forage for what you no longer provide.
When they leave, you turn up the music.
The cats hide from you,
the dog, stays beside you.
This is just the moment,
when thrift is thrown to the wind
and you use an entire jar of gold paint
in one sitting with a giant brush stroke,
just because it just feels like an orgasm,
a really long one too.
You give yourself to this experience,
offering up your body to the beauty.
You yell out with glee! Yahooooo!
Afterward you wonder
if there are any others who know this place,
between worlds with access
to the hidden library and gold paint
on your hands.
This is when clothing becomes
irrelevant and shoes, why bother.
This is just about the time you
start leaving the doors open
so the lizards, fairies and frogs
can come in for tea
and an occasional
fat robin with a wriggling worm.
The mundane and the paperwork
and the traffic and the big boxes
of cereal or toilet paper felt
like it might kill you, almost
a faceless enemy.
You don’t know why or when
the modern world began to feel
like a threat, but you think you
can see weird shaped beams
of code listening from your phone.
One day on a whim you search the web, for
‘big yellow boat’ because your muse
demanded one on the canvas.
Suddenly you are being
sold yellow bikinis and coolers
for boating outings.
And texting, it just takes too long,
and you hate it that this way
of communicating demands
a quick response or
you aren’t being responsive enough.
Appointments sound so boring
after a morning of poetry that you
cancel every one, without explanation.
When you are in the middle of
the novel or the great archetypal
voyage across the desert of the psyche,
you stop answering emails.
You just don’t care what others think
and wonder why you cared
so damn much before,
trying to keep up
is so in vogue,
but you hate it.
You finally arrive in the land
of being enough as you are.
Only now you don’t care what enough is
as long as there is enough ink in the well
to write the rest of the novel.
The novel that you are fairly certain
is being dictated by mermaids
with enough tall fishtales
for everyone in the story.
This is just about when
your family thinks
you have gone off your rocker,
but you don’t correct them,
instead you are looking at how
their ears come to little points
or how their freckles seem to form
a constellation of infinite beauty.
From time to time
invite them to sit with you a spell,
pour them a cup of tea from the
giant teapot with glittering wings.
But don’t let them stay too long,
only long enough to assure them
you have not gone entirely mad.
Your efforts have the opposite
effect and they leave your studio
worried, and you just smile broadly
with glitter on your eyebrows,
which makes it even worse.
You turn back to the work
at hand, the muse is beckoning.
The muse reminds you that the
quivering edge between
the artist’s journey to another world
and the shaman’s journey into
the non-ordinary world
yields just the material you
are looking for, if you dare.
For no reason at all you start
to create as if the furies have
been released and as you do
the old ghosts are dissolved.
The energy moves in arcs of
colored light and poetry scrawled
in ink stretches across an
impossible indigo horizon.
Then you discover her there,
the one you have been waiting for,
the one with the secrets of the sea
hidden within each shimmering scale.
You weren’t ready for her before
but now, you are,
you have been through the ordeal,
did not turn back,
and now the gift of mystery
is on the tip of your tongue,
the tip of your brush,
the tip of your pen.
The quivering edge of creation
has formed new patterns in you.
Nothing is as important to you now,
than discovering this new
and ancient place.
So familiar and so new,
and in truth,
so filled with pleasure.
You think, if only the others knew,
you want to tell them all about it,
maybe later, you pour out a
jar of turquoise paint and the color
makes you want to dance,
and so you do.
~ Shiloh Sophia
Poem from: Cosmic Cowgirls, a book of poetry coming in 2020.
Dear One,
What a journey life is. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. Both I guess! It’s a wild ride to say the least. I woke up thinking this. I am 49, in the next 10-15 years I will go gray. I may have to make a doctor visit, which I avoid. My moon cycle will stop. My elders will pass or be well on the road. The reality of life and aging is here. What am I going to do with it?
My answer is clear. Soul stuff over goal stuff. Now to spend more time in January getting clearer and clearer on what that means. Starting with adding RESPECT days off on my calendar – I have had it on there for years, but this year it fell off. Rest. Eat. Sleep or Sex. Play. Explore. Create. Travel.
The poem is clearing about turning towards the pleasure, which is an antidote for the pain. Truly. I hope the year for you includes more of what you long for.
If you put soul over goal – how does your vision for 2020 change?
I know for sure when I am excited about where I am going, I get there faster and more equipped. Follow the quiver….
Our theme as a couple for the year is all about us…
ME + YOU
YOU + ME
Blessings on your next great adventure!
Me and my love, Jonathan McCloud, on New Years Day.
Sending New Year Blessings right to where you are. It’s been a curious time indeed. Choosing to be in love with the world and I am strengthened by what challenged me! Let’s persevere and shine our lights upon the world! #californiawinter
