10 posts tagged “creativity”

I found this, courtesy of Tasha Tuk

The Last Knit

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As I watched, it reminded me of how I am when I have nothing to do. I'm not talking about the times when you want quiet and relaxation without motion. I'm not talking about sitting out in the sun and watching the day go by.

I'm talking about the days when you Need to do something. Doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is something. Even then, I often find it isn't enough and need to go to extremes.

I may not be a cartoon but this is so much like me, it is almost scary.

Think of your mind as a ketchup bottle and as your pen and paper as the hand that holds the bottle. The glass bottle has a long neck and often as you try to pour it, it seems to stick. Now, if you were to pound the bottom of the bottle, at first nothing would come out, so you pound harder. Then suddenly, a torrent pours from the bottle, more than you wanted. Now, unless you were careful were you did your banging, you have a large mess on your plate that drips over and onto the table. Shaking also produces the same effect, but it can be even sloppier, always check your shirt when using this method.

Conversely, if you simply wait for the ketchup to come out, you might get what you want, find mostly liquid but little ketchup pouring out or you could be waiting a very long time. The best method for removing ketchup from a glass bottle is this; keeping the bottle closed, shake firmly and well, then open the bottle and with a knife, slowly draw out the amount needed.

There is a feeling of joy and pride when the ketchup pours without any kind of preparation. Everything comes together, almost like a moment of perfection. Writing is the same way, when the words flow without much effort, you feel inspired, you could write forever.

You never know though, when that feeling will leave and you are stuck with writers block. Just remember the story and don't force it, let things stew and occasionally shake things up a bit. Then when you feel as if your pen and hand or working in balance with your mind, slowly draw out what you need and you should be fine.

Personally, I think that many writers invested in plastic ketchup bottles, years before they came onto the market. Many say, with all humility, that the words that flow are inspired by God or faith while others say "it is all me and I am a genius". Whatever the reason, the outcome is all that matters. They have found a way to eek out the material without overflowing and missing the important things.

circa, '98

Science explores the known and makes it unknown; it delves into the familiar and sees the vast strangeness. It inspires the investigation of the path of travel to see, to experience and to understand. It is the quest for understanding that always pushes scientists into the known, playing, like a cat with some yarn, to see just how much of what is known is true.

Then, when this has been done to the extent that reality has shifted into the realm of chaos, they open themselves up to all the myriad possibilities. The quest for a cure for diabetes has opened up the research into DNA. Whether or not you believe such information is good or bad is irrelevant, as this is not a moral issue; rather it is an issue of connections. The research into DNA has made us more aware of how similar all of us are, creating a strong connection to the archaeological community and positioning us to be able to prove or disprove many commonly held beliefs.

The scientific research has been the trigger for many creative leaps. Many have been later disproved, but the quest itself opened up even more possibilities. The study of DNA has in turn prompted the increased study of the atom: ever smaller, each investigation finds an even smaller particle. Electrons, protons, quarks, flavors -- the common tongue can no longer speak of the smallest of things, as even smaller pieces are continually being discovered.

These discoveries have been integral to the study and design of miniaturization. Nano-technology has been able to thrive as the known becomes obsolete and new ways of doing things are discovered, making the lenses with which we see more powerful and our modes of communication more flexible. Without these developments we could never have progressed into the realm of computers in daily life. Considering space, it is now much more feasible than it was twenty years ago for the human race to live there -- to learn and study, to communicate and explore, to live, and mayhap one day to thrive.

How often has the fiction of science become a reality? Yet we are continually told that these things will never happen, that believing in such possibilities is a waste of time, as the reality of now is what needs our attention most. We are told to stop our brains and pretend that what we discover has no bearing on the present.

The fascination of mathematics and music, has created many forms of complex sound, that touches many. To say that Bach, who created the modern tonal scale, was not creative or a musical genius, would be to downplay the mathematical accomplishment. An accomplishment, that would never have happened, if the creative exploration was not at the crux of his mission.

Poet's have experimented with form, sound and applied mathematical strategies to poems. They have used visual and other sensory devices to bring you a tactile expression. They have sung the poems, in the form of vocal and metered lines. Science is as much a part of the creative process as art and music are. A form of expression that touches the everyday life and touches the unknown or inner being that says, "there is truth here".

There is a place within the poet that cries out to the unknown, and it answers: "Can you see me? Then tell my story; make others understand!" There is another part of the poet who sees what science sees, a transcendence of thought and imagination, that may not explain but can reveal the fascination. They say that the fool walks without watching his feet and explores the world with a look of wonder. I have faith that the scientist who walks like a fool, sees the world with the eyes of a child, and has the heart of an explorer continues on his journey into the awe of the universal poetry.

circa, '98

Metaphor and analogy are the tools most often used in poetry to express what is considered to be inexpressible. Sometimes we do it poorly, and sometimes it is done so superbly that it reaches many of those who read or hear it.

It is quite all right for a poem to have multiple layers as long as those layers tie together without pulling confusion into the meaning. I am reminded of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the fugues he created. Even if you do not care for his music, it is well worth the effort to spend some time listening to a few of his fugues. A fugue usually has at least three melodies that are layered with harmonies and are treated like rounds ("Row, Row, Row, Your Boat" is an example of a round). Each melody plays with the others while at the same time sounding unique unto itself. They are usually very simple and elegant, but as each round progresses, the complexity increases slightly within each melody. After seven or eight rounds you can still hear the original three, but the music itself interweaves, creating more harmonies that bridge and overlap, making something quite astounding in its subtlety.

Bach's fugues are great metaphors for poetry, primarily because they are poetry within a realm different from the written or spoken word. They elicit the same ethereal quality of exceptional poetry when read. Bach's music is mathematical in nature; he used meter, timing, pitch, melody and harmony. Poets use meter, timing, enunciation, space, rhyme, and percussion in their poems. No matter how mathematical Bach's pieces may be, in the end he found a way to supersede the mechanics and transcend the obvious. He was and still is a master of poetry in motion and emotional response, in intellect and the unknown. He creates subtlety with simple lines, turning the known into something marvelous and unexpected.

Many times, after listening to one of his fugues, I have gone outside and looked at the horizon. The clouds have become surrealistic and the colors have shifted into strange and fascinating bits, never before noticed. He has created a possible way to see the world and, for a time, you can share this possibility with him. The metaphor is in the transition from the music to your actual experience. The invention is in the responses elicited by you, becoming and then letting go of the music.

This is the goal of music, but it is also the goal of science and poetry: To discover that which is already there, bring it to the surface, and share it with others. To touch and be touched in turn, to create with your mind, the metaphor of the indefinable emotions and feelings all of us possess. There is a reason why our most compelling emotions are simple words that label, but are inadequate to describe, that which is within us -- why we must use math, philosophy and other sciences to describe what we discover. They are all metaphors of commonality used to share this experience and knowledge, just as our words and symbols are but metaphors of our true thoughts.

Circa, '99

There is something to the feel of yarn as it passes slowly through your hand and bends itself around the needle. To the slither and click of the needles passing the loops, one to the other, and the shift of fingers as you change the type of knot you are creating. The sound varies to the type of yarn and stitch and becomes a meter of music that weaves itself into memories of comfort and well-being. My mother created beautiful sweaters when I was a child, I remember listening to the needles as she stitched the knots and watched the lengths slowly grow to become strangely patterned bits of material. Often I would watch her create Celtic knots that came into being like magic and as I watched, my eyes would slowly close until sleep took me.

To me, one of the most beautiful sights was the look on her face as she knit, a calmness and serenity that she rarely had at any other time. Occasionally I would see her suddenly become focused with her work, she would suddenly become stillness itself, except for the moving fingers and the lips, which counted out the stitches. During that time, the world would quiet and nothing else could be heard but the movements of needles, sliding and clicking. As soon as she was done with the mathematical aspects of the pattern she was making, the house would suddenly come back to life.

I never understood how the crickets knew when to be quiet, it was like a magic of space, inhabiting this world of creation. I was enthralled with the idea of having such an ability and tried to get her to teach me how to make the world hold it's breath. Wasn't till I was almost thirty that she finally decided that maybe I really was serious about learning how to knit. During the course of a winter, she taught me how to hold the needles and make stitches, then unwind the length and reknit again, by the time I was done with that length of yarn it was good only for cats to play with and birds to make nests of, but I had learned the way of knitting.

After a year of making hats and scarves, practicing various types of patterns, I decided it was time to start a large project and to see if I could find the magic of childhood memories. There is a reason why people knit in the winter more than at any other time, it is a comforting warmth that slowly grows as you add each line of stitches. Folds of lengths that slowly become swathes of material and then the comforting weight of a blanket. I found that my mind stopped moving in the normal sense of the word, it became more than a counting machine, moving like an automon. The world about me became for focused as the mind became free to see beyond the now and to hear more than I had ever noticed within the white of winter. If time could truly cease to exist, knitting came as close to that as possible, if you can imagine a moment of beginning and then a moment of ending, to discover that hours had gone by and you did not begrudge a moment of lost minutes because, in the end, you know you lived outside time for that period.

~~

The winter melts away and the tulips bloom through the bits of ice and hardened ground. Soggy brown mats of grass and sleeping or dead plant growth litter the landscape. My fingers itch with the anticipation of budding trees, that tells me it is safe to go out and garden. Clippers, rake, shovel, pitchfork, hoe, mulch and wheelbarrow in toe, dreams of vegetables and flowers in my head, I begin my outdoor ritual.

As long as the soil is not too wet, I love to till the earth, the smell of soil newly broken fills the area with the freshness of spring. The entire body is involved with the process of gardening and as the rhythms begin to touch my heart I find the click and slide of knitting needles emerge in a slower dance of movement. The sun rises and falls within this space where no time is relevant and thoughts become like a dream of motion and acceptance. The vision of nature becomes a simple petal and the texture of a stem, finds a way to expand outward with the breezes, whispering to the grass, singing like the ocean and the entirety of this world seems to fold in on you like an expanding galaxy of stars.

There is something to be said for the tending of living things, though it is a deeply personal experience it also has the tendency to make you more aware of the world outside your sphere of living. A bit of a contradiction in terms, to go inward as you grow outward but does not the plant do the same thing? Does it not grow both a root system from below as it grows stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seed?

~~

Strangely enough, I write quite a bit after knitting or gardening, perhaps it is the trance like quality of the work that impels the words to flow. Maybe it is the peace that comes from allowing thoughts to come to the fore and merge, like the sauce in stew. Like waking from a dream, the thoughts often fade but when the writing begins, they resurface in unexpected ways. It is just as possible though, that the secret to the writing lay in just allowing ourselves to be, to truly live within the moment and to be alive without any qualifications.

Circa, '97

Writing is for me, very cyclical. My mind is going a thousand miles per hour and sometimes, I just need to empty out some of the meandering thoughts that keep regurgitating to the surface. After all, they do keep coming up for a reason.

Sometimes, the things I write down are personal revelations, the ego and id mucking through the subconscious gateway and tossing random notes over the ironwork.

Other times, it is a "Perfect Moment", hard to define and yet, you really need to share it. How to communicate that thought, emotional pivot or revelation? How can I express the inexpressible, is there even a word for this? I go hunting, on the prowl for the elusive way to communicate this moment, thought, emotion.

Then there is the pure pleasure of life itself, where I want to laugh and make others laugh in turn. To bring a smile to others with a bit of silliness. To tell a guarded story to make one think of things that might be hard to think about, listen to, or discuss. Push the boundaries and make people say, "Yes, I am alive, so are you, and by whatever is most holy to us, we should live."

An ebb and flow of logic, emotion, curiosity and the need to touch other peoples minds and hearts. Poetry for me, is the song of the soul, while prose belongs to the logical consequence of time. Emotion though, can be as analytical as prose and as maudlin as a greeting card.

I have gone years between acts of writing. I call it my refueling time. It isn't writer's block as much as it is overload. Anyone who can keep up the pace has my utmost admiration. The creative outlet though, continues in other forms, from graphics, to cooking, gardening to sculpting and knitting. Now, I am not saying I am good at these things, but something inside me needs to create, when words do not work, I find other means.

I have gotten into the habit of keeping paper and pens on the passenger seat of my car. Seems many poems want to be born while I drive. It can be annoying when I am in the fast lane and suddenly a poem pops into my head; I am lucky if I can remember it long enough to pull over to the side of the road to write it down. There was a time when I would not do this: a poem would be born while I drove and then I would play with it for awhile and then let it go on its way. When I first started writing poetry, that was fine -- the poems were not that good, and it was fun to let them ramble in my head like bowling pins.

Eventually though, the inevitable happened: while driving down the road on another long distance jaunt, a poem came into my head and it blew me away. The beauty of it was astounding, and I could not get to the side of the road fast enough to write it down. When I pulled over, the first thing I did was look for a pen -- checked the seats, the floor, the glove compartment, all the while repeating the poem in a fevered rush aloud and in my head so as not to forget it. Then I got out of the car and checked under the seats and under the cushions -- still no pen or pencil -- checked the trunk of the car and found nothing. Then I had it. I rushed to the backseat, pulled out my son's activity bag, and took a crayon out. Then I realized I had no paper, and since crayon doesn't really work on skin, I went to the window and proceeded to write the poem. It filled all the side windows and the rear one -- I was on a roll. With the poem not yet finished, I started to write on the door panel. By the time I was done I had gone through four crayons, and all but the front window was filled with colored wax words.

Relieved that I had gotten the poem down before it was forgotten, I got into the car and proceeded to drive. I found that a calm had descended upon me as the words quickly left; I was very glad I thought of the crayons. Unfortunately for me, as I relaxed into the mood of driving, it suddenly started to rain. Not the soft comforting rain that invigorates, but the downpour that is so thick you can't see ten feet in front of you. Twenty minutes of hard rain later, and with a headache the size of Texas, I pulled into a gas station to get some coffee and fill the gas tank. As I stood at the gas tank I knew something wasn't right, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. Everything looked just as it should, and for some reason that bothered me very much. Going to the register I suddenly stopped and turned around to see that the reason for my concern was all too visible - or rather not visible. Not one fleck of crayon was still on the car, not even the waxy residue you usually see. I went to pay for the gas and bought some pens and a notebook. I think I sat in my car for an hour, trying to remember all that I had written, but not even one line would rematerialize. Never again would I leave my house without my notebook and pen! To this day, I still think it was the best poem I have ever written, and there is no way I will ever again be in a plight where the poem is lost due to the lack of paper or a pen.

Our inspirations and creative endeavors grow as our need to change does.
The poetry within us is the faith of humanity,
the prose within us is the reaching out,
the speech within us is the accountability we accept
and the deeds we do reflect the hope that is within us.

 We want people to understand everything we say all the time, everytime. But this does not happen, language is a symbol of our thoughts but it is not our thoughts. It is imprecise, which is why we have things called Art, Science, Literature... It is a wonder that any of us can truly understand each other. Which is why, when we have those special moments where there is such a thorough understanding between you and another, we experience such grand epiphanies.

It moved, as it always had, seeing nothing. It had spent it knew not how much time simply being, without thought, without vision, without hearing. Indeed, it did not even know these things nor their meaning, it simply was. So it continued onward. It did not know when it came to be nor did it really care, but there was something inside it, that slowly grew, something it knew not the meaning of.

One day, the feeling grew so large it became a thought, “I wish there was something here besides this nothing.” As it thought upon this, it slowly grew more and more sad and something within it’s body welled up from its soul and poured out, as sighs. The sighs, pushed outward and moved quickly, continuing outward, passing another who also lived in this no place.

The sigh, brushed pass this being and caused it to stop as nothing had ever happened here before. The being moved slowly to where the sigh came from, as it too knew a need from within its depths, unrecognized or known. As it traveled, a feeling of sadness welled up in it and overpowered the being so that it too sighed, “I wish I understood”.

The two sighs met and merged and became something other than a wish. They grew bright and shimmered, to become stars of light. The two beings noticed this difference and moved towards it, never having before seen something other than what had always been. The lights changed, the closer they came, some were not as bright as others, but they had something else to them that made them different.

They began to discern that colors made appearances different, and that what was blue, was not as warm as what was red or yellow. They also noticed that shapes made a difference too and discovered what round meant. They continued to move within this new space and watched as things changed. New feelings started to find there way to these beings of excitement and joy.

So they continued until one day, they met. “I wish I understood” and “I wish there was something here besides nothing” met where once their sighs did. As they drew closer, they realized they could talk to one another. Knowledge and Chance looked to one another and saw the beginnings of all before them. Knowledge suddenly understood that when their sighs met, they had created another being, called “Life” and that when the two of them finally met, they had succeeded to create “Faith”.