creativity interlude
story-state-action exercise
i should probably caveat emptor the shit out of the word creativity, put it in some quotes so that we can all ramp down from the ledge of colonial definitions
“creativity” interlude
there, that’s better
so, ox moon vibes is very tough. to be real the whole of snake year has been tough. in this article i want to use some of the aggressive impatience qi that is stirring in a useful way.
first will be a mini article, then an exercise.
on with it—
Purple Rain on an Infinite Loop
These days (these fucking days), i find myself oscillating between escapes.
One escape is the far far very far future. This escape is a sci-fi action comedy that sometimes doubles as a rom-com.
The other escape is a pre-bronze age asia, back when asia was also eastern europe, the fertile crescent and all that. The proto-silk road. This escape is a grimdark psychedelic wuxia animist folklore. Think animist matrifocal conan the barbarian (minus the conan).
These two worlds are in fact the same world, just with different aesthetics. They exist as a subliminal (sub-liminal) reflection of the struggle of our dna, mitochondrial transmigration of the “soul force” which is anything but non-violent but is not interested in violence as domination.
No, violence as mirror, as tension and release, as wave dynamics, music, and the sour grace of regret (if we are lucky to survive long enough that all our aspirations are seen in the rear-view mirror).
Creativity is a violence, against the familiar.
This snake year has amplified my ancestral curse, the syndrome of syndromes, the loss of almost all energy to produce and progress. Stasis as a year, retreat as an imperative, aloneness as a detox. Clarity as sharp as viper fang.
But that clarity does not come with ideas, solutions. This kind of clarity is just a monument to NO. Nothing works as intended. Nothing fits. Nothing matches.
The arc of karma does not necessarily bend towards preference. Resolution can arrive in forms unfit for mass consumption, completely alien to common dualistic comprehension.
In a society addicted to smelling its own farts, the wisdom of nature, of time and blood, does not obey the mandates of fart-sniffers.
The tower of babel is not a Christian idea. It is the schism of immaturity, the chasm under identity.
We chase and chase safety, believing that everyone can and should have it.
Nature is not this form of compassion.
All those eaten by the machine have been eaten by the creature before machines were the metaphor du jour.
We think we can go back, or move forward, to a point of light at the end of a tunnel.
It’s all tunnels, forever.
From that realization, then we can begin.
But not “together”, never together.
No one arrives at this realization as a group. Only individuals can arrive here. Only alone, only ever alone.
In the black tower of her silence, Anima Sola waits.
Exercise
I am reading a great book called “The Grammar of Fantasy” by Italian pedagogue Gianni Rodari that was highly influential in the Reggio Emilia school system in Italy in the 60s, 70’s, etc. From what I can glean, Gianni was highly influenced by Marxism and Surrealism. It’s great stuff and super in sync with what I’ve already discovered about creativity, improvisation and the nondual animist mind.
Today’s exercise is a riff on some of the ideas. It’s simple and requires very little prep or time.
The basic jist is that you pick 2 or 3 words, themes or terms at random and invent a story via mindful stream-of-consciousness speaking. If you can do this with a group of kids, all the better, as they will interact with your telling and spark new associations and ideas and games within the improvised narrative.
To find the 2-3 terms, you can easily open books up randomly, close your eyes and put a finger down on the page. Once it’s down, that is the word. (If your finger lands on an image, the first words that you use to describe that image are the words.) The point is that you have to allow your mind to free associate and discover the story. Speaking the story out loud is very important because the audio aspects of words lead to connections that just visual thinking and silent imagining does not.
Giving yourself a timer or other constraint may be useful, as in flash fiction, haiku, etc. The point is not to rush, but also not to overly hesitate. Get over your perfectionism and need to make sense. Ideas require iteration and the first steps of iteration are always rough, always “i don’t know!”. Learn to sketch. Learn to generate. Editing and polishing can come later. This exercise is just about creating something now, in a short amount of time, to prove that you can, and to warm up the part of the brain that lives only in the present moment.
also of note, on freewriting: https://ckarchive.com/b/wvu2hghkm7066h9r552rqtnq2okxxs8hq2g6w?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
also of note, on freewriting: https://ckarchive.com/b/wvu2hghkm7066h9r552rqtnq2okxxs8hq2g6w?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
In the dream practice group, you said something : ‘compassion is not trying to take someone’s karma away’ and here, ‘Nature is not this kind of compassion’
This is the thread I’m teasing, (maybe adjacent to ‘creativity/improvisation)
For now just letting the notions of compassion dangle, resisting the urge to thread a new needle.
But these flapping, flailing notions of compassion and their colonised counterfeits draw my mind constantly in waking and sleeping dreams. A large part of my motivation for dream practice is this enquiry, maybe you will have more on this when Spring offers new air.
…
It’s probably boringly simple: something like: it feels good to be kind to people, like lying down on a pillow feels good, and having enough food feels good. Probably something basic like that.