Yesterday, whilst shoveling snow…for nearly three
hours…I had lots of time to reflect on the year that was and the year that was
becoming. After I got over the
bitterness of having to shovel snow…for nearly three hours…I found myself
reflecting on the deaths from last year and a very clear message came to me
from those remembrances.
The message was loud and clear: CREATE!
No matter what – CREATE! Do what
makes your soul sigh and feel like it is speaking from the centre of you and
your deepest connection to the divinity within you. You owe your talent to the places from whence
it has come and there are people in the world, RIGHT NOW, who need to hear what
you have to say, to see what you have to make, to weep at your words, to revel
in your humour, to taste your wares.
BRING US WHAT YOU GOT TO GIVE!
There are millions of reasons not to but none of them
are really good enough. None of them.
Take a second right now and remember that feeling in
the pit of your stomach, the ringing in your head, the bottom dropping out of
your world when you heard the news of any of those shattering losses last
year. Remember the feeling in your body…how
did you feel when you heard the news about Bowie? Where were you when you heard Rickman
died? Or Haggard? What happened to you
when you heard that Prince was dead? What about that Hip concert? Ali? Eli Weisel?
Feel it. Really
feel it.
Feel that heart ache?
Now take another second and remember all of the joy they
brought into your lives. Think about the
first time you heard Cohen’s voice or read his words. Remember seeing Rickman for the first
time. For me, it was Truly, Madly, Deeply…yeah, I saw Die Hard, but I *truly* saw him in Truly, Madly, Deeply. Who
brought you to Bowie or Motorhead or the Eagles? Think about the great memories of watching Fish or M.A.S.H or The Gary Shandling
Show. How about the first time you
read Night or watched Ali fight or
light a fire in your heart with his passion for Black lives in America? Or Leah’s beauty in the Star Wars movies?
Where does this live for you? What did it do for you?
Really feel that, too.
Now imagine that all of those feelings were never made
available to you because those artists –all of them are artists – had chosen to
not produce their art. Imagine that they
had allowed the voices in their head, or in their world, to deter them from
creating what they created that changed the world. Imagine if they had lost their
war with their art.
Shitty, right?
Early in the morning of December 13, after all of my
writing and mourning the death of Leonard Cohen I had a dream. I dreamed that I sat in a
greenhouse/conservatory (a la the Crystal Palace) across from Cohen. He was waiting to do a concert in this space
and the mic wasn’t working. I had some
kind of amp-thing sitting behind me and, of course, I had no idea how to work
it. I was supposed to get things ready
for him and felt really badly that it wasn’t working out. It did, however allow me to sit with him for
a while. He was practicing Song of Bernadette. The piano played and I sang it, not thinking
for a second that he was listening to me.
When the last notes faded, this exchange took place:
“You
do it,” Cohen said to me.
“What?”
“The
song. You do it, kid. It’s yours. You sound better than I do-make
it sound better than I do anyway.”
Even in my dream I thought: holy
fuck! Leonard Cohen just visited me and
gave me Song of Bernadette! That
thought woke me up and rolled around in my head all day. COHEN VISITED ME AND GIFTED ME WITH THE FIRST
SONG I EVER LOVED FROM HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!! In
indigenous cultures, ancestors gift songs and stories to their protégés in
dreams, so this was a huge deal/is a huge deal for me.
I am not saying that I am, in any way, the next Cohen,
what I am saying is that I have been charged with the responsibility to share
my work with the world – in spite of and in the face of my terror of rejection
and failure. I must take the same risk
that he did because to not do so would be spiritual suicide. I have wandered the desert of self-imposed artistic
barrenness and, after a year of forcing myself to rise early and write, I would
never go back. I can’t go back.
Think about this:
you are someone’s Cohen. You have
work in you that someone, somewhere needs to hear. Maybe that is a song or a poem; a story or a
tattoo; a soup or loaf of bread; a sculpture or pirouette – whatever you create
that makes you feel the most connected to the divine…that is what needs to be
shared. Whatever it may be…and I mean
whatever…in the face of covert and overt social mores created to shame you into
not creating or expressing your art – even fucking.
And, we need what you got, too. More than ever before, we need what you have
to offer. The world is going to get
interesting – really interesting – and there are gaps in the front lines
needing to be filled. I know you have
the means and the tools to do it, so pick up the instruments of your art of choice and get in
line!
My tattoo artist, Alex Rousey, and my husband, Dallas,
both brought into my life a book which has transformed my courage around
creating and sharing and art. Steven
Pressfield’s, The War of Art, has forced me into commitment and discipline for my
art that I had been too afraid to step to in the past. Pressfield also left in my heart pieces of
this quote which informed my reflections yesterday and informs me now as I trepidatiously
step into the world of self-publishing.
Our work does not belong to us, and as such, we have no right to keep it
to ourselves.
THE ARTIST’S LIFE
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a
scientist, an apostle of peace? In the
end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.
It may help to think of it this
way. If you were meant to cure cancer or
write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt
yourself, even destroy yourself. You
hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over
you and you spite the Almighty, who created you with your unique gifts, for the
sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path
back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act
or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in
it. Don’t cheat us of your
contributions. Give us what you’ve got.
The War of Art page 165
I am not a religious person, so the God stuff didn’t
do much for me but I do acknowledge that creation comes from a divine source,
so that is what I substitute in my head for “God.” I know you are all clever
people and get what I’m saying.
You have the means to be someone’s Bowie or Ali or
Cohen or Rickman or Fisher or …..
Get busy! We
need you.
