Good art wakes us up and shakes us from tired thoughts and dull routines. That’s what brings many of us to the easel in the first place. And the longer we work at anything creative, the more we awaken to the world and ourselves. As artists, what we end up knowing, noticing, and creating depends on what wakes us up and what we do with it.
If we could see the world washed clean from the dust and detritus of our habitual worried days, then the world would appear to us, or so the poet William Blake says, “as it is – infinite.” Arguably, our culture needs that kind of waking to a more open awareness of nature more than ever.
“The world known as it is,” affirms Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, “is quite different from the world created by our desires and projections, by the endless patterns of our mind and the recycling of our memories that we call existence.”
We all have fleeting moments of clear seeing and deep knowing, when suddenly the colors of a sunset, the shimmering of a cornfield, or the ya-honk of migrating geese reminds us how wondrous and immediate the world can be when we give it our full attention. Those are “teachable moments” – they teach us how to wake up and live fuller, more creative lives.
Larry Moore, “Jefferson Kitchen,” 16 x 16 in. oil.
“Those who for an instant have awakened, had a glimpse of what the Zen masters call satori, know this simple experience of truth – when the butterfly is glimpsed as a butterfly, when the sweetness of a plum is truly tasted,” Vaughan-Lee says.
“It is a reality without comparison or contradiction that communicates its true nature to us directly, rather than as interpreted through our mind or psyche. In such moments we are really alive, awake rather than dreaming.”
Good art wakes us up, not unlike those lived moments of suddenly cleansed perception. The more we open our eyes, the more the world will offer us to see. Such moments, Vaughan-Lee says, repair our separation from the true life of things and renew our bond with nature.
“The Earth is calling for us to awaken and remember our primal bond with her,” he says. “This bond was never severed, despite the many ways we have tried to destroy it…. But it has weakened, like a gossamer thread buffeted by a terrible storm. It is time to remember this bond, to honor this relationship, to know that it is the only true foundation of our shared future.”
Larry Moore, “Kuba Kuba,” 12 x 16 in. oil
By the way, the paintings in this post are the work of Larry Moore. He has an unusual video for sale – not how to paint but how to paint like YOU. It’s called “The Creativity Course: Finding Your Unique Painting Language” and it’s available here.
