Online Course: Images from "Speak to Me from Everywhere"
Someone said that to not hurry is rest. We all need, as Gottfried Pott said, time under protection of the muse. How do we do this remotely? The paradox for me is wanting to design a course through this screen that sets up a structure for you to work, for a while, without any screens, watches or interruptions. My feeling is that this is a deep need, and essential to creativity.
My first online class is complete, and made possible by all you adventurers out there who decided to jump into this experiment. I am deeply gratified by the sense of participation that was palpable throughout the week.
Each day we worked, through writing, with a different principle of landscape. I want to show you some work from students.
"Only in our doing can we grasp you" — Rilke
Only in our doing can we grasp you, only with our hands can we illumine you….
The first line of Rilke’s poem speaks to makers of all kinds, and how our hands can bring us back when we feel off center. Sometimes the hardest question to answer is What do I do? Or to ask yourself, listening deeply, What do I need? As they say in the old world, the veil is thinner now, Covid time reveals with urgency the gravity of the imperative to listen to your inner voice, to your calling. And to be aware, each day, of what you need. What do you need?
Odysseus’s journey was said to take 20 years to indicate it was long. For many, Covid time has shifted from something that felt more spacious, and had some security built in for the unemployed, to a feeling of long, and how can I get through?
The mind is but a visitor, it takes us out of our world…
There are so many distractions with news and this turning world, but often the biggest distraction is one’s own mind, the visitor. That visitor needs to be quiet for awhile, and let the soul emerge. Your gift has already been given. What you are waiting for has already begun. I was listening to an interview with Jordi Savall, a beloved musician, and the interviewer asked him, how did you get interested in ancient music? Jordi replied by saying that this is a misunderstanding, there is no ancient music. There are ancient manuscripts, but the music is just sleeping inside you. Take out your instrument. Begin playing and the song awakens inside you — made new.