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Art & the Nature of Creation

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Art & the Nature of Creation

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Art & the Nature of Creation

A lifetime in art has provided insights regarding existence and the nature of Creation. Snared in the alligator jaws of its beauty, it has brought about deep personal changes.

A Western textbook understanding of existence never did satisfy me, nor did it fuel my desire for the intensities I find in working creatively. Now exploring once again with color, line and form, a better perception of existence—and the hidden things in it—has brought the unobservable to my attention.

By working independently in the arts, one can and does cultivate the universal seed of perfection residing in each of us, bringing about onsets of unobstructed perception. It comes as no surprise then, that within me a dewdrop has appeared on one pedal of this blossoming of awareness—and within that dewdrop, a significant awareness extending far beyond the observable, spies a seemingly purposed discovery to a grander meaning.

Our present worldview has it that we abide in solid bodies, separated and surrounded in space by a world of distinct, concrete objects. Physics, however, has it that Creation consists solely of a steady, massive oscillation of wave and flux particles, appearing solid to our sense consciousnesses as solid and permanent, much like the illusion formed, frame by frame, by filmmakers.

In our preference for concrete thought-forms over reality, our sensations have us thrashing about like fish in a dried up pond, unable to observe the unceasing play of dependent arisings , the origin of which all existence is comprised. This reality becomes difficult to apprehend with conventional terms, and needs to be experienced to be realized, hence the interactive experience of art, which cuts through our muddied, secondhand understandings of intellect.   

The undifferentiated universe somehow, compassionately, bequeaths to us seeds of genius extending beyond our everyday consciousness to reveal itself and its principles and properties as insight which—from time to time—is expressed by our most enduring art.

Much of our deepest ancestral insight has passed down orally in song and myth, and as well, in primitive ceramics and/or cave drawings (for instance as Hawai’ian petroglyphs, chant and hula), to be later codified and celebrated as cogent ritual and literature. What we seem to be seeking, and have been since ‘Eve’, are  the seemingly intangible pieces of a puzzle that has engaged mankind for eons: ‘what is the nature of existence?’

And, by the compassionate generosity of genius, interlocking pieces of the puzzle begin to appear from within our collective creative processes the transformational insights that cut through and emerge to form the answers. Art can be said to be the reliable storage container for such riches—mankind’s genius—and so it is. However, it is not the artworks themselves but that which comes through them that is genius. The subsequent masterpiece is mere record.

As is, likewise, Creation a mere but sacred record of divine genius. Nature, the divine made manifest, is art on a grand scale. We are its figures. And the ability to clearly perceive and reflect this is paramount to the creation of great art.

Simply said then, making art is making the hidden to be seen. And insights into existence, given to artists, poets, oracles and prophets (Referred to as “seers”; ref: 1 Samuel 9:9, kjv) are given to be made manifest for all sentient beings.

“The only way into nature is to enact our best insight. Instantly we are higher poets, and can speak a deeper law.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creation and our differentiated worldview, is found within the undifferentiated universe, and is an all-at-once eternal creating state of change in the present moment. If we look for and listen to her, we are returned once again to the ultimate nature of existence.

 

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© 2015 Michael Earl Anderson / All rights reserved.

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