Water Seed of Air- Enthusiam

5.25.2010

Enthusiasm, it is so hard for many (or some?) to exert themselves in an outgoing, lively way. Why is it that what goes up must come down? This has always been hard for me and maybe is why many do not want to travel in the clouds of enthusiasm. I then found out the down was the flattening, so what was up can be made real in my life, not just a moment of high.

You flatten an image to save it for the future, and so this is true in our lives. We feel the zest of enthusiasm and then it seems to pop and we begin to feel the drop, but is is not falling away, it is becoming real. It is moving from the plane of creation and imagination, causal plane, to our physical plane, more solid in our lives, and it takes on weight.

I have tried to feel this shift with a more clear eye and a larger view because this happens often in the creative life, and the imagination is given more room to emerge a future.

When I'm in the middle of a piece I feel kind of lost, and the enthusiasm becomes more vague because it is starting to flatten so one can see, feel and translate the piece into a completed vision.

This is a time to follow the map of your piece and hold the rudder steady so you can journey through the moist clouds of enthusiasm, as they begin to vaporize into a clear vision of land, a grounded way to complete the creative work.

This flattening space in the creative life is often, I feel, when people get discouraged and lose sight of the importance or direction of a piece of work, and they set it aside and cannot seem to return. 
Every piece of creative work we do has a map of its pattern, whether it is done intuitively or planned, and we just have to ask it to show us the way, and it will even in the fog. It is our compass and it has a voice.

Sometimes this time of flattening is a time of recalculation, and we must give it room and set it aside. I have learned that it is not a quitting time, but a resting time of new numbers, allowing, and belief. Later the piece will rise up within me and complete itself, so I can then finish it with clarity.

Robert and I feel this together, and this is when our collaboration is the most helpful. 
We can hold the image while the other travels through the flattening. I often feel that we are like Hansel and Gretel traveling together through the woods of our creative life. Sometimes lost then found, holding onto the string of each other to find our way home.

I love this and find that many of us would benefit greatly if we connect ourselves to each other in a way to help each other remember. I feel this is what I have felt when I have read so many other blogs. Thank you.