CHASING DOWN THE MUSE: Finding stillness in artistic endeavors

Once the red dust passes,

The mind is still.

Is it possible? Is it happening again? Can it be?

In a world that has gone just a bit haywire in the past week (after quite a lead-in, if truth be told), another group of women sat in blessed silence, lost in the process of creating. It has been another of those consistent and yet always surprising weekends of focused process of creativity at the Sawdust Art Festival’s Autumn Art workshops.

I ponder this anomaly in the crisp, cool autumn morning as I sit down to write. Another Monday morning brings with it some time for reflection as I sit down to journal before heading into another busy week.

The Tao reading for the day seems to mesh with my thoughts as I read it, my mind not the least bit still. As the stimulus of “red dust” that is the affairs of the world swirls around us, meditative stillness is hard to attain. Involvement with this real world is “hard to brush away and yet equally hard to hold on to” as we seek the detachment and balance and peace of existence that we know to be possible.

Deng Ming-Dao goes on to maintain that if you “execute withdrawal (from the world) on a more microcosmic scale … stillness is possible for at least short periods” of time. The weekend workshop once again gave all of us this microcosmic space of time to experience this satisfaction and happiness of creation.

Bevan asked, “Is it always this quiet?” More and more I have come to believe that it is … that a large group can also maintain this stillness of silence. And that this is a quiet blessing in the whirling cosmos of the affairs of the world.

After lunch Sunday, we all took a break and walked around the beautiful Sawdust grounds to see what the other classes were doing. John Eagle was teaching an oil painting class. His students were also in silence, painting beautiful landscapes, lost in concentration … lost in the moment.

The ever-entertaining and delightful found art sculptor James Koch was teaching a class called “Getting Wired.” His students too were enjoying the lovely day as they worked both inside and out, creating wired delights. Such creativity! Focus and silence and concentrated energy were extant as well. Wow!

I am grateful for these times of focus and silence. They are tender and astonishing at once. They are filled with quiet energy that lasts beyond the two days. They have delightful spurts of laughter at someone’s expression of “oops!” for the umpteenth time. There is acceptance and absence of critique as each student is focused on his or her own process of creation. There is a shared camaraderie even in the moments of silence. It’s all just “too good,” as one of the students voiced, piercing once of those silent times.

So maybe this is no anomaly at all, but completely congruent to the setting and the process. I guess I just forget sometimes, as I, too, get caught up in the swirling red dust of elections folderol and the flurry of financial failings and worrisome world woes.

Wind stirs the bamboo,

But once the wind passes,

The bamboo is silent…

— Deng Ming-Dao

Thus it will always be with the world and its swirling red dust. Even as I lament these trying times for so many, I know this, too, shall pass. The sweet stillness of moments like this past weekend helps in so many ways. John Muir did say it well when he expressed that the sun shines not on us, but in us. Good to remember. Change will come. We can all find and hold on to the moments of stillness, just as the 20-some folks did this past weekend at Autumn Art. It can be.

CHERRIL DOTY is an artist, writer, and creative coach exploring and enjoying the many mysteries of life in the moment. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (949) 251-3883.