I have reached the end of the internets, and here be dragons (RSS Feeds read "0" post to read - granted I skipped most of them and Random Michelle's feed continues to give we hickups). Raconteur extraordinary Rick is talking about Dragons and creativity. He's posted the first installment, the Dragon of Calcination (first of two posts I'm assuming).
While Rick is approaching creativity from the alchemical view, this journey he's giving us all is not dissimilar to other journeys in other traditions. The eight-fold path in Buddhist tradition has similar steps. When Campbell was studying comparative mythologies he came up with the concept of "The Hero's Journey" to describe them. Rick's focus, however, is a mindfulness of our creativity, a nurturing and exercising the font from which our lives flow. First step, "Unlearn what you have learned," as Yoda told us. You must die to yourself/the world (relinquish the ego and pretense).
While he's taking a stake to my Muse, she'll survive. I've been on that path before, I know from whence the Muse speaks. I still love to hear her singing.
However, it never hurts to understand and nourish the wellspring of our creativity.
2 comments:
Hello Steve. I had a long discussion with a Buddhist monk once about the eightfold path and writing. He very much agreed with your point, and so do I quite frankly. Out of my deep respect for this man, I almost designed the posts around the 8 fold path. Also, out of respect for Dr. Michel Farivar, my ninjutsu instructor, I was considering basing the posts on the god Fudo, who is deeply revered by our ryu.
I'd like very much to explore this further with you at the next convention we tie up at since I'm looking at expanding this things into a writing text.
And, you know, I never thought of using Yoda!
Hey Rick. My knowledge isn't always deep, but I'm willing to share what I have.
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