If the Angel decides to come it will be because you have convinced her, not by tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Yesterday I tweeted that if I had one piece of advice it would be this: get over yourself.
I mean that in the nicest way.
When it comes to creating anything, the self tends to be an obstruction. The ideas we have about who we are or what we should do or be crowd out the the still, small, voice - the access to the intuition that makes outrageous creativity possible.
I’ve been subbing as an art teacher this past week. Teaching art is a funny thing. I get that kids need to learn the foundations of making. Red and blue make purple, perspective, etc. But following a set of instructions has little to do with the process of creativity.
What does have to do with creativity is learning how to be a beginner - over and over again - and getting comfortable with the not-knowing. In order to do this, we have to drop the part of us that says, I can’t or It’s too hard or I’m bad at that. We have to learn how to imagine the impossible.
"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish,” prayed Michelangelo.
I’d add, “And grant that I’m never too cool or concerned with perfection to try something that I really want to try”. Kids are pros at creativity and self-expansion. Learning and growing is a literal way of life. May we never stop learning, growing, expanding.
May we run full speed.
Jump and pray,
Joce
P.S. If you are local to Ojai, please join me and the Ojai Studio Artists as we open our studio doors to you! This is a free event and I have so many beautiful prints that need homes. If you aren’t local, I hope to have some leftover for my online store (which desperately needs updating).
PPS. You can always support me by signing up to get monthly art in the mail.