of Annie Dillard, the plays of Eugene O'Neill, the poetry of Philip Levine, the songs of Van Morrison, the slick lines of a '64 Mustang, and the lilt in my son's voice when he says, “Pop.” And I can't live without my daily dose of creative fire. Without it, I become neurotic—or grumpy, as my son tells me. But at least I know I'm not alone in this fierce desire. Seven hundred years ago Rumi told his followers: “Make friends with your burning.” Fifty years ago, jazz great Miles Davis was so lit up by Charlie Parker's he cried out, “I want his fire!”
However, caveat lector. Reader, beware. There are at least two kinds of inspiration. The first lifts your spirit, as spirituals and sunsets do. It makes you feel good, which isn't bad. But the second lifts your spirit and then flings you like a flaming arrow, full of passion and resolve to set the world on fire. This is the duende, the dark song in the gypsy soul, the black light that enflames the canvas, the spark that enlarges the heart. This is the blood surge that can be detected in the poems of Federico Lorca, the paintings of Edvard Munch, and the dances of Martha Graham. And it's combustible.
In this sense, inspiration is a gift from the back of beyond—a revelation of what separates us from all other species. We are moved to create, not out of brute instinct or biological necessity, but because we feel something so deeply we must respond, however carefully. Tchaikovsky describes this formidable force, in a letter dated from Florence, Italy, February 17 (March 1) 1878:
If that condition of mind and soul which we call inspiration lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments. It is already a great thing if the main ideas and general outline of a work come without any racking of brains, as the result of that supernatural and inexplicable force we call inspiration.
This isn't just shoveling smoke. It has everything to do with striving to express something—not off the top of your head, but from your fiery depths. Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton put it this way: “Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.” This goes for superb athletes, great artists, and also for rice farmers in the Philippines, brick-layers in Guatemala, teachers in Buffalo, and nurses in the Scottish Highlands. They can all teach you something about how to stoke the fires even under the harshest circumstances.
I'm trying to tell you something important here. The creative urge matters. Stories matter. Images matter. It matters that you were born with a genius, a guiding spirit, a daimon that may know more about your destiny than you do. It matters that there's an abyss between human hearts that can be bridged with ink, paint, stone, and music. It matters which words you use to bridge that chasm. “Stories,” “sparks,” “fires,” “genius,” “daimon,” “heart” are all sacred words in my vocabulary, because they do just that. But words aren't enough. You need something more, a spur that quickens you into action, a trigger that makes the phoenix in you rise from its ashes. You must make these words and desires move; you need to move beyond inspiration until it becomes something else.
The great Oregon poet William Stafford speaks of a mythic thread of destiny woven by the Three Fates: “There's a thread you follow. It goes among / Things that change. But it doesn't change . . . ”When in doubt about what you're supposed to be doing with your fierce heart, think about this thread. Is it your faith in the divine, your love of family, your vocation as a creative artist or entrepreneur? In this book, I will try to convince you to hold onto that thread as you enter the dark labyrinth of your incomplete work, no matter what your motivation.
HOLD ONTO THE THREAD
This much I know. The creative journey is a search for the deeply real. It's a fiery attempt to make real some idea, some vision that is uncomfortably unreal until it's created. The search for inspiration, like Stafford's mythic thread, is neverending. The thread is the force that makes you real—if you don't let go of it. Your work will never be real—realized—until you are.
Here is a very real description of inspiration given by ten-year-old Nila Devaney, from Arcata, California:
Inspiration is foolish. He doesn't lie, but he only begins the truth. He is the one who starts the picture and completes the world. Without inspiration, there would not be you. Inspiration is like a candle: the flame of everything, the start of everything. Every time inspiration walks into a new neighborhood, he immediately makes friends with the kids.
Ah, from the mouths of babes.
I'm fascinated by those of any age and talent whose spirit has been awakened by this depth of awe and wonder. But I also know that, at the end of the day, it's up to me to pick up the pen or the camera. Over the years, I've learned to respect the deceptively simple wisdom behind folk stories about creativity—like the wonderful legend from China in which an old king gold-plates his bathtub and commands his finest craftsmen to carve upon it fine sayings from the old sages. Each morning during his bath, the king meditates on these sayings, which he called the Five Excellent Practices, in order to rule as wisely as possible.
The next three chapters explore the first three stages on the creative journey: celebrating the waking dream of reverie, having the courage to seize the moment, and seeking the wisdom of those who can help you make what you once only imagined. Each chapter offers a handful of “excellent practices” or exercises you can use to activate your imagination and stir the creative fire smoldering inside you. As Yogi Berra described baseball practice, “There are deep depths there.” The Roman writer Pliny the Elder cites Cicero as the origin of one of my favorite expressions:
Whilst they as Homer's Iliad in a nut, A world of wonders in one closet shut.
The verse refers to an ancient practice in which scribes copied Homer's great epic in script so tiny all 17,000 verses could fit inside a walnut shell. Soldiers could then carry the book into battle for inspiration, as Alexander is believed to have done when he marched to India.
FIRES OF THE IMAGINATION IN A NUTSHELL
Your imagination holds news of eternity. Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice. There is a gold thread from your soul to your real work. Hold onto it for dear life. There is a force within you that breathes divine fire and brings your work to life. Honor it at all costs. Give us something the world's never seen before: you.
Faded Angel. Photograph by Joanne Warfield, 2007.
CHAPTER 2
Celebrating Reverie
Psychically speaking, we are created by our reverie—created and limited by our reverie—for it is the reverie which delineates the furthest limits of the mind . . . We have not experienced something until we have dreamed it.
—Gaston Bachelard, Poetics of Reverie
March 1986. Late Saturday night, sipping cappuccino in the old Café Figaro in L.A. I picked up a newspaper and turned to the movie section. My eyes fell upon a curious photograph. It was unmistakably a portrait of Napoleon—but it was carved out of a grain of rice and inserted into the eye of a needle.
After giving the
