On and off I go to a place called Spiritual forums and at this very moment several of the threads I'm interested in seem to be coalescing into an overall depiction of where I might be at spiritually.
But before I go any further I'd have to say that the role of spirituality in my life is more important than anything else... even art. And it has been for quite a while, about two or three years now and somewhat coincidentally my removal from art as a motivating force and spirituality becoming prime are inextricably linked... as they should be.
It was the last show at Pierre's where I started quite late but once underway had spirit on my shoulder the whole way. So much work got done and involved huge amounts of risk but I just went with the flow of it all and stopped certain jobs when it seemed right and started in on others when they seemed right. All the while it seemed a huge task but it all came together at the end and I filled a room with all my own artworks... my first solo show!
The fact nothing sold though somehow seemed unimportant as I walked straight into working on expanding Pierre's gallery and even within that all the things that wanted done came easily into my imagination fully formed and somehow only requiring Pierre's faith and money stream to come into existence.
But Pierre ran out of money so I walked and by then I knew our time together was over. This is about when all the events leading up to the show made such an absolute sense that it would have been silly to expect things to go on in the same vein. Yes I could have made bigger and finer artworks and looked for another gallery to emblazon them within but that just felt pointless as it felt like I'd made all the points worth making within the final show and that the people who actually took any notice were just reminding themselves of stuff they already knew.
And the spiritual aspect, that for years anyways, I'd be working to bring less ego into the work... planned outcomes as it were, and just going within the materials themselves and fulfilling the requirements of a future generated within those materials had been the fulfillment I'd been seeking anyways and that this final show of work totally and utterly ended any need to progress further along those lines seemed entirely self evident.
Also at this time, about two years ago... maybe three, I'm not sure exactly, I finally had the time and the space, within deciding to let art go yet again (it has been a somewhat recurring theme throughout my life... as if this tendency from my youngest years always needs holidays more than I do), to really have a go go at a book by Eckhart Tolle called "The Power of Now" which had been suggested to me as a good read by someone from my past who's spiritual judgement I hold in high esteem.
The thing is I started meditating when I was still a teenager and merely used it as a relaxation technique and have been doing it on and off for years and I think that getting the Eckhart Tolle book and it's aim to have one stop ones thinking and just be within the moment really felt like the next logical step in my life.
Logical too because I've always been a lucky son of a gun and for years previous to this the need to make money to exist has been almost eradicated so for almost a decade now I've been ablt to do whatever I decide wants doing... to the extent that I've looked back at several things I got interested in and wondered how I ever found the money to get so deeply into tinkeriing and discovering certain lines of enquiry which never seemed to make the money to keep doing them. I don't think about it though and always just put it down to luck and just keep being curious and taking the odd risk that looks like it'll be fun!
But back to the art which had been veering right into non thinking anyways. All the artworks of at least the last decades worth were either visions that popped into my head fully formed or things I started from scratch and just followed within the context of what the materials seemed to want to achieve. No planning or drawing, except the least possible to get me started, and being within the moments of what was directly in front of me or what was on the edges waiting it's turn.
So the art was no longer an end in itself but a tool of a spiritual nature that I was learning to use and not only that but once these artworks were created it was like they then became directive of connections within life that led to further unfolding of the true reality underlying existent life.
Then I basically meditated for about a year whilst reading the Power of Now and giving myself completely to the discoveries this involved... it was glorious year that ended on the precipice of enlightenment, and enlightenment that was engulfing me but was held back by residual fear. Residual fear I had no idea was there but was there indeed!
This then led me to pondering how the enlightened soul lives within life. I felt, and could be wrong, of course, that if I was still alive then that meant doing something or other to continue existence and that whatever it was, and an enlightened soul, needed to exist together, in and of the same body, without resistance and that these residual fears, whatever they might be, needed cleansing and to be without resistance within living... I think.
What's really quite beautiful though is I really have absolutely no idea what's going on. I'm still bludgeoning my way through life like a bull in china shop and still creating big huge messes all over the place but I'm calmer than I've ever been. Or to be more precise I'm still frenetic and whirling but I've tasted enough of that absolute calm and quiet that resides within all of us that I'm no longer as concerned with doing it right as I might have once been. It'll work itself out regardless and though all my past pain is with me almost all the time I'm accepting of that and willing a friendliness with that pain, an nonresistance that has it slowly diminishing at it's own pace. It's not hiding somewhere deep inside of me anymore and pushing me towards revealing itself... it's here and now and that's fine!
And one of the reasons it's all good, no matter what, is the glimpses deep meditation has brought to me of what may be the ultimate reality... or what I can ascribe to such, which is just such absolute bliss, total peace, stillness and contentment that even the words used to describe them utterly fall short of the being within such.
I mean art's still neato and I may even get around to doing some more but I doubt it'll ever have any real meaning from here on in and just be something, like everything else I do, I do to pass time... well that doesn't explain it so well, something to be within time... if that makes any sense.
Being of this life but not of it at the same time.
I just went outside to get some plumbing stuff and reminded myself of what a glorious mess my life is... all the tools and bits of wood and weeds spreading accross all my attempts to put nature in it's place, it's all just such a great intertwinning of in- consequence I'd be hard pressed to tidy up in the decades I might have until I finally leave this mortal coil... but what that's really means is I'm home at last.
The task is to just tidy it all up now so whomever has to deal with after I'm gone... doesn't have too much to do. It may turn out that the finished result is actually art.
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