Mar 2012
This is not a poem but my reflections on one aspect of the creative mind...I thought I'll share it here as we are, as people involved in poetry, part of this creative mind...
1
All of us, to varying degrees, lead the creative life. We are all creative.
Observing ourselves in our creative moment, or on reflection, one notices that the silence of the mind is one of those moments when the creative mind is at work. Or is it still?, you wonder.
It is a beguiling silence. A quizzical stillness. A paradoxical one – for while it appears to be still, the creative mind is working…perhaps working in a very different sort of way, but hey - it’s still work. For after the silence comes that creative idea, that blast of ideas.
Observe it in your mind. See it for yourself.
2
Before the silence in the mind has gone much work. One has the input of all that has begun since one’s birth. Or perhaps even as one was in the womb. All that one has ever done and contemplated.
Then there is, just before the silence, the specifics. The immediate task and the work one has put towards its fulfilment. One has considered deeply the task at hand, the creative question at hand…one has gathered the information, one has fed the mind with all that one knows in relation to the creative issues at hand…One has worked intensely and long on the questions…
Then from somewhere deep within, the mind says: *“I have enough…That will do…Leave me to work it out…”
And that is when the silence begins…
3
Observe it in yourself the next time you are involved in this creative process...no matter how trivial the creative process might appear to you…
The silence is there…it’s as if the mind is exhausted, yet it is not…There does not seem any answer or creative idea or result apparent to you, but you know something is happening in the stillness of the mind…of the creative mind there deep within…
4
And you might even be engaged in routine matters, in things that are totally unrelated to the creative mind or your creative endeavour…You think it’s over…you might even think: “No, I’m not going to have a creative solution here…The sparks are gone…the fire’s dead…”
Just the silence, the stillness of the mind…But just then it happens…That creative mind rolls out towards you in waves…or like a tidal wave…and in its wave, the mind offers you a pearl – that pearl of the creative idea: a poem, a solution, an illumination…
That is the silence that is part of one’s mind…Observe it…It’s there – that creative silence, all part of one’s mind…
1
All of us, to varying degrees, lead the creative life. We are all creative.
Observing ourselves in our creative moment, or on reflection, one notices that the silence of the mind is one of those moments when the creative mind is at work. Or is it still?, you wonder.
It is a beguiling silence. A quizzical stillness. A paradoxical one – for while it appears to be still, the creative mind is working…perhaps working in a very different sort of way, but hey - it’s still work. For after the silence comes that creative idea, that blast of ideas.
Observe it in your mind. See it for yourself.
2
Before the silence in the mind has gone much work. One has the input of all that has begun since one’s birth. Or perhaps even as one was in the womb. All that one has ever done and contemplated.
Then there is, just before the silence, the specifics. The immediate task and the work one has put towards its fulfilment. One has considered deeply the task at hand, the creative question at hand…one has gathered the information, one has fed the mind with all that one knows in relation to the creative issues at hand…One has worked intensely and long on the questions…
Then from somewhere deep within, the mind says: *“I have enough…That will do…Leave me to work it out…”
And that is when the silence begins…
3
Observe it in yourself the next time you are involved in this creative process...no matter how trivial the creative process might appear to you…
The silence is there…it’s as if the mind is exhausted, yet it is not…There does not seem any answer or creative idea or result apparent to you, but you know something is happening in the stillness of the mind…of the creative mind there deep within…
4
And you might even be engaged in routine matters, in things that are totally unrelated to the creative mind or your creative endeavour…You think it’s over…you might even think: “No, I’m not going to have a creative solution here…The sparks are gone…the fire’s dead…”
Just the silence, the stillness of the mind…But just then it happens…That creative mind rolls out towards you in waves…or like a tidal wave…and in its wave, the mind offers you a pearl – that pearl of the creative idea: a poem, a solution, an illumination…
That is the silence that is part of one’s mind…Observe it…It’s there – that creative silence, all part of one’s mind…
