Reading harold_maude's journal

Somthing happened last night. And with all of these kinds of things, when it happens it's equivialant is waking up and smelling the coffee as it were.

Here's what I found out.

I know in my bones that I am an aritst. Not just a great technition.
But an aritst. The real deal.
Art is what I know. It flows in my veins from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
It is my job on this planet to create art.
Period. To do anything else is just clocking time, no matter how hard I work, or how much above and beyond what is requested of me by an employer, it's still just clocking time.

It does not matter to me if no one around me belives that I can live by my art.
It does not concern me that so many people have told me that
it's not possible for me.
Other people, who are just like me, yes it's possible for them,
but not for me.
I don't have to believe what they think.

I am an artist. I know it in my bones.
It's part of what was brought together from the universe when
I was formed.
It's what makes it possible for the work I do to do the things that it does.

I know I am an artist. Just one of many that exist on this planet.
And as artists we are called to speak the primal language of the human race.
We speak of what we see and what the world and it's inhabbitants tell us.
We do this for ourselves and for each other.

It's easy to say I'm an artist. It has been easy to say for a very long time. But to believe it, what it means and to finally come to terms that being an artist has ment that every other job I've had was destine to fail.
Simply because I'm not doing my job on this planet.
To believe that and to know it means that my road is clear.
And if I keep putzing around doing other things, I'm doing the wrong thing.
I don't give a shit if thoes other things bring in tons of money or not.
And I don't give a shit if everyone I'm working with sees me as a valuable member of the work staff, and that includes the person I'm working for.
I'm still not doing what I'm suppose to be doing.
It means that no matter how hard I work, or how much I learn, or if I have an exemplry attendance record, I'm still doing the wrong thing and thoes jobs will end.
Some quicker than others.

The only job that is going to be with me for the rest of my life is doing art.
It is my lifes work.
Period.

With that in mind, I have come to the realization that my road is going to be harder, simply due to the fact that the world is overloaded with people doing art.
Doing art that is trendy, doing art that is way out in either left or right field.
Doing art that is great technically, and art that is designed to make people want it, because it's based more on feeding the currant tastes of the buying public than anything else.
That kind of art fades away with time. It becomes a footnote in history, and it becomes the kind of art that goes out of fashion and ends up in someone's attic, or at a yard sale or in a thrift shop gathering dust.

I've done that very thing. Found out what people wanted and did it so that they would buy it.
It was nothing more than giving them what they wanted. And the worst part was it did nothing but feed my ego, and gave me one hell of a big head about what I was doing.
I needed and got several good swift kicks in the ass of my soul to remind me that it's not very honest to do that.
I am greatful that the path I was going on was stopped.

It happens all the time. And from one perspective it's a way to make your art sucessful.
Andy Worhol did it. Marilyn Manson has done it. Thomas Kincade has done it.
It feeds the buying public what they want.
Speaking of Tomas Kincade, I saw that he has taken his art and turned it into paint by numbers now. Both in colored pencil and oil colors.
He's a great business man who happens to know how to paint something really well.
And he has taken this knowledge and turned it into a very huge business.
But it has gone to his head. I read an article in which he said of himself that he was the greatest painter in the world.
Now that is pretty arrogant.

I have come to believe that if I just take a step through the open door, then the work will do what it is designed and ment to do.
If I don't do it, then I will loose the ablity to.
And that would be torture. A life of misery.
I don't want to live my life full of regret that I missed it because I listened and followed the bad advise of people who don't believe that I'm capable of making a living doing my job.

I know in my bones that I am an aritst. Not just a great technition.
But an aritst. The real deal.

WOW, I take great solice in the fact that someone else believes as I do! I have thought the exact same thoughts as you.

I have a very strong desire to create, an artist as you have put it. I want so badly to produce works of art that my heart bleeds. I am wrapped up, caught up and have been trapped by the shit that is the mainstream world society. I'd like to be able to concentrate on my work 24/7 but that is not possible under the current economy where I am forced to do shit that has nothing and will never have anything to do with the art that drives my soul.

The only job that is going to be with me for the rest of my life is doing art.

Art is the only job that I can never be fired from. It's the emotions, the feelings and the energy that is expressed in viewable form that will last longer than the delicate body. I have a drive a sense of purpose and a gravitiy pulling me towards something that I cannot visibly see. I long, urge and need this feeling. I open my arms to the beautiful embrace that sooths my soul, the warm soft lips of art, the tender caress that is creativity, the gentle longing and satisfaction drive me. I need this, it's part of me and it's in my being. Art is all around us and it's fast becoming the mechanism that keeps me sane and driving on from day to day.

Pardon my language but if I could get the fucking world off my nuts for two seconds, I might be able to concentrate enough to exercise the artistic abilities that I was born to use. Sometimes I could scream!

people who don't believe that I'm capable

Oh my GOD this is me... I have a stupid need to be accepted. I put that aspect above most things in my mind and let it drive me. I hate this and have tried to curtail it's hold on my soul. It's still here but I know of it's existance and that is better than living with it controlling me!

Yep...exactly.
When you know who you are, and what your suppose to be doing, instead of doing what other people, society, or who ever else your listening to and believing they know who you are, and what is best for you to be doing ACCORDING to their perspective of what your ablitites are COMPARED to other people who are doing the same thing you know you should be doing (in every fiber of your being), AND expecting you to do their thing....I know this is one long thought, no punctuation...

But this is our world...this is what has surrounded people who arn't doing their real job are told every day of their lives.

You know that. You also know that to live in this society you must bring in a certian amount of money each month so you can continue to have a roof over your head, pay your bills, etc.

YOU KNOW THIS....but, you also know, staying where you are and continuing to do exactly what you've done over and over trying depsperately to live in a world that is strangling you from the inside out...you know you will die, or lose the one thing that is your air.
Period.

So, as with has finally happened to me, you realize that you either have to be content to living half a life, or less than that depending on whether you've been asigned such crazy hours at this shit job that's making your life crap, because your so miserable inside, that when you get done with that job at the end of the day, all you can do is try to relax your head so you can at least get some sleep, before you have to go and do it all over again.

The one thing you love, actually it's the real love of your life, your soul mate, your passionate lover...yeah that's what it is...it's actually better when your completely lost in it, it's better than most sexual encounters you will ever have...I don't say that lightly or with any sarcasim at all, because it's the truth...
And you know this...you know this in your bones.

So you can either stay with in this prision that you get paid to go to every day, or you can realize that everyone of thoes well paid artits were just were you are now at some point....
*smiles* good to know, huh...

Or you can do this...believe in who you are, believe in your ablity to do the work you are suppose to be doing enough to strike out and be willing to go through what ever it takes to live well doing your true job...
it's that simple.

And to people's approval...to waste your precious time trying to live so people will aprove of your is just plain horse shit...they arn't living in your shoes...and they arn't fucking dealing with the sleepless agonizing nights bleeding out in your soul because they arn't you....
Got that?

They arn't you. You waste years wanting people to approve of who you are. You go so far in this endevor that you start buying clothes, cars, music, movies...even food...that you believe they will like and in doing so they will think you are something.....that's fucking shit...
And it's a waste of your life...

You have to get comfortable with you first. You gotta deal with the crap inside that is wrong...out of balance...you have to do that first.
If you hate looking in the mirror at your face, it's a pretty good indicator you got closets inside that need cleaning.

Guess what, we all do. Your not alone. I do and thank God, I have been going through serious deep cleaning over the past 4 years...
And it's still going on...and that rocks.
Truely, truely it does.

So lets take a good look at this, ok.
what you know. what you've been doing. what you've been in need of. and finally, what your suppose to be doing so that you can be living the life that was ment for you to live.

Now tell me, in knowing all that...and knowing doing anything else is just clocking time, how could you not believe that it's possible for you to do the one thing your suppose to be doing?

That's where I am now. Come tomorrow morning bright and early, I'm making some stops at some of the local coffee shops. I'm going to find out what I need to do to get my work up on their walls.
I'm going to check out some venus as to teaching what I know.
And, I'm going to start working tord putting together a one woman show.
This will be my third.

It's funny, but every art show I've ever been involoved with has been a one woman show.
Immagine that. My work can stand up on it's own, and it sells.
Immagine that.
The first show was in a gallery setting...it was up for a month, only one peice sold.

That was in the town where I grew up.
Then I came here...*smiles*...the first show here was at a university...
In the main hall of the art's building...
Where every body goes through to get somewhere else.
In three days 11 paintings sold.

The next show was here at the farm. I had finally got it that maybe prints were a good venu to work in.
In one night I sold 22 prints...not bad for a few hours of just hanging out with people and them being surrounded by the work of my hands.
Not bad at all.

And even after thoes two huge sucesses, it has taken me another two years to get to this place where I am now...I'm 47 years old...and it's taken me most all of my life to get here to this place where I know what I'm suppose to do as work, and I'm finally not appolgetic about it, I'm finally not listening to that broken record of you can always take a part time job just incase you fail,
And this one, the killer of the soul, you will never make it as an artist because you don't have the schooling, and your not as good as so and so...
I want to take a bazooka and blow that fucking thing out of the human vocabluary....
I'm finally awake.
Finally...

So, I'm working on my next show. I want to put it someplace,not in a gallery...someplace unusual and fun.
That works well for what I do.

I'm jumping off a very high cliff. I may hit a few rocks on the way to learning to really fly, but doesn't everybody when they leave something that seemed gaurenteed, but really isn't.

Most people never think about this: that they are roughly two paychecks away from being completely homeless...
They believe their job is secure, and if they work hard they will always have a job...
Well, that ain't nessiarily so.
As the thousands of people who believed that and are now collecting unemployment, on food stamps, in goverment subsidized houseing, or sleeping under what ever shelter than can outside simply due to this, they couldn't find another job that would give them what they were used to, and they never learned how to do with out...
so they take shit jobs paying barely above minium wage and it's not enough to get by on.
It could be if you had a garden and at least a part of what you got you got through bartering...
But truthfully how many people out there in office jobs would really want to live like that by choice...not many.

When you really think about it, there is no reason that you can come up with right now, or even if you think about it long enough, why you shouldn't do what your ment to.

there just isn't. There are grants. There are craft shows. There are a hundred things and ways that you can do what you know your suppose to be doing as your life's work, that can do the only thing your job that your in can do...
and that's to make enough money to live, and live really and truely well...thoes words...living well... to me it means I'm less stressed out, it means that I'm at peace inside me...it means that I get to spend time with the people I love doing the thing that is my air...period.

So, now let me ask you this...your where you are, your in alot of pain inside from all this, what's the real reason you arn't doing what you know you should be doing?

This post was edited by harold_maude on Oct 16, 2005.

WOW, absolutely WOW! I applaud this post and I am truely not worthy! You have put my thoughts into perfect perspective!

Most people never think about this: that they are roughly two paychecks away from being completely homeless...

Ain't this the GOD's honest truth! How right you are... Most people are in this boat including me.

So, now let me ask you this...your where you are, your in alot of pain inside from all this, what's the real reason you arn't doing what you know you should be doing?

I'm in alot less pain than I was in. I have a new job where I am not treated like a piece of human meat with no concious thoughts, emotions and feelings. Life is orders of magnitude better now that I am no longer wearing the camoflauge uniform of the United States Army. Granted I love my country but I'd like to be respected in some sort of fashion while performing my work. Now that has been fulfilled, now I work for the Army as a contractor and the treatment that I receive now is unparalleled in this line of work. But I digress. A job is just that a job and it's definitely not my lifes calling, it couldn't be farther from that.

My day job sucks the life out of me like I cannot describe, I have found the energry to write again and I am thankful for it. The world we live in with the stupid shit society and it's rules is wearing me thin. I hate this place, I hate the way we live, I hate the process. I want nothing else but to be able to live from the works that I perform. I am also torn between the fact that I create the art that I do but not at the expense of money. I don't even want my work to be associated with a monetary sum. My art is art and it's not a product to be sold. I have been torn by that thought for a long time. When I think of something and money that something is usually total shit. That something is a way for the owner to get money. That owner of that said something has usually went to the littlest effort to produce his good. I cannot be moved to travel down that same road. The work I do is genuine and sits not next to money or even a mile from it.

Instead my current mental frame is to work the current job and continue to try to fit in the work I like to do. It's a compromise to an equation for which I hold no answers. Does it suck? Yes, but... it's seems to work.

If I could be the ultimate king of my reality, I would sit at home and write poetry and take photo's. However I cannot do that because that will not pay my house, car, water and electricity bill.

Society is driven by money and I cannot accept the fact that my work will be associated by money. Associating oneself with money seems so dirty and viral to me. Money is the route of all evil or something like that. I have no easy answer to my current dilemna.

I suppose the question, "Would you accept money for the viewing of your work?" and I'd say yes. However, money is not a reason why I produce the art that I love so much.

=/

By the way I am 30 and have a long way to go and alot of learning to do! Keep on posting because I am learning alot!

This post was edited by majic on Oct 17, 2005.

I know I am an artist. Just one of many that exist on this planet.
And as artists we are called to speak the primal language of the human race.
We speak of what we see and what the world and it's inhabbitants tell us.
We do this for ourselves and for each other.

What beautiful thoughts!

Art is the meaning of life, the sharing of emotions and feelings. The connection between two human souls is unparalleled with exception of sex. Art is the second form of sex in my book. While its not a physical bonding between flesh it's another form of bond, the mental one and it can definitely be considered a sort of mental sex. A piece of art is a conduit of feelings and love in the form of something visually tangible. The viewer undergoes mental changes and the mind experiences a rush akin to an orgasm. This happens if the viewer really understands and makes that mental connection with the artist.

Art is simply beautiful stuff that is a healthy exercise of our existance.

I agree with you and your view of art.

For a very long time I struggled with the same struggle as to not wanting to sell my art.
It's caused me to give away art, distroy it, and a various number of other mutilations to what I had created.

When I got here 4 years ago the question was settled. Not by me, but by what went screaming through me, like a freight train.
In overly loud defined words this went through me:
Live off of your art. and this. What you need you will find here. refering to this city.
It was a direct order. I knew it. You know when that happens there are no questions of why, or anything else for that matter.

In the last 4 years I've had jobs that fall into two distinct catagories, jobs that endangered my life, and jobs that just stopped being. I got let go of some, and others the work just ran out.

In between the times when I was employed I kept comming back again and again to this same wall.
The handwriting was on the wall. The same words.
Big bold letters.
I argued and paniced, and lost sleep in this torturous place.
And I would get another job. And it would end.
And here comes the wall.
And me arging that if I'm doing my art then I am doing something with it.

Finally in June of this year everything went peaceful inside.
Just this amazing peace. I understood at that point there was only one road.
That it was ok to sell my work. And from all I can figure about that is that when people see what I do, it does things to them, the peices that are done for certian people will draw them.
People I've never met, people I know.
I've seen it again and again.

It really is ok to get paid for working. It just so happens that the work I do is art.
It's not cooking. Which is also an art.
It's not assembly work, which is also art.
It isn't designing buildings and great bridges. That's art too.
There are more venues of work in the world that are in disguise art.

I'm painting, and drawing and writing, and on occasion new compositions come out on the keyboard.
I'm teaching beadwork to the apprentice that finally showed up after 7 years of searching for the one person I could pass on my knowledge of what I had learned in 20 plus years of exploring that art form.

In all of this, I discovered one vary valuable thing. I'm only making a living from something that is done.
It's still alive. Still breathing. But it's done.
It needs to be with who every it was created for.
It's theirs. No longer mine.
The thing that I won't sell is where thoes works come from.
The art inside me. Not the finished peice, which is art, but the living, breathing, explosive, firy passionate place that overflows my head much of the time.
It's what's not for sale. Ever.

I see myself as a workman. Working tord someone's health, working to making a person begin to deal with what's inside them.
I'm the first audience and first critic of that work. It has to feel right to be done.

when I sign my name, I walk away from it. I finally after 3 years of doing pulled all the work and put it in some kind of groupings.
Watercolor, pencil, collage.
Political work, esoteric work, that kind of thing.

I spent some time looking and trying to see how and when changes took place, and to see if there was really any growth.
Other than that, I don't look at it.

See, for me it's the act of art that I'm truely intrigued by, drawn to, need to, want to, have to....
it's my air.

when I had thoes jobs, I was so wiped out from all the people, it was like standing in 5 o'clock rush hour traffic.
They would take and take and take.
I couldn't do art.

There wasn't anything left.
I couldn't even doodle or even make simple scribbles which serves to loosen things up sometimes.
It's a stress relever for me.

..I just kept getting slammed into that wall...kind of like, the universe was telling me, no screaming at me...do what you know to do.

So here I am. Inspite of any objection I may have this is where I am.

This is something to consider. Your writing something of great importance. It's real. There is no denying your driven to write.
You have something important to say. Alot of things that are important infact.
Things that are ment to talk to people who need to hear what your saying.
You may never get a chance to meet thoes people...
And if when reach the end of your life, or the art takes you in a new direction, it's been known to do that by the way...so if it happens, don't freak out, or think you've lost your gift of art, you haven't your just under construction is all.
What will you do with all the poetry you've written?
What is the purpose behind doing what you've done?

Is it to just give you fulfillment as a part of the human race?
Is it just a place to hide away from all the things that are wrong in this world?
There is a reason that you were created with art running through your bones.
Things like that are not just given to us because we are cute or in the right spot at the same time.

There is a reason. In all of the universe there is nothing that is done that is without purpose.
You get to enjoy the gift of art, but it's not for your sole bennefit.
It's true that it's there to help you survive or live and grow and do all thoes wonderful amazing things it does to you.
But it goes way beyond that.

It has to go out....it needs to be out there, getting in the path of people who need to read it or see it, or feel it.
That does a couple of things that are amazing.
You said that art is another form of sex.
I tend to agree with you.
Sex connects people in the soul and heart and spirit.
Art connectes the world together at even a more fundamental level it lets us know we are part of each other...that's part of what it does.
Most of the time people drawn to work have no idea why.
They can't quite put their finger on it.
But there is something. Real and tangable.
It's the exchange of inheritance to heir....
The heir being the person or people the work is created for, the worker's only part in that process is the act of the creation of it.
We are only passing by here. If the art was ment only for us, then there would be no written language at all.
We would be wandering around with no idea that there were people wandering around just like us anywhere beyond the limits of our eye sight.

All of this understanding was part of what that wall keeps telling me. Again and again.
The thing the art will now do is provide for my needs.
I've been spending years letting it flow out...giving when I was drawn to...
And the only thing I can think of is this with all of that, that the art was ment to take care of me when the time was right.
That's the only thing that has this deep settled feeling to it.

And it seems that it's what's required of me as well...
see, when you have to learn something, like recieving, and letting people pay you because they are telling you that they reconize you've created something of value, it really has very little to do with money, but it's about what's actually going on.
It's really humbling actually, when people who don't have to, want to give you something in return for what you've created.

I'm a pretty selfcontained unit, as it were. I take care of my shit, and that includes providing my part of the bills and food and taking care of buying myself shoes and all that other stuff.
It's like pulling teeth without novacane for me to get to the place where I have to ask for help.
On the other hand, I'm generous to a fault when it comes to giving.
I will give even if it means that I've had to go without.
I have no problem giving at all.
But reciving...that's hard. When someone gives me something I end up responding by giving back more so I won't feel like I owe them anything.
I don't want to owe anybody anything.
That's one of those long deep places that all of this is addressed to.
I still struggle with selling by the way.
People tell me I don't charge enough for my work.
My response has been art should be accessable to everyone.
Which I do believe.
But as to charging more...that's something I can't do.
No matter how hard I try...I can't bring myself to...this is what I do instead...when someone asks me what I want for something I will tell them to make me an offer I can't refuse.

I do this for two reasons, it makes me having to put a price on something that I have no clue as to the value of, not have to, and it tells me what they think it's worth.

Alot of people have trouble with that when it comes to buying art...they don't want the responsiblity of maybe making the artist feel cheap in someway...

This is where I am now...each person has to come to the place where the equation has an answer.
I'm at peace in this place. And I'm getting to let go of not having to do something instead of what I know I'm suppose to do.

If where you are is where you need to be, than that's a good place to be.
Only time will unfold things when they need to be unfolded, no matter where the river takes you.

What will you do with all the poetry you've written?

Well I hope to put it all in book form. But this work is years and years in the making and it's not something that I can definitely put a deadline on. I add a new piece to my works as I write them. It's all a mystery to me and I'm making it up as I go along. If I had no day job and could concentrate on my work then I'd be much more farther along I believe.

What is the purpose behind doing what you've done?

There is a gravity that is pulling me in a direction which I cannot see. I feel it and I am drawn to it. I have an urge, most of the time I need to write but cannot find the topic or words to express the desire.

If where you are is where you need to be, than that's a good place to be.
Only time will unfold things when they need to be unfolded, no matter where the river takes you.

Well, I think I am ok for now. I am having more time to write now because I am away from home because of my job. Like you said... Time will tell.

I have an urge, most of the time I need to write but cannot find the topic or words to express the desire.

Alot of the time I am writing on impulse more than anything. I love spontaneous flow of emotions and I try to transpose them into written form. These emotions are often driven out of the mind by music. I often feel like I am repeating myself over and over and over again... I am my worst critic!

If you read alot of my stuff you might see this trait. I am not so much for the hand edited perfect writing so much as I am for the raw physical emotions that come from deep inside the mind. I could careless about grammar because what I really want is a graphic template of human emotion. I want to see what the person is feeling. I want to be them for just a moment and feel what they are feeling. The words are my conduit to this realm and grammar can kiss my white ass.

I have a deep need to delve into human emotion and all I know is my own. So I am attempting to put that emotional reality into written form and I hope that others can take something from it.

*smiling*..yep...I resemble that remark..actually all of it.
To touch the fire and be able to untangle the power of what it's doing to you, what immages it brings.
That's what happens.
It's impossible to avoid it when your emersed in it.

When you create art, and that's in any venu that your working in, your there first. If it's writing, you write for your self first, and go back later and correct what ever grammer you need to.
As you know, it's not so important. It gets in your way sometimes, actually when your running after thoes strings of words that are going lightspeed through your head, you have to write as hard and fast as you can.
All the other stuff is just the tools to tweek with the raw power of what's there.

It's like chasing the stars, you know. The brilliant seduction of that moment when everything inside you is screaming yes, yes, this is....as the words flow down your arms and your hands are working as fast as they can to keep up.

When I write, it's the same way.
I run into the same things as you do. You sit down and there it is. Waiting for you and you just start writing.
There are poems that I've written that have no titles.
Essays on observations that have no titles.
Just flows of ideas, of things I see, of emotions that slam into me from other people.
It's the food you work from.

I'll make notes when I'm painting, by the way, much in the same way that when I go back over a peice that I've written in hard copy, which takes longer than on a computer, and add things, things that just show up.

I love how alive it is. How hard it is to contain. What it does to you. If it's doing it to you first, because we are all connected it's going to do somthing to someone else.

It's only when you are removed from that violent creative place that the work just becomes a technical exercise.
Walls, writers block, (I love that term) are the time when you learn to write cold.
Let me explain. All artists go through it, and lots of artists believe and wait for that fire to inspire them, but,
if you can just keep writing, at this point, from observation, you learn to tap into that fire even though you can't feel it.
I tend to think of it as class room time.

See, we are artists, and we ride the waves of inspiration, but we have down time too, time when we get the chance to explore things from a different place.
It's scarry the first time it happens, because it makes you wonder where it went.
And depending on how long it lasts. You wonder if what you had hold of was just somthing in passing.

Then as you begin the push to go forward, you get to a place where your doing the thing you love, no matter if the you can feel the fire or not.
You are learning how to harness the reins of your art.

The first art block I ran into lasted 10 years. I was convinced that I would never draw again. At that time I was working in colored pencil.
I spent thoes years exploring other artist venus.
It was still there, but doing things I couldn't see.

When it finally was time for it to wake up, there was more than one thing that came out of that place.
It had become this tree. It was amazing. The poetry was birthing out of that place, and along side of the visual work I was now being over run with writing.
Way cool!
Now, 5 years later, after running into several blocks that have taught me to keep going. Do what I know, I can sit down and write, sit down and paint.
Weather or not I can feel or see anything.
It's the act of creating...that's what it is.

I wanted to tell you that when you said you weren't worthy, that you are. You are no different than I am. We walk in the same place. That firey place. That delicious paradox that shows us the beautiful sensual raw banquet that we get to sit down to.
And it's sooooooooooooo good.

To understand human emotion, all you have to do is tap into the one thing that is there, your immagination.
Another fun thing to do is call someone you know and have some paper handy and as your talking to this person pay attention to the things going through your mind.
Write them down. Don't worry about what your writing, just write.
Words. Immages. Good things. Bad things. It doesn't matter.
Just write.
That's part of your reference library. Keep a small note book with you to write down things, ideas when your out and about.
Become an observer of the world around you.
That's part of your tool kit as it were.
Look through magazines, and look at the pictures and observe what they make you feel.
It's part of the exploration of this place.
You feel it first. If it's something you have no words for then try to discribe it, you are your first and best source for the explaintions of what you experience.

Do you remember the first time you kissed someone? What did it feel like? What was happening to you?
All thoes things that the other person was feeling were maybe the same, or maybe different.
But you felt something, probably alot of things.
That's a huge powerful experience you had and you can tap into that now.
It's part of your reference library.

What about the first time you ate something that made you disgusted after it hit your taste buds.
What did you feel? What was your reaction to the experience of having that hit your tounge?

Again, another huge experience.

And with every other sense you have, you've had experiences that are now part of your reference library.
And it's huge.

I know what you mean by music being a catalist for creating.
It's also a primal language. *smiling*
All the forms of art are.
Movies are great too. So are visits to the grocery store...and other common areas that people go to alot.

And then there are the words themselves. What does something like tangarine bring to mind.
Or cup. Or engine. Or wrench. Or smile bring to mind.
When you think about those words what do they do to you?
You can explore them and what you will find is a myriad of things that begin to show up.
A wonderful room that's all lit up with the brilliance of light that glows different colors.
Like the sparks and flashes of lightening that light up the dark and let you see the trees colored by purples and whites.

It's amazing. This technicolor place that pulses with life...always...always. And you wanna know the really wonderful part of all this?
You get to live your life there. *smiles*

here's just a bit...

She looks up at me
with twisted smile
teeth half peeking
through soft strands of black grass.
Her eyes search mine
looking for pools of rememberance
so that she can dive in and walk around in my soul.
Her murmers
barely above my own wispers
tell me she's content
to hang like fruit ripened in the sun
from my sweater.
She comes silently
up from behind
and leaping without fear
she finds her goal.
Me.
Her nose
wet
cold
electrifies my ear
dispite my objections
and her breathing
and cooing is all I know.
It runs down the back side
the inside of my skin...
she gives me the smile on my face.

WOW, what a great post and you have touched on so many things that are absolutely correct. There are alot of things to draw from and your idea of carrying a notebook around to jot down ideas and things is perfect. I really had not thought about that! I think I need to start doing that on a daily basis so that I can broaden my pool to work from.

Your poem at the end was rich in detail and very very good! I like it alot.

I don't have alot of comments tonight, I'm pretty tapped out but one thing I did think of when I read your piece was this:

I don't write the poem, the poem writes me...

Dunno why I thought that, but for some reason it came to mind and it sounds good and I like it. So..... I wanted to share it here.