Too grown up to recover the magic inside ?
Have you ever secretly longed to break free of the limits of principles and techniques and just throw paint at a canvas in wild abandon ? If it seems too childish a notion, this article may point out an adult way:
Too grown up to recover the magic inside ?
To an innocent child, doing whatever you feel like needs no rational reason, you just do it because you believe in magic. An adult might have a healthy scepticism about this child’s innocent view, but have you ever heard of a healthy cynicism ?
If you, as a responsible adult created whatever you felt like regardless of any rational reason, it would likely lead to chaos, right ?
P.T.Barnum once said: “More people are humbugged by believing in nothing than by believing in too much.”
If you’ve lost sight of your playful child’s way of exploring, it may be necessary to risk a little chaos first in order to recover your lost lust for the magic of the unknown world. It’s still waiting there inside you. Once you’ve opened the door to participate with the spirit inside, you’ll see how much more there is beyond exterior objectivity.
Draw, cook, create anything from the outside alone, with only outside formulas, and you’ll compromise who you are. Creating with your mind needs certain principles and techniques. But, that’s where the problems start. If your mind starts out in the driver’s seat, its all over, because your mind can only use what it already knows – it doesn’t do well with the unknown.
Though you’ve learned good principles and techniques that actually work, they can act like a strait-jacket, with no allowance for the unique feelings that are in your heart. That’s when you can feel a little bit of your heart die as you start to do “what you’re supposed to do” instead of what you’re inspired to do.
We all work from both the outside and the inside all the time. It might seem like an either-or choice only if your rational mind far out-balances your intuitive heart. Trying something new seems awkward and risky. You’ve got your way of doing whatever you do, creating, singing, drawing . . . or avoiding it. There seems to be no problem because it’s covered by habit.
Faith is not blind, but we often begin looking in the dark. How can you find inspiration inside ? First, go inside and ask to be shown. Your heart is what allows in the unknown. Surrender what you think you know and be willing to be surprised.
Once you find inspired magic of your own, and then support it with what you’ve been taught to do, then your adult world becomes more complete. Your familiar principles and techniques will have your
heart’s intuition to build upon. Then instead of being blocked by outside requirements for rational, predictable results, you’ll have
a dynamic way of using old stand-bys to enhance your new intuitive solutions.
The 12th Century Sufi poet Rumi wrote:
“You continue to knock on the door, until you experience that
you’ve been knocking from the inside.”