THE PRACTICE of ATTENTION: Day 3
Be The Star You Are
The Practice of Attention is a 3 Day (digital) Artist Retreat. Take what is helpful. Any part of this letter can be a prompt. Leave what you don’t need right now. Here’s to bringing momentum and resonance into our creative practice.
We know the seasons by the ways our days change, and also our nights. In Autumn, we can see Sagitarious in the night sky. There are many myths that try to identify that constellation, but I like the myth of Crotus. He was the son of Pan, and he was raised with The Muses. He was an archer, and an artist, and is credited with creating applause. When the muses would make or perform something that moved him he couldn’t help but want to show them the joy it gave him, so he started clapping his hands. How perfect that as we are down here trying to expand our creative practice- the original advocate for the arts is right there with us in the stars.
"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” Vincent Van Gogh
People have been identifying with and finding meaning in the STARS since before we had the language to talk about it. I almost always have stars my work- so many songs with stars, so many images with stars. I have been doodling stars in the margins of my notebooks since I could hold a crayon.
A star can symbolize hope or aspiration; it rewards achievement and effort. They connect us to the cosmos and to the core essence of being human. The sheer numbers of them are unimaginable. We’ve made our wishes on them since ancient times. And then, there’s just something within all of us that I can only describe as star like. There is something inside all of us that shines. We may not literally glow in the dark, but when we let ourselves be seen, we do help other people to see too.
The Star You Are
We have to show ourselves in our work. It sounds like a no brainer, because no one wants to make UNAUTHENTIC work, but it is actually a kind of elusive thing sometimes. It is not always easy to let yourself shine.
The most accessible way I know to do this, to get at the kind of work that I’m trying to make is with STORY.
Practice finding your stories. This is obvious for writers, but it’s true for everyone. Practice finding your stories. And when you find them, get curious about them. Especially the sticky ones.
Excercise:
Try to make a list of true stories using the alphabet. Come up with 1 story for each letter of the alphabet. You now have 26 of your own stories to draw inspiration from!
I feel like I need to put a disclaimer in here too. Some stories are associated with trauma. Trauma should not be explored alone. If you feel like digging into any of your stories could be dangerous, you should seek out a therapist. I don’t recommend shoving a shovel into a ground nest of yellow jackets; you need a professional to help with that.
Tell your own stories in your work. Make sure that some story from your life is in there. It can be in narrative, it can be in symbol, it can be buried under layers that you put on top of it- but make sure that YOUR story is there. The work doesn’t have to even be about you, it can be absolute fiction, but it will hit so much harder when it holds a true story somewhere inside it.
Be honest. Really honest. Ted Gioia suggests keeping a notebook where at the END of every day you write down exactly what happened over the last 24 hours- what you actually felt and thought, with the goal of just practicing total honesty. We all have a tendency to lean toward what we think will make us more likable, trendy or exciting, even in the way we tell the stories to ourselves. We all have to push against this.
Your own stories shine because they are human and relatable. Don’t confuse shine with polish. Tell them with skill and empathy, but don’t clean them up too much.
When you get your own stories honestly into your work, you feel it. You will know you have something. They may feel a little bit vulnerable, like you are revealing a piece of yourself. They might also reveal something new to you. The work will shine some light, just like you.
Thank You for being a part of The Practice of Attention. I’m going to leave you with one of my all time favorite poems. Bursting with story. And stars.
Poem in Praise of My Husband, By DIANE DI PRIMA
I suppose it hasn’t been easy living with me either, with my piques, and ups and downs, my need for privacy. leo pride and weeping in bed when you’re trying to sleep. and you, interrupting me in the middle of a thousand poems did I call the insurance people? the time you stopped a poem in the middle of our drive over the nebraska hills and into Colorado, Odetta singing, the whole world singing in me the triumph of our revolution in the air me about to get that down, and you you saying something about the carburetor so that it all went away
but we cling to each other as if each thought the other was the raft and he adrift alone, as in this mud house not big enough, the walls dusting down around us, a fine dust rain counteracting the good, high air, and stuffing our nostrils we hang our pictures of the several worlds: new york college and san francisco posters, set out our japanese dishes, chinese knives hammer small indian marriage cloths into the adobe we stumble thru silence into each other’s gut
blundering thru from one wrong place to the next like kids who snuck out to play on a boat at night and the boat slipped from its moorings, and they look at the stars about which they know nothing, to find out where they are going
❤️❤️❤️💕❤️💕💕💕💕