Creative Genius – Writing and Creating

Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper: Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It

by Sark

Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 08/27/2008)

]]> http://billabongdreaming.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/sark-interviews-heather-blakey/feed/ 1 Heather Blakey Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories, and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It http://billabongdreaming.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/christmas-in-july-at-wartook/ http://billabongdreaming.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/christmas-in-july-at-wartook/#comments Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:36:58 +0000 Heather Blakey http://billabongdreaming.wordpress.com/?p=97 ]]>

It was Christmas in July at Wartook and Priscilla and I were invited to join the festivities at the Wartook Pottery. Set in an idyllic setting it was not especially wintery even by Australian standards. It was cold outside but the skies were clear blue and everyone was filled with joy. Here you can see Priscilla with Heather, Jenny and Margaret and two new friends, a big angel and a cute little Dionysian figure who wrapped an arm around her waist and snuggled up by the blazing fire.

We had a traditional Christmas lunch with plum pudding, hard sauce and all the other trimmings. Christmas in July is a joy. There are none of the expenses or stresses. Santa came with lollies for everyone and fun was had by all.

Create emptiness up to the highest

Guard stillness up to the most complete.

Then all things may rise together.

I see how they return,

Things in all their multitude:

Each one returns to its root.

Return to their root means stillness.

Stillness means return to fate.

Return to fate means eternity.

Cognition of eternity means clarity

If one does not recognize the eternal

One falls in to confusion and sin.

If one recognizes the eternal

One becomes forbearing.

From Tao Te Ching as translated by Richard Wilheim

Waldon went off to live deliberately. Joseph Campbell spent years in the wilderness! I have come to Wartook. Here at Wartook I see and feel what these men felt, understand why they stepped off the well beaten path and isolated themselves. They came because you have to come and create emptiness, be still, with nature, in order to fuse with it and liberate creativity, give one’s art life through merging one’s spirit with nature.

Here at Wartook I know that the spiritual plane is not on some elevated platform, far from my grasp. Here, within the shadows of Mt Difficult I know that spirit walks where I walk, sees what I see, breaths the air I breath, communicates with me through something as simple as a blade of grass, a spire of bamboo grass being caressed by the gentle breeze. Here in this quiet space I can hear her gentle laughter, echoing within the empty spaces.

Here at Wartook I gather dead leaves to accelerate the fledgling fire that warms my womb like cabin. I take dead leaves, hold them in the palm of my hand, crush them and feel them disintegrate. It is self-evident that spirit abandoned these leaves, left them to fuse with the earth, to be gathered by me to fuel flames and heat my coffee pot. I look and understand that the dead leaf is nothing but an empty shell, the remains of an organism that once breathed life, danced upon a bough, amid other leaves, drank the sweet life giving oxygen that surrounded it.

Having taken the dead leaves, gathered the brittle twigs, that once carried the tree’s life blood, I stop, quizzically ponder and in doing so, learn that in the same way our bodies, once emptied of spirit, will stiffen and wither.

Ash’s head drooped within milliseconds, the proud body crumpled and curled, his spirit rose within an invisible vapor, like a curl of smoke from a chimney and drifted out into the cosmos. Dog, human, leaves are a part of the great cosmic force and that cosmic force is a part of dog, human, leaf, until it decides to depart, leaving a shell to be disposed of.

How does this knowing affect what I do here in Wartook? Why am I writing about it? I am writing, quite simply, because the spirit of Wartook, the custodian of this remote valley, has taken it in to its head to sit me in class, insist that I observe, sit wrapped within a snow dome, a galaxy of bright stars. Spirit seems to think that I need to understand that, while my ego would like to think otherwise, I have no real existence outside nature, beyond that galaxy of stars that cloak me.

As I sit within the dome of bright stars, I am certain about some things. I am certain that Ash only exists as remains, lying within a grave over which birds carol their evensong, above which magpies call, announcing the arrival of dawn. Yet I am just as certain that a part of Ash came, to greet me, as I entered Rose Gully Road. He lies here now, beside me, tail wagging, adoring eyes watching, protecting.

As I sit within the dome of bright stars, I know that Darryl’s body, dissolved in to ash, was scattered upon the water of the Stony Creek, floated, like a raft, along with the currents and vanished. Yet he exists within memory, within the stories, told of him. He is not with me yet he is always present, a guiding hand, a reassuring voice, a gentle touch. Where Darryl once stood, where Ash once lay, there is a void, an emptied space. Yet this void is not formless, anymore than the heavens that surround me are formless or empty. They are filled to over flowing, bright stars bursting forth light, forming constellations, patterns, pathways to distant worlds.

The void is just another manifestation of nature, another form of energy, and a place I keep returning to, a well from which to drink and replenish.

Spirit thought I needed to know that from voids, shapes rise, that while I have no existence outside nature I will exist long after I am gone, just as Darryl and Ash will exist for many life times. I have listened to spirit, to the custodian of Mount Difficult. I hear and know that shapes rise, return from the void. The shape that is rising is still imperceptible, is barely discernible, but it is taking a familiar form and within that form is life, the one, the very same spirit who has taken me captive here in Wartook.

I went to the tiny Abbey of St Francis on Owl Island, to break the cycle. I stood under the fruit trees, picked ripened fruit and savored it as the juice dribbled down my arm. I soaked in the crisp air, slept peacefully in the tiny cloister and knew, that for this moment in time, the circuit had been broken.

Raven carried her ball of light into the sky,
so we no longer live in darkness.

The old self image must die
Death must precede the
Psychological revolution that is welling
the creative reorganization demanding to
Unblock the flow of psychic energy and
Give life new meaning

Into the cauldron Raven
Beautiful soul maiden gently places
Black seeds from my shadow
Black wormseed from my ego
to incubate, regenerate and
Facilitate rebirth

A beginning, the end
Dying to the senses, withdrawing
Voluntarily entering the dark inner world of the soul
at home in the darkness of suffering
Only in death is a greater thing born
Only within the darkness lie germs of recovery

image courtesy of Susan Seddon-Boulet Trustees.

In the beginning the world was a great shapeless mass.

First there was nothing, just wind and the dark abyss. In the immense clefts of nothing, the deeper Abyss, Raven formed and with her dark raven wings, she flew to wind’s arms and their passion, this procreative force, became known as Chaos.

Raven gave birth to wind’s egg. From this egg rose the Goddess of Love, the one who arouses desire and fuels creation. This Goddess who represent the spirit of love,fertility and creation, was the oldest and at the same time the youngest of the Goddesses. It was the Goddess, the matchmaker, who agitated(libido) and paired heaven and earth, ocean and and the land. Before Her no immortal beings existed. From the Goddess of Love came libido which in turn birthed the immortals who sprang to life on the wings of ravenous love.

It is the Goddess of Love, the procreative principle(libido) that permits the work of creation to continue. The ability to bring something new into existence is fundamental to the creative process. Reference is often made to somebody’s ‘fertile mind’, or to an inhibition of this creativity as ‘creative sterility’.

Many successfully creative people use procreative metaphors in saying something about their experience because, as artist’s know too well, when a person’s performance, work output or art doesn’t have soul it lacks passion or libido. Without passion or libido, without the inevitable tension of opposites, the artist lies, wretched, impotent, sterile.

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
–Mark Twain

Lightning, whose electricity,
Held the universe together,
Scowled malevolently
Through sword shaped eyes
That pierced the void as
Ravenous Raven, lady of birds and beasts
Erotically danced with promiscuous Wind

Emboldened
Charged by atoms, electrons, protons
Lightning hurled a bolt along a wire of air molecules
That collided upon earth’s stage
At the very spot in Dodona where
a single oak tree stood
Igniting fire.

Raven who lived on peaks of mountainsides,
Who lived in caves
Who rested on the boughs of this very tree
Looked up in wonder
Captivated, mesmerized by
Capricious Lightning’s audaciously bright, flashy show

The gift of fire, of electricity
Bought by Lightning to this most sacred place
His fired passion for Raven
Lives on in the bowels of
the mountains, the caves, the trees
Is told by birds and beasts
Lightning man’s imagination

To this day the Dododan Oak Tree has the property of attracting lightning and the places where lightning struck was regarded, continues to be regarded, as sacred.

In ancient Rome, members of the College of Augurs divined the will of the gods by observing the southern sky for lightning, birds, and shooting stars. A lightning bolt passing from left to right was a favorable omen; a lightning bolt passing from right to left was a sign that Jove did not approve of current political events. Furthermore, whenever the augurs reported any sign of lightning, the magistrates of Rome were required to cancel all public assemblies on the following day. The augurs’ reports became politically useful to postpone unwanted meetings, delay the passage of laws, or prevent the election of certain magistrates by popular assemblies..

Metaphor Seeds Imagination

From the formless void
Motes, particles, miniscule molecules of matter
Slowly began to stir
Drawn by an invisible procreative,
Primordial force
They gravitated
Clinging together tenaciously
Swelling into a giant cluster
A sensual shape with
Dark raven wings

Inflaming, arousing desire, Raven
Spread her wings
Dancing, gyrating provocatively
Upon Wind’s fingertips
Wind and raven’s coming together
Borne of frenzied passion
Was a union, an act of love?
From which was birthed
An exquisite silver, moon egg
Swollen with life.

Curled within the silver womb
Amid deep silence
Lay the Goddess of Love,
Goddess of erotic love, fertility
Wrapped in the very wings
Upon which would ride, ravenous
Procreative inspiration
The all powerful
Creative energy
That fuels the universe

“When Lemuria perished by volcanic fires it left but scattered fragments to mark where once it spread. For us it will be enough to trace the Divine Wisdom from the beginnings…to carry on the teaching of the divine instructors.”

Gathered around a cradle, rocked beneath the shelter of the Himalayan peaks, the divine initiates, guardians of an ancient teaching, ancestral members of the divine sisterhood, gently prepare a girl baby for her earthly journey. This child is destined to protect the ancient teaching and bring it to humanity, wrapped in brown paper.

Silently, speaking only with actions, the sisterhood perform rituals, passed on by initiators before them, initiators whose strong hands carried the divine science safely through Lemurian fires and Atalantean floods.

A guardian, with long, luxuriant red hair, wrapped in a sapphire, brocade trimmed robe, steps forward and speaks.

“Lone Warrior Maiden. You must take this ancient teaching and go forth to a corner post of the old Lemuria, our homeland. The law we have given you will direct your life. All your actions must be in accordance with the law, which will in turn protect and preserve your destiny. You will be a member of an earth family, a citizen of the great universe, a part of the whole. You must not forget that you are a part of a circle and over time you will form a circle with other initiates who follow. You will find them in an eternal water garden.”

Soft red light, like that emanating from a legendary Lemurian sunset bathes the crade and infuses the baby with a gentle warmth that will linger, fills her with a dynamic life force.

Quietly the Goddess lays down gifts beside the cradle.

There is a stylus, tablets, a loom and golden thread to weave, to hold for others to follow, a mirror carved with the words ‘to thine self be true’, a golden badge of honour to preserve dignity and last but not least, a treasure box to store the treasures of life.

Now to find the right womb…

From The Wintered Womb

Underneath the thrice ploughed, fertile, fallow field
Impregnated within a wintered, woven, womb
Of richly composted humus
I lay seeking sustenance, nourishment from
The oxygen filled wintered mist that
Drizzles, seeping, replenishing the amniotic fluids
That trickles through the membranous umbilical cord
Fertilizing, greening,
Ensuring a bountiful spring harvest.

Voices on the wind, drift through the chosen womb, throught the richly composted humus… a mother crying… she has three children already… how will she manage. Dr Salvaris reassures her. They will do a tubal ligation at the same time as this child is delivered, to ensure that her womb will lie fallow from this time on. What does this mean for me I wonder? ‘Prove your worth that’s what you will do….’ more words come filtering into the womb filling me with apprehension. Will I ever be good enough?

Heather Lorraine Blakey
born 27th August 1950
St David’s Hospital
Maffra, Victoria, Australia
daughter of Colin James Goodwin and
Dorothy Jean Goodwin

Born in the ward
giving precedence to
Graeme Chirpig who
tried to take
all the attention.

Born in time
for an extra slap
on the bottom
for so unceremoniously
disrupting Sister Cameron’s morning tea.

With a deft knot in her mother’s tubes
Dr Salvaris
ensured she would be
the last divinity to slip
unexpectedly
from her uterus

They said
the room filled with
radiant heated light
on that August morning
when she
triumpantly
entered the stage
looking radiant
brown eyes glowing
expectantly

It was perfectly evident
To all with eyes to see
And ears to hear
That this quaint child
Sheltered by the Great Dividing Range
Wore the mark of teacher
Emblazoned on her brow.

Her mother knew
That this child of her womb
Would be her last
that this child of Clotho and Laschesis
Was to be shielded from Atropos’s scissors

Her mother knew that this child was to be
Sheltered, protected, within the isolation of a remote outpost
That sacrifices had to be made to
Nurture, nourish and encourage her
To live out her carefully measured destiny.

Photographs by Heather Blakey
March 25th 2008
Dunolly Region