Myth Or Reality

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
– Gustave Flaubert

April showers bring May flowers. MYTH. Maybe once upon a time, like when and where I grew up, this came to pass. When and where I live now, the closest shower in this EARTH DAY month would be in my bathroom. Even a rain dance won’t summon up moisture from the California heavens. Yesterday when I taunted skyward, clouds darkened, hovered, then disappeared. REALITY. With sea levels, wildfires, extreme storm events and severe droughts on the rise, clearly global warming reigns.

While like John Lennon, I find reality leaves a lot to the imagination, it indeed does leave a lot to the imagination – and therefore offers possibility. I’ve always been skeptical of myths because paradoxically they impose boundaries. While myths represent the ways that ancient cultures sought to explain the origins of the world and of existence itself, reality often conflicts with these tales. Archetypes and slippery family lore tout artificial constructs and often inaccurate labels framed as grand wisdom.  

MYTH – Every story has been told.
REALITY – Not by you or me. No one has experienced the same intersection of chance and circumstance, nor perceived the same connections, tangled relationships, or intensity of a sound, a slight, a slice, a price to pay, a touch. No one has seen a vision through my hazel eyes, felt the same twinge of fear, inhabited my instincts, or been party to my loves, losses, and epiphanies. And no one has ever walked barefoot in my mocassins.

Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world.                                                                                                        – Edward Hopper

MYTH – You can’t write about him, or her or them or that (even though it happened to you, it’s your perception, not theirs) because he, she, or they will be offended, see it through a different lens and tell you it’s not true.
REALITY – Stay true to yourself. And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
                                                ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

A few days ago, I gave a presentation on three iconic photographers of the West, Capturing the Essence, whose work connects with awe and respect for the Earth. Ansel Adams, artist and conservationist, portrays the grandeur of the land with heightened clarity. With an eye for shape and form, Edward Weston transforms nature to abstraction, revealing the undulating lines in a cabbage leaf and a nude figure. The life’s work of Edward Curtis, the North American Indian, preserves a vanishing way of life. His elegantly rendered portraits and images of rituals illuminate the strength and sorrows of the Native American.

REALITY – And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
                                                   – Black Elk

I am appalled at the impact of the human footprint i.e. our thoughtless habits that now threaten the earth. If like me, you would like to savor the sweet scent of jasmine every April and gaze at soft purple jacaranda petals strewn on stone, eat fish not contaminated by man’s disregard for the sea, maintain rain forests to balance the ecology, and ensure water, clean air and a plentiful food supply for future generations, we need to change our ways.

MYTH – Write only what you know.
REALITY – Write what you care about. Write what you don’t know. Create to discover.
            When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;
            When doubt no longer exists for you then go forward with courage.
            So long as mists envelop you, be still;
            Be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists
            – As it surely will.
            Then act with courage.
                                                    – Ponca Chief White Eagle

 

In honor of EARTH DAY be vigilant of the nature of the human footprint. Be creative.

REALITY – We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.

                                                     – Dakota