I have read a number of books on Creativity over the past year, and will probably write more on that topic this coming winter.
I feel there is something key and intrinsic to the human spirit and healing that can be found in creative activities and would like to explore this further.
Along that line of thinking, I would like to consider the life and work of Rainer Maria Rilke.
I remember reading his poetry in my 20s and being touched by his work.
I've been brought to consider Rilke again, as he was mentioned in a tribute to W.H. Auden I was reading. I picked up his biography, and have just completed his Letters to a Young Poet.
There are aspects of Rilke's life and his responses to life, similar to my own. As I read, I began to wonder if he didn't also suffer from BPD, or some aspect of mental illness. At the very least, he is a "sensitive".
Like myself, he has lived the life of a peregrinator...seldom, it seems, finding a place he felt at home...comfortable enough to write and work.
He complains often of his surroundings and the noise; of not feeling well with flu-like symptoms of lassitude.
And although he was married, he seldom spent time with, or lived with his wife.
What I like in his advice to the young poet in Letters, is how he encourages the young artist to embrace his solitude. To be in Nature.
He advises the young poet how to sit with his sadness, with his emotions. How to let those emotions "grow" one; how to integrate them into one's self.
"I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant, taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.
For this reason the sadness too passes...
And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because...the more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the "new" go into us, so much the better, do we make it ours..."
[Emphasis, my own.]
I find Rilke's advice on how to enter those deep and lonely times very helpful, as part of the process of what creates our inner lives, what helps grow us. Rather than running away from feeling bad, or alone, Rilke sees this as a necessary process in becoming an artist; in the creative process.
As such, to be embraced. To be "sat with". To be accepted.
Perhaps if we had this approach as a society, and as individuals, we would come to deeper truths; more lasting and profound growth.
To pause. To be alone. To observe. To accept. To thereby grow and create.
As difficult and unconventional as Rilke's life seems to have been, I think he lived his own advice which enabled him to create.
I am inspired through his words to see my illness from a more positive perspective, from which true growth and lasting art works may emerge.
I feel there is something key and intrinsic to the human spirit and healing that can be found in creative activities and would like to explore this further.
Along that line of thinking, I would like to consider the life and work of Rainer Maria Rilke.
I remember reading his poetry in my 20s and being touched by his work.
I've been brought to consider Rilke again, as he was mentioned in a tribute to W.H. Auden I was reading. I picked up his biography, and have just completed his Letters to a Young Poet.
There are aspects of Rilke's life and his responses to life, similar to my own. As I read, I began to wonder if he didn't also suffer from BPD, or some aspect of mental illness. At the very least, he is a "sensitive".
Like myself, he has lived the life of a peregrinator...seldom, it seems, finding a place he felt at home...comfortable enough to write and work.
He complains often of his surroundings and the noise; of not feeling well with flu-like symptoms of lassitude.
And although he was married, he seldom spent time with, or lived with his wife.
What I like in his advice to the young poet in Letters, is how he encourages the young artist to embrace his solitude. To be in Nature.
He advises the young poet how to sit with his sadness, with his emotions. How to let those emotions "grow" one; how to integrate them into one's self.
"I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living. Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant, taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.
For this reason the sadness too passes...
And this is why it is so important to be lonely and attentive when one is sad: because...the more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the "new" go into us, so much the better, do we make it ours..."
[Emphasis, my own.]
I find Rilke's advice on how to enter those deep and lonely times very helpful, as part of the process of what creates our inner lives, what helps grow us. Rather than running away from feeling bad, or alone, Rilke sees this as a necessary process in becoming an artist; in the creative process.
As such, to be embraced. To be "sat with". To be accepted.
Perhaps if we had this approach as a society, and as individuals, we would come to deeper truths; more lasting and profound growth.
To pause. To be alone. To observe. To accept. To thereby grow and create.
As difficult and unconventional as Rilke's life seems to have been, I think he lived his own advice which enabled him to create.
I am inspired through his words to see my illness from a more positive perspective, from which true growth and lasting art works may emerge.
