Creative Source

 

I guess after day 8 of writing this blog I suddenly don't know what to write about. I guess maybe I can write about what happens when we don't know what to write about? I want to say that usually it just comes to me and in a sense it does but where does it exactly come from? There has long been a concept of muses or intellectual abstract fairies that suddenly come to people in dreams or moments of inspiration, and then everything kind of just flows, almost as if they were possessed by something and channeling some spirit, entity or god. Maybe, in a sense, possessed by an idea that begs to be expressed. 

David Lynch talks about his creative inspiration as well as other artists. David Lynch has an interesting idea which is known as "fishing for ideas." He expounds upon this methodology in which you simply cast your line out for inspiration, that these ideas are just swimming around us constantly and that moments of inspiration are everywhere, but the point is that you always have to be able to reel them in. Having a notepad and pen always within your possession is a good strategy for this, for you never know when a good idea will bite. 

 As to the source of his creativity, he made the interesting statement that he decidedly did not want to know where his creative inspiration comes from.  By keeping the mystery even from himself it makes it that much more effective or viable, he goes on to say that if he knew the exact mechanism of how his creative process worked then he wouldn't be able to replicate it anymore and it would maybe even lose some of its magic.

To catch an idea can be a tricky process to undertake. Sometimes your just stuck staring at a blank screen or paper and a clock with a rapidly approaching deadline. When we have a deadline, sometimes it forces us to put something down, just vomit out words and thoughts regardless of how good they actually are to you. Maybe some of it is just self-confidence, maybe some of it is just lack of inspiration. Writers block, artists block, just a block to flow in general. Sometimes its important to know what to do so at least your doing something to get the flow back.

Last night there was a blood moon. The full beaver moon was a blood moon, or total lunar eclipse. A blood moon is a type of astronomical phenomena that is visible from Earth and looks really cool. Visibly, the moon begins to turn blood red until at its totality it is completely bathed in a wild orange and red glow. The phenomena is caused by when the Earth lies directly in line between the sun and the moon. Essentially, the Earth causes a shadow to fall on the moon. This is in contrast to the almost opposite phenomena in which the moon is directly in line with the path from the sun to the earth, and the shadow of the moon is seen during the day. This is known as a solar eclipse. Both phenomena can be quite rare, and as such are strange sights to see that spawned many mythological stories in order to explain it. 

Pictures of the blood moon last night, one taken on a professional camera and one on my iPhone camera.

The reddish hue is actually the light from a thousand sunsets passing through the Earths atmosphere and reflecting off the moon to produce its reddish hue. Maybe this tangent seems a little off topic, perhaps its just something to write about when I don't know what else. Maybe there's an aspect of ceremony or ritual to be appreciated for creative inspiration, in a sense this makes sense on a practical level. When some writers don't know where to go in a plot or engineers or scientists or anyone, a good practice to undertake is to completely disconnect from the work completely and then reenter it from a new perspective. This can be done by simply taking a walk, going to some ritual like a mass or prayer or even music show or dance and then coming back into the work. 

Maybe, even though it doesn't make sense, these rituals we take are a crucial part in solving problems or finding creative inspiration. Though they are on a surface level disconnected from each other, maybe finding inspiration is just as important as developing and expressing that inspiration. It's the process that occurs before the act of creation. The blood moon can have a lot of ceremony and ritual attached to it, its a phenomena that distinctly classifies a certain period of time, there are so many stories before we understood the nature of the world through science, which is in a sense its own mythology. There are so many mythologies attached to why the moon would suddenly turn red. Swallowed by a mythical dragon perhaps, blood moons can be both good and bad omens depending on which cultural context they are looked at with. 

Whatever your creative source, its important to not forget about it and understand how to tap into it. It's one of the most valuable resources we possess. It is boundless, limitless, until we place such ideas upon it.