Camera stellata: A Place of Creativity

The Star Chamber. This was a special judicial council in England, from the late middle ages to the end of Henry VIII’s reign. The term has become a pejorative to describe secret meetings, where illegal or unfair decisions are made, against which there is no recourse. This information is neither here nor there, as far as this post is concerned.

Apparently, in some text dating from the 16^th century, the Star Chamber was described as a room with a vaulted ceiling of azure, with golden stars. There are many such, throughout Europe, and even a few here in the United States, in cathedrals and churches. Have you ever been in one?

Starry, starry night.  The depiction of earth as an eye, open to the cosmos.

The star chamber is my metaphorical place of creativity.

I can enter this chamber at any time of day; frequently, this happens between 2 and 4 a.m., but also during daylight hours. I can enter this chamber at home, at sea, across borders and boundaries, and in any weather.

What is in this metaphorical chamber? How exactly do I get there? What is in the chamber? And what happens next?

I’m afraid I don’t have precise answers to these questions, but I will venture toward something necessarily imprecise.

There is an invitation made to me. From whence, I know not. This comes in the form of a twinge at the forehead, a series of words that drift into my mind and don’t drift away. There could be a tug at my sleeve, an itch on the sole of one foot or a breeze blowing across my forehead. Whatever the invitation, it will not allow me to avoid giving it due attention.  Come on, it says—in no uncertain terms.

Then, something like this happens. My conscious mind and my unconscious mind join hands. My right-brain and left-brain join hands. My heart and mind join hands. And then, in words somewhat like Dogen’s description of meditation, body and mind drop off, leaving the rest of me free to enter.

And there I am. What is in the chamber? I could not describe exactly what is in there for you or tell you what it is like, but I can say that Divine Genesis resides there, and the chamber is full, indeed.

What happens next? Mmmm. Difficult to say, for the circumstances are different each time. There is a meeting, and a spark sets the proceedings alight. Is it a conversation? Perhaps. Yes, it could well be a conversation. It could also be an exploration. A flow and mix of ideas.

And then I return to mind and body.

But the very elements that made the invitation arrive back with me, transformed into something else.

Is the result by my hand? Hmmm, I would have to say partly.  Yes—as filtered through my being—yes, it is by my hand. But, there is something more there than me. An alchemy, a music, a melding, a grace bestowed by Divine Genesis.

While I am not sure what to call this something more, it is a definite meeting.

All art, I am convinced, is derived from such meeting.

Becalmed

Hours beyond the stormy row,
wind has laid down spent arms,
to lay up storm for another day.

But for the soft bobbing of a tiny barque,
smooth as glass the waters lie
as far as horizon gleams in wearied eye.

Sun veiled by clouds belies a warmth,
one meant to beckon thirst
to this floating desert island.

No movement is called for,
and from crew none called forth,
nay, no movement at all.

Forward momentum shall be determined
not by willingness of reasoned effort,
but by serendipitous circumstance alone.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Boredom, Mother of Invention

When my kids sigh and exclaim “mom, I’m bored,” I clap my hands and respond, “Yipee! So what are you going to do about it?” And I return to whatever it was I was doing; probably something exciting, like folding laundry or cleaning out the cat box.

They want me to find something to entertain them, but I won’t do it. It is up to them. Just like it was up to me, when I was their age.

Long before I was married with children, I began seeing middle school kids with Palm Pilots and Blackberries. I wondered what kids would need those for. Finally, someone told me what it was all about. “Their parents have overscheduled them. These kids have so many activities, they have to keep track of them electronically, and sync them with the family calendar.” I was shocked. 

When we got married, I made my husband promise that we would not over-schedule ourselves and make our child carry a Palm Pilot. I'm sure he thought I was getting ahead of myself. And I was. But not by too far. 

Now, twins and ten years later, I am still shocked, even though we have moved on to Smart Phones and the iPhone and Droids that seem poised to evolve into yet more complex items. Just for the sake of example: does it make sense that some of us have as many as four different contact numbers and/or addresses? That means we have to wade through double, triple, quadruple the messages when people try to get in touch. 

I have a cellular phone, but I don’t text. I had a Palm Pilot, but gave it away years ago, and returned to having a calendar I can write in with a pencil. I have a laptop, but not the latest model or operating system or applications.

You must be thinking I am a Luddite.

Not so, not so. No, not at all. 

I think all this technology is fabulous and grand and totally gizmotic! --(I am totally looking forward to getting my very own Dick Tracy HoloTeleporTextoGraph wristwatch, as soon as they roll off the assembly line!)-- I just don’t happen to think we need to be tied to it every minute of the day and much of the night. I don’t believe that we are required to have every moment of our day filled with some sort of electronic transaction in order to feel useful and productive. In fact, I believe we are making ourselves sick with the constant influx of messages that require response. This is not productivity, people, this is overwhelm, leading to a short-circuit.

I won't even go into the shoot-em-up video games and the vapid television content, running along the lines of Beady Eye for the Con Guy, Trailer Court Cookery,America's Got Trash, Touched by a Zombie, Project Informercial and CSI Bell, California. My husband and I don't want to watch this junk, and we sure as heck don't want our kids watching it either. Whether it is television, video games or email, screen time sucks at you with constantly programmed stimulation and message intervention until your mind is not free to roam. Hours go by, empty of you and your thoughts.

Anna Quindlen wrote a lovely essay for Newsweek in 2002. She, too, had noticed all the children with afternoons full of scheduled and structured time, being chauffeured around by harried and resentful parents, and it disturbed her, as well. Reflecting on her own childhood, she said, 

How boring it was. Of course, it was the making of me, as a human being and a writer. Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on the stoop and staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I don't believe you can write poetry, or compose music, or become an actor without downtime, and plenty of it, a hiatus that passes for boredom but is really the quiet moving of the wheels inside that fuel creativity.

In a 2005 keynote speech about hyper-parenting and creativity, Alvin Rosenfeld, M.D. said, 

Boredom can stimulate kids to think, create, and hear the soft murmurings of their inner voice, the one that makes them write this unusual story or draw that unique picture, or invent a new game. It is diminishing free play’s importance and eliminating time to reflect that damage imagination because they do not treat as precious children’s natural joy in discovering.

I propose that what is good for kids is probably also at least equally good for adults. 

I have seen my husband sit at the computer, grinding away at a problem related to what he is working on, getting more and more keyed up and farther, it seems, from a solution. If I drag him away to play with the twins, he grumbles, but always finds the solution while he is away from the computer. Why? Because he let go long enough to think outside the boundaries he had set up for the solution—that is creativity. And it was not found sitting at the computer, it was found while flying kites with the kids. He was not bored by the kite flying, but it was time frivolously spent.

Author Aimee Bender spends two hours a day working at boredom, just sitting around, waiting for some odd thought to pass through her mind. 

I feel like sitting through boredom is a major piece of being a writer. There's this intense restlessness that comes up when bored. I have this interest in skewed storytelling, so it makes sense that the ideas would sometimes show up in these strange ways.

Susan Sontag observed in an essay: 

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

So, here’s an idea for all of us, whether we are little kids or hyper-connected big kids:

Take some time to turn off, tune out, and twiddle those thumbs! Get out, get restless, go fly a kite--and see what happens!

///

Keane, Erin. Courier-Journal.com, 10/26/2010. Acclaimed writer Aimee Bender's creative process begins with boredom.

Quindlen, Anna. Newsweek; 5/13/2002, Vol. 139 Issue 19, p76:  Doing Nothing is Something.

Rosenfeld, Alan. Hyper-Parenting the Over-Scheduled Child, keynote address for the Association of Children’s Museums, Indianapolis, Indiana. April 30, 2005.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography: America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly." Penguin, 1977. 

Meetings

Paper worn,
sheets so old
there's no rustle left in them,
more like felt under her fingers,
or softer yet,
like the worn cheek
of a beloved old friend.

Settling the pages,
making them comfortable,
she arranged herself,
just close enough
to see the signs and symbols,
and on them meditate.

Cradling the instrument
within her warm embrace,
she took a long, deep breath,
filling her being with its sweetness.

Fixing her gaze
on those worn pages—
old friends, revisited often;
“the rules of engagement,”
she had once heard;
an apt description,
the thought occurred
—she drew the bow,
forward over the strings.

Then, she leaned back,
closed her eyes,
and let the bow find the strings,
the way that they would do,
just now.

Inner ear to mind,
mind to thought,
idea to quill,
quill to manuscript,
symbols dot paper,
shapes greet the eye,
horsehair strokes steel,
steel vibrates wood,
wood sings,
space hums,
body rejoices,
soul soars.

The sum
of all these meetings
is God’s voice,
heard as music.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Placid Pool

           ~about singing and life

Placid pool,

font of being;
here, there is surface tension,
but there is no holding back.

Depths and heights,
aboves and belows,
all vividness reflected here
is a perfect and lively counterpoint;

Nothing that rises or falls
is ever disconnected,
nor even far-flung—
there is nothing beyond
this teeming now,
this moment,
this.

Fish, rising softly
toward sparkling light,
kiss this moment
and are quenched in air.

Birds, descending lightly
toward darkling sheen,
kiss this moment
and are quenched in water.

The rising and the falling are one,
the light and the dark are one,
highs, lows and all the in-betweens are one,
tempered to clarity and density
in this place of being
that quenches all being,
in this teeming now,
this moment,
this.

© 2010 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The Infusions of an Amateur Herbalist

These formulas have been kitchen and illness tested by me personally. You can fine-tune them for yourself.


For Sinus Congestion

FENUGREEK
Fresh GINGER (grated)
GINSENG
PEPPERMINT
TULSI (also known as HOLY BASIL)
Lemon juice

or

For Bronchial Distress

ANISE Seed
ELDER flower
HYSSOP
MULLEIN

1. Add the herbs in equal parts to a large infusion ball or reusable teabag and toss it all into your teapot, along with the non-herb ingredients, if any.
2. Boil up some water and pour it on in.
3. Let steep for 5-10 minutes.

[Optional, add honey to the bottom of your mug (my favorite is Bio-Active Manuka* Honey)]

Pour yourself a big dose, and feel better soon.

* Manuka is better known to us as Tea tree (Leptospermum scoparium), a flowering bush from New Zealand and South East Australia. Honey containing Manuka flower pollen has antibacterial and antifungal properties. Most good health food stores will have some available.

You know I am not a doctor, so any information I have to offer is not a prescription, but a soothing recipe.

Singing Your Way To Health

I got my flu shot this week, and what do you know, but I have a cold!

So, what did I do last night? Instead of lying about in bed, I went to a rehearsal, to SING. And I came home tired, but feeling good.

Crazy? Well, I might be a little wacky, but not because of that.

Back in August, I was invited to present a vocal workshop to a church choir. The emphasis was to be on vocal technique, but as I was thinking about how to make a presentation on the technical aspects of breathing and making sound, due to the particular circumstances of certain people I know, I could not help but also think about singing from a healing perspective.

I said to the assembled choristers that our times in worship are about regrouping, re-centering and renewal, a turning and returning to being in tune with the Divine. Whether we celebrate in churches, synagogues or mosques, we are meeting the Divine from our grounding as individuals, as well as from within the harmony of our larger fellowship community or our greater culture. The shared element between each of person and the Divine could be described as unity of spirit--a vibratory exchange resulting in a sense of well being or peace.

Outlandish? New Age? Hippy-dippy?

Not so, not so!

Everything in the universe vibrates. Even seemingly solid stone mass vibrates. Children hiking through a dark forest hum and sing songs to themselves. How could it not be so that humming, toning, chant and song are an individual’s innate vibrational self-healing tool, a built-in coping mechanism? As physical beings, we are music; everywhere we go, we carry our song with us.  That famous line from T.S. Eliot’s Dry Salvages says it all: “You are the music, while the music lasts.”  This is a truth that is not new; this is timeless wisdom.

The great Sufi teacher to West, Hazrat Inayat Khan offers this, on the power of sound:

The physical effect of sound has also a great influence upon the human body. The whole mechanism, the muscles, the blood circulation, the nerves, are all moved by the power of vibration. As there is a resonance for every sound, so the human body is a living resonator for sound. Although by one sound one can produce a resonance in all substances, such as brass and copper, the there is no greater and more living resonator of sound than the human body. The effect of sound is upon each atom of the body, for each atom resounds; on all glands, on the circulation of the blood and on the pulsation sound has its effect. (Khan, 1992)

How many times have you gone to a concert hall feeling stressed from a long day at work, and exited feeling refreshed. Moreover, everyone around you seems to feel the same things you do about the performance you just heard. What is this? It is called entrainment, a synchronization of patterns, whether they are brain wave patterns, attitudinal patterns, emotional patterns. The Wiki definition of entrainment from a pure physics perspective is given:

The process whereby two interacting oscillating systems assume the same period. (Wikipedia, 2009)

More recently, the science of entrainment is being applied in different areas, such as music for therapeutic use, in the clinical setting, as treatment for everything from depression to personality disorders to cancer.

Sound enters the healing equation from several directions: It may alter cellular functions through energetic effects; it may entrain biological systems to function more homeostatically; it may calm the mind and therefore the body; or it may have emotional effects, which influence neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, which in turn help to regulate the immune system--the healer within. (Gaynor, 1999)

Singing is an activity in which both hemispheres of the brain are simultaneously activated, coordinating and cooperating to get all the right muscles to work together to gather the breath, form the words and  sounds, find the pitches and control the air flow that results in the song. Research shows that neither side of the brain dominates in music making (Gates & Bradshaw, 1977). When you sing, or engage in any music making, it could be said that you are single of mind, because your brain hemispheres are working together toward a single outcome.

I personally know singers who have sung and instrumentalists who have played through major health crises, coming out the other side, not merely healed, but transformed.

So, whether you have a cold today (like I do) or not, help yourself to a mantra or hum a little tune, or, heck, just belt out that cool, jazzy song you love in the shower.

You'll feel better. I guarantee it.

AUM.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gates, Anne and Bradshaw, John L. Brain and Language, Vol. 4, Issue 3. Elsevier, Inc., 1977. Pp. 401-431: "The Role of the Cerebral Hemispheres in Music".
Gaynor, Mitchell L. Sounds of Healing, Broadway Books, 1999, P, 134.
Khan, Hazrat Inayat. The Mysticism of Sound and Magic, Element Books, 1992. Pp.261, 263.
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment, 2009.