long rant on creative blissyness as disticnt from spiritual experience
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on May 8, 2001 at 14:15:26:
In reply to: I think henna is spiritual posted by Darlahood on May 8, 2001 at 05:41:55:
: For me henna is spiritual because it is my ART.When you're working on a creative project ... music, dance, art ...
you often are in a light "blissy" state ... deeply soothing, calming,
(different brain state) relieves anxiety and stress .... but I don't
like to classify a blissful calm creative state as spiritual. One can
be part of the other, certainly, but I think it overstates the case to
say that every creative experience is a spiritual experience.
: There is a new article in Newsweek this week, talking about how
: humans are wired to have a spiritual existence.
Absolutely! I grew up in an area where people valued the ecstatic
experience of Baptist revival meetings, (dancing, singing, chanting,
trancing, passing out) and now go to *very different* festivals where
people have ecstatic experience (dancing, singing, chanting, trancing,
passing out) so I totally agree that achieving an altered
spiritual state is an excellent, desirable, healthy and transforming
thing to do! How you get there is a matter of what cultural context
you fit it into ... Baptist, Buddhist ..... Church of Love Supreme
with John Coltrane ... or whatever you call it that we get up to at
Brushwood (fun, I call it). Makes the rest of the week or the rest of
the year more a damn sight more liveable!
: to achieve a meditative state), but the frontol lobe area is all red
: from introspective activity. I bet we go through the same shit when
: we henna others.
Similar activity, but a far more light state. Some get there faster
than others, some go more deeply than others. For some it never
happens at all. We're all wired a bit differently. Some hit that
opiate release point quickly. Some just don't ever hit it. For those
of us that get it quickly and easily, it's a bit addictive, and we
tend to make more of it than we should! It does feel wonderful, and
that wonderful feeling can have some crossover with spiritual states,
because it's calm and blissy ... so its tempting to call it a
spiritual thing, but I think it's much closer to reverie.
I don't know about the rest of you, 'cause
: everyone's different, but I totally zone out after I've been
hennaing
: people for a while.
Yes ... it can become a very light trance state .... that's why we can
henna for hours and hours .... and why I could always paint for 18
hours and not be aware that time had passed. The lightly altered
creative state is a splendid one! Not spiritual ... just a nicely
altered. I'm incredibly picky about classifications on altered states
because I've been around new-agey people and communities since the
early 60's and there's a great deal of nonsense that, when passed off
as spirituality, reveals itself as self-involved manipulative bullshit
or a simple excuse to be really irresponsible and flaky.
So .... I take an extremely narrow view of the word "spiritual" as
it's been so misused! Blissy, lightly tranced, calm altered states,
creative states, there are a whole range of opiate release or
endorphin release states that get termed as spiritual, that I don't
think qualify. They just feel good. They're not particularly
metaphysically significant.
: I see the design as a sort of burned image on
: the person's hand and I just start to trace it, never mind what they
: told me to henna.
That's the way I do much of my art work. I wait until I can simply
see the pattern perfectly clearly, then I just fill in the lines. I
used to do that in henna .... I'd see light white lines appear if I
relaxed gently, and then I'd start hennaeing. I stopped doing that
because I found the dynamic between me and the client changed, and in
a way that I didn't like. They thought I was deeply significant. I'm
not. I'm very creative, and very intuitive ... but I'm not special.
just because I already saw a better pattern there
: already.
That's normal for a creative person working intuitively. It's a good
thing!
: I don't know who put it there, but it's obvious that's
what
: they need.
Ah! NEED. Now that's your interpretation, and don't go there!
Yes, they will be getting a great charge off of your touch and
attention ... and as much as we crave touch and beauty (and get so
damn little of it) but don't think of it as more than a simple act of
kindness and beauty. That's plenty.
Y'all probably think I'm crazy, or that I'm some kind of
: henna fundamentalist. hehe, that IS funny, and maybe I am a henna
: fundamentalist.
Remember fundamentalists have a problem with mistaking interior
experience for exterior reality! This line should not be blurred!
: I just think it's really important not to lose
sight
: of the spirituality of things, even though they may become an
: everyday occurence. For me, every opportunity to share my art is a
: blessing, and I thank the Goddess every time she gives me the work.
Being somewhat an animist myself ... yes, there is *presence* in
everything. However .... if you deify the mundane, it trivializes the
truly great. Also .... making too much of things is not good. The
several serious religious leaders I know personally take the
significance of life far more lightly than most people, and are
willing to remind themselves regularly that it could all just be
ballocks anyway!
: I know henna does not belong to any set religion or system of
: beliefs, but to classify it as only a cosmetic? Is that what it's
: all about, or am I making my artistry out to be more than it really
: is?
It's more than a cosmetic, it's a behaviour and a creative experience
... but it's not really all that special UNLESS you've never had a
blissy creative experience in any other way! You get the same
contemplative rush in any other creative aesthetic practice ..but
henna has the added calming of touching another person. It's great,
it feels wonderful, it feels special ... but ..... it stops short of
spiritual.
Much closer to spiritual experience, I think, would be shape-note
singing .... dancing at a pow-wow .... dancing and being ridden at a
Bembe..... I can think of a dozen other creative group behaviours that
will truely knock you into a helluva bliss state! Those get closer to
spiritual experience, IMHO.
To call creative reverie "spiritual" trivializes truely overwhelming
religious experiences. I wouldn't want to put my hennaeing in the
same category as a person haveing a transformative religious
experience, that's like saying a mail-in doctor of divinity degree is
the same as earning a PHD at a major university.
Follow Ups
- thanks for clearing that up, you said it better than me! (n/t)
Darlahood 00:31:55 5/9/2001
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