Ali Hussain's Blog - Posts Tagged "creativity"
Zephyrs: The Marriage Between Art and Night
For quite some time, when I lacked the awareness to understand my peculiar dispositions, I wondered about my inclination to repeatedly watch particular TV shows or films, to listen to specific songs for what seems like an eternity and then, suddenly, to depart from these desires towards others. Consistently, I was lingering with a few obsessions only to leave them towards others a desert of difference away.
And then, as the epoch of wondering departed, the age of wandering arrived with a sudden flash. I began to perceive trends and patterns that tell a story. There was a coherence and subtle movement that tied together these various inclinations. It was not an adherence in terms of content, but style and visual rhetoric. During this time, as I was investigating my internal self through the mirror of my external ether, I was also distracted by a coercive perception … an effigy of false desires.
I finally came across the spirits of these desires. I traced the scents of their steps until I found whirling in the magic of the darkest of nights while the moon in the fullness of its glory gazed upon them. The entire spectacle seemed to convey to me the subtle plot that these spirits were hearkening, with love, to the kingly moon’s beckoning for companionship. Meanwhile, as I observed this fairytale of my own world unfold before my heart, I safely stayed within the comfortable walls of my own being.
I discovered that the contentment found in gazing at the unknown from within the warmth of your own endless abyss emerges as a special marriage between contending movements. In this state, there is truly no shyness or fear, only a merciful fortress that embraces you while you relinquish your bodily, mental and spiritual defenses in order to sear through all that lies beyond you. The distraction here is always a luring form without a spirit.
The true artist, the one who has entered this cabin of tranquility in the most stygian of nights and witnessed the spectacle of the moon’s kingly court, is the only one who is not in need of sending forth these distracting effigies. They are freed from such a prison simply because they have encompassed the limitless true forms of actors, dancers, painters and luthiers who are granted an audience with the king.
These true artists do not contain or own forms. They merely seek to encompass them within the shades of their gazes. They never make any of these forms move through direct commands, because they know that this would only result in artificial love that itself does not know how to love. Instead, true artists seek to discover the moon’s presence in these forms. Once they perceive the journey of the king’s light from its abode to the spirit of the form, they find life.
In other words, these true artists listen very attentively but not intentionally or artificially. They continue to relieve themselves of expectations until they transcend any separation between themselves and audition in order to become the singular hearing of existence. They hear all with a passionate clarity. And yet, they are not motivated to entertain this ability to themselves, within their own court. They are simply in awe and this is enough for them.
There, I found my desires. As the spectacle of the kingly moon unfolded in my eternal night, I slowly began to understand the secret which all the actors sought to convey to my illiterate heart. Of course, it could not convey this hidden knowledge, which it received, to my literate mind. With which words can an illiterate organ write its biography? The resulting discrepancy was another wonder for my wandering soul.
What emerged is an illiterate heart that contained that which it could not describe, while my literate mind spoke for artificial stretches about that which it could not imagine, much less have. It was only then and there that my heart was given permission to begin breaking apart its seal of silence and unleash insignificant oceans of the secret which it carried. Since it could not speak directly, it opted instead to dance quickly upon an endless procession of fleeting metaphors.
At first, I tried to decipher the metaphors. First, there appeared a favorite film. Then, it was followed by a timeless song. Next, I was visited by an evocative painting that marketed itself in hauntingly beautiful colors. I was left dumbfounded by my own inability to perceive a connection. Then, I began to wonder whether these symbols were sending breaths of translations to one another. Is it possible that colors were seeking music through my contemplation?
That alleyway in the empire of my imagination delivered me to the shore of a few pearls of conviction, but I could still hear many other ones all around me. It is the most surreal experience of the body, mind and spirit to feel and taste your answer in the very air you breathe but still lack the power to grasp and contain it. What exactly was I hearing? With which ear or listening act was I receiving the ink of these entities’ words?
I continued to linger in the solitude and anxiety of that moment. All the while, the spectacle of the kingly moon was still ongoing, with no end in sight, as I watched from the liberating freedom of my tight embrace and comfort. Slowly, the magic of the holy marriage between the night and art overwhelmed my surroundings. I saw the layers of those walls tighten their grip into a tantalizing contentment, while the forms of the actors on stage dissipated one after another.
These twin movements then met at an unlikely juncture. It was a deceptive acquaintance, similar to the illusion of stillness emerging from an ever-increasing act of whirling. There, the metaphors and my desires lifted their masks and revealed a ‘me’ that I had never known. An identity familiar yet fleeting like a fugitive of love. The desires were a movement and that was enough. The destination and final act of the kingly court was the play itself … never ending and always unfolding.
And then, as the epoch of wondering departed, the age of wandering arrived with a sudden flash. I began to perceive trends and patterns that tell a story. There was a coherence and subtle movement that tied together these various inclinations. It was not an adherence in terms of content, but style and visual rhetoric. During this time, as I was investigating my internal self through the mirror of my external ether, I was also distracted by a coercive perception … an effigy of false desires.
I finally came across the spirits of these desires. I traced the scents of their steps until I found whirling in the magic of the darkest of nights while the moon in the fullness of its glory gazed upon them. The entire spectacle seemed to convey to me the subtle plot that these spirits were hearkening, with love, to the kingly moon’s beckoning for companionship. Meanwhile, as I observed this fairytale of my own world unfold before my heart, I safely stayed within the comfortable walls of my own being.
I discovered that the contentment found in gazing at the unknown from within the warmth of your own endless abyss emerges as a special marriage between contending movements. In this state, there is truly no shyness or fear, only a merciful fortress that embraces you while you relinquish your bodily, mental and spiritual defenses in order to sear through all that lies beyond you. The distraction here is always a luring form without a spirit.
The true artist, the one who has entered this cabin of tranquility in the most stygian of nights and witnessed the spectacle of the moon’s kingly court, is the only one who is not in need of sending forth these distracting effigies. They are freed from such a prison simply because they have encompassed the limitless true forms of actors, dancers, painters and luthiers who are granted an audience with the king.
These true artists do not contain or own forms. They merely seek to encompass them within the shades of their gazes. They never make any of these forms move through direct commands, because they know that this would only result in artificial love that itself does not know how to love. Instead, true artists seek to discover the moon’s presence in these forms. Once they perceive the journey of the king’s light from its abode to the spirit of the form, they find life.
In other words, these true artists listen very attentively but not intentionally or artificially. They continue to relieve themselves of expectations until they transcend any separation between themselves and audition in order to become the singular hearing of existence. They hear all with a passionate clarity. And yet, they are not motivated to entertain this ability to themselves, within their own court. They are simply in awe and this is enough for them.
There, I found my desires. As the spectacle of the kingly moon unfolded in my eternal night, I slowly began to understand the secret which all the actors sought to convey to my illiterate heart. Of course, it could not convey this hidden knowledge, which it received, to my literate mind. With which words can an illiterate organ write its biography? The resulting discrepancy was another wonder for my wandering soul.
What emerged is an illiterate heart that contained that which it could not describe, while my literate mind spoke for artificial stretches about that which it could not imagine, much less have. It was only then and there that my heart was given permission to begin breaking apart its seal of silence and unleash insignificant oceans of the secret which it carried. Since it could not speak directly, it opted instead to dance quickly upon an endless procession of fleeting metaphors.
At first, I tried to decipher the metaphors. First, there appeared a favorite film. Then, it was followed by a timeless song. Next, I was visited by an evocative painting that marketed itself in hauntingly beautiful colors. I was left dumbfounded by my own inability to perceive a connection. Then, I began to wonder whether these symbols were sending breaths of translations to one another. Is it possible that colors were seeking music through my contemplation?
That alleyway in the empire of my imagination delivered me to the shore of a few pearls of conviction, but I could still hear many other ones all around me. It is the most surreal experience of the body, mind and spirit to feel and taste your answer in the very air you breathe but still lack the power to grasp and contain it. What exactly was I hearing? With which ear or listening act was I receiving the ink of these entities’ words?
I continued to linger in the solitude and anxiety of that moment. All the while, the spectacle of the kingly moon was still ongoing, with no end in sight, as I watched from the liberating freedom of my tight embrace and comfort. Slowly, the magic of the holy marriage between the night and art overwhelmed my surroundings. I saw the layers of those walls tighten their grip into a tantalizing contentment, while the forms of the actors on stage dissipated one after another.
These twin movements then met at an unlikely juncture. It was a deceptive acquaintance, similar to the illusion of stillness emerging from an ever-increasing act of whirling. There, the metaphors and my desires lifted their masks and revealed a ‘me’ that I had never known. An identity familiar yet fleeting like a fugitive of love. The desires were a movement and that was enough. The destination and final act of the kingly court was the play itself … never ending and always unfolding.
A Creative State: The Heart of Art
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the spring of experiences which sustains and produces an artist’s work. Over the past few months, I made a conscious choice to eliminate fortuitous activities from my life and instead focus on artistic talents as a ‘work’. This is not in the sense that art should be compulsory or involuntary, but rather something that we take more seriously than a pastime or hobby; something that we perceive as a sacred component of our growth as human beings.
And so, for my part, I have taken my practice of Oud and creative writing as a daily sacred growth. Between my morning mediation in the company of my instrument and nightly soliloquy, with writing as an audience, I begin to hear the whispers of a conversation between the vibrations of strings and sweet texture of a pen’s ink. The inner depths of these murmurs reside beyond the shore of my heart’s comprehension. Fortunately, art is most generous and allows me to receive breezes of that concealed fragrance, despite my shortcomings.
What I hear during these fleeting sojourns are eternal sounds and words recounting a glorious home, the creative state. It is as if the auditory spirit of the Oud’s music needed the bodies of words in order to move hearts to ecstasy. Meanwhile, the tangible curvature of the letters sought the breath of melodies in order to move and come to life. This sudden artistic motion emerges through concerted efforts by both the Oud and pen to remember the contours of their native abode. These are boundaries that are hidden like pearls within the mundane trajectories of life.
The more I contemplate on these conversations between my artistic wings the more I become convinced that what artists long for is not actually to produce a particular art work, but to express a perfect symphony they are hearing at the center of their creative state. But what is this state and moment exactly? Is it a conscious effort instigated into life by the artist? Does the painter or musician know which actions or statements in their daily life usher in these flashes of creative ecstasy?
In contrast to the destination towards which these questions direct us, I believe that the creative state is dispersed in those ‘mundane trajectories of life’. In the documentary Abstract, the famed Graphic Designer Paula Scher revealed that she never accomplished any creative task while consciously sitting at her computer intending to work. Rather, she almost always receives artistic inspiration while engaging in something – seemingly – unrelated, like doing her make-up in front of the mirror.
Like Scher, many of us artists feel the same way, but the question is why? Why does the creative state leave its gems dispersed through the endless waves of our existence? The answer to this is not a direct rational one, but rather an appreciation of an indirect performance. Art, and the creative state, always leaves its traces in an elsewhere in order to instill the sense of perplexity surrounding the whole affair.
This is to ensure that the artist knows that his or her craft arrive not from the mind that likes to linger in clarity but the heart that craves to drown in enigma. It is also to convince the observer that the eccentricity that descends upon and surrounds the artist is indeed otherworldly. An insanity in the truest sense of the word: the all-powerful spirit residing in the body of sanity and carrying it through all the routine motions of our physical existence, but also ready to break free at a moment’s notice and turn those expected habits into unexpected expressions.
This delivers us, then, to the longing we sometimes have, as artists, not to simply observe another artist’s work, but to know their creative process: their daily routine and interpretive lens through which they transform the world around them, which we and everyone else also sees and perceives, into something extraordinary which only they experience. This, I believe, is an affair of mirrors. We like to witness that otherworldly abode of another’s creative state, with the hope of glimpsing our very own destination in the process.
Put alternatively, when one artist gazes upon another intently, they are able to foretell their own destiny. They merge like two letters, becoming indistinguishable from the word that marries them together. This is both a knowledge of self and blissful ignorance in an abyss of paradox. It is a way of wandering around the disparity and serendipity of connections that reveal themselves to you, around you, and yet acknowledging, with conviction, that it all makes perfect sense in art’s scheme of things.
This meeting of opposites that continues to possess the artist is what sustains them beyond the grave. Whatever the artist is attempting to unveil from their creative state is ineffable. It continuously grows more distant and, at the same time, stronger in its elusive nearness with every expression. Like the strings of my oud and ink of my pen that converse together, all artists are granted the subconscious ability to understand the distinct languages of the senses. They hear the traditional ballad of coffee’s aroma, folk tales of an ancient textured wood or the anguish and lament of a musical instrument.
I am also becoming more aware that my journey with the Oud and writing is companionship with an entire culture. Each musical instrument or craft carries the energy of the tradition which sustains it. These frequencies serenade all beginning practitioners with the grace of those who have arrived at the shores of still deeper oceans. They slowly realize, these initiates on the path, that their ancestors listened and submitted with their entire being. Those who have reached are the ones who fulfilled the task of expressing in sound, vision, smell, touch and taste a singular meaning. They so devoted themselves, in loving attentiveness, awaiting this arrival that, when it came, they became its very expression in body and spirit.
And so, for my part, I have taken my practice of Oud and creative writing as a daily sacred growth. Between my morning mediation in the company of my instrument and nightly soliloquy, with writing as an audience, I begin to hear the whispers of a conversation between the vibrations of strings and sweet texture of a pen’s ink. The inner depths of these murmurs reside beyond the shore of my heart’s comprehension. Fortunately, art is most generous and allows me to receive breezes of that concealed fragrance, despite my shortcomings.
What I hear during these fleeting sojourns are eternal sounds and words recounting a glorious home, the creative state. It is as if the auditory spirit of the Oud’s music needed the bodies of words in order to move hearts to ecstasy. Meanwhile, the tangible curvature of the letters sought the breath of melodies in order to move and come to life. This sudden artistic motion emerges through concerted efforts by both the Oud and pen to remember the contours of their native abode. These are boundaries that are hidden like pearls within the mundane trajectories of life.
The more I contemplate on these conversations between my artistic wings the more I become convinced that what artists long for is not actually to produce a particular art work, but to express a perfect symphony they are hearing at the center of their creative state. But what is this state and moment exactly? Is it a conscious effort instigated into life by the artist? Does the painter or musician know which actions or statements in their daily life usher in these flashes of creative ecstasy?
In contrast to the destination towards which these questions direct us, I believe that the creative state is dispersed in those ‘mundane trajectories of life’. In the documentary Abstract, the famed Graphic Designer Paula Scher revealed that she never accomplished any creative task while consciously sitting at her computer intending to work. Rather, she almost always receives artistic inspiration while engaging in something – seemingly – unrelated, like doing her make-up in front of the mirror.
Like Scher, many of us artists feel the same way, but the question is why? Why does the creative state leave its gems dispersed through the endless waves of our existence? The answer to this is not a direct rational one, but rather an appreciation of an indirect performance. Art, and the creative state, always leaves its traces in an elsewhere in order to instill the sense of perplexity surrounding the whole affair.
This is to ensure that the artist knows that his or her craft arrive not from the mind that likes to linger in clarity but the heart that craves to drown in enigma. It is also to convince the observer that the eccentricity that descends upon and surrounds the artist is indeed otherworldly. An insanity in the truest sense of the word: the all-powerful spirit residing in the body of sanity and carrying it through all the routine motions of our physical existence, but also ready to break free at a moment’s notice and turn those expected habits into unexpected expressions.
This delivers us, then, to the longing we sometimes have, as artists, not to simply observe another artist’s work, but to know their creative process: their daily routine and interpretive lens through which they transform the world around them, which we and everyone else also sees and perceives, into something extraordinary which only they experience. This, I believe, is an affair of mirrors. We like to witness that otherworldly abode of another’s creative state, with the hope of glimpsing our very own destination in the process.
Put alternatively, when one artist gazes upon another intently, they are able to foretell their own destiny. They merge like two letters, becoming indistinguishable from the word that marries them together. This is both a knowledge of self and blissful ignorance in an abyss of paradox. It is a way of wandering around the disparity and serendipity of connections that reveal themselves to you, around you, and yet acknowledging, with conviction, that it all makes perfect sense in art’s scheme of things.
This meeting of opposites that continues to possess the artist is what sustains them beyond the grave. Whatever the artist is attempting to unveil from their creative state is ineffable. It continuously grows more distant and, at the same time, stronger in its elusive nearness with every expression. Like the strings of my oud and ink of my pen that converse together, all artists are granted the subconscious ability to understand the distinct languages of the senses. They hear the traditional ballad of coffee’s aroma, folk tales of an ancient textured wood or the anguish and lament of a musical instrument.
I am also becoming more aware that my journey with the Oud and writing is companionship with an entire culture. Each musical instrument or craft carries the energy of the tradition which sustains it. These frequencies serenade all beginning practitioners with the grace of those who have arrived at the shores of still deeper oceans. They slowly realize, these initiates on the path, that their ancestors listened and submitted with their entire being. Those who have reached are the ones who fulfilled the task of expressing in sound, vision, smell, touch and taste a singular meaning. They so devoted themselves, in loving attentiveness, awaiting this arrival that, when it came, they became its very expression in body and spirit.
