Lately, I keep thinking of the Spanish word aprovechar, which means to make good use of something. When I have difficulty with a particular class or project, I can view it as an opportunity to use whatever is there to the best of my ability, not trying to push beyond. I will make good use of whatever resources I have at my disposal, and those natural resources will be enough. In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Martin Prechtel distinguishes between courageous willingness and willfulness. When we are courageously willing, he says, we work by means of our natural souls with whatever is there. And when we do that, we are a “good gift” for Spirit.
Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating
Paying attention is an act of love
In many respects, all we have in this life is our attention. We’re shaped by what we pay attention to. Our lives are the result of what we pay attention to.
My current favorite read is Eric Booth’s book, The Everyday Work of Art. Booth writes on page 61: “If our experience of being alive is the most valuable thing, then what we pay attention to becomes a critical choice, and developing how we notice becomes the most important thing we can do.”
In Waiting for God, the philosopher Simone Weil wrote that paying attention to another was an act of love.
Makes sense to me.
A sturdy, nurturing cauldron
Years ago, when I began teaching, I had a problem with structure. I wanted to have classes that were free and spontaneous, where everyone could express themselves. I experimented with having a class that was a “loose” as possible, but I quickly discovered that completely unstructured classes wouldn’t work. There’s something to be said for having a strong container.
It’s like that in our daily lives too. When we cook soup, we need a sturdy pot. If we raise a family, we need home that’s safe and has a good foundation.
We also need a strong, supportive container if we want to create or express something new.
A container is a foundation, something that holds us and holds our projects. We have lots of them–our homes are a container of course, but also our family relationships, friendships, and neighborhood and community groups. Our work is also a container. Strong, sturdy containers can nurture and support our creative inspirations. When we don’t have a container, we have no support.
In The Everyday Work of Art, Eric Booth writes, “The work of art is any process of becoming concentric with some inherent truth and pull things into some order; it is the process of organizing truth around a personal nucleus.”
In order to “pull things into order,” we need a container.
I like to think of containers as being a nurturing and inspiring. The things that form the container for my own creative work include browsing through art and design books, cafes, art festivals, and fun clothing shops, like (Anthropologie).
For creative work, our container is not only external, it’s also internal. When I attend to and nurture my creative experience.
Do you listen for the beauty?
My good friend Caroline is moving to Nashville this week. Her departure is definitely leaving a hole in my life. She and I started a monthly music group in her Oakland home that’s been very special. I have lots of other people I can play music with, but very few who would listen to me play with such appreciation. She never failed to have something kind to say to me afterwards: “I liked the twangy way you sang that high note,” or “You hit that figure-picking section just right.” There were several times that something I sang or a song I wrote moved her emotionally, sometimes to tears. And it wasn’t coming from a place of “female nice-ness.” She genuinely heard beauty in my voice and guitar playing.
To be honest, I don’t consider my voice to be pretty and my guitar playing is advanced beginner level. And this is why Caroline’s appreciation of my playing and singing are so extraordinary. She could hear something in how I sang or played a piece of music that I couldn’t hear, least of all anyone else.
Last December I attended a church service on Christmas Day. Although there was a professional music director who coordinated the music for the service, one of the musical performances involved the minister (a woman) and her mother who played their harpsichords to the tune of Silent Night. Both of these two women were at the beginner level. They were obviously nervous about performing and hit several wrong notes, yet there was something exquisitely beautiful and special about their performance. They were being real, genuine, and vulnerable in front of a large crowd who were undoubtedly expecting skilled musicians. Their performance, though awkward, was tender and heartfelt. (Perhaps it was tender and heartfelt because it was awkward?)
I’ve taught creative writing workshops for years. We share pieces of writing in the class and I always tell the participants, “Listen for what you like. What stayed with you? What was strong in the piece?” No matter how unskilled or inexperienced the writer is, there’s still the raw, beautiful voice underneath the technique of writing that is trying to express itself. And that raw expression is always beautiful. Just like every tree or flower or blade of grass is beautiful, our voices are beautiful, no matter how unskilled. It is life expressing itself.
Perhaps the years of writing classes have been my training ground, because when I hear a voice (other than my own!) express itself, either in music, or writing, or art, I listen like Caroline listens—I see the beauty. I appreciate the raw tenderness of the voice struggling to make itself heard, in whatever medium. Listening to someone’s skill or technique can be inspiring and valuable if someone is gifted, but what of all the artists and musicians who don’t make the grade? It’s a different level of listening. You can listen and evaluate someone at the level of his or her technique, or you can listen to someone at the soul or heart level. And when you listen to someone’s soul, you always hear beauty.
From my own experience in groups and public events, this level of listening is rare. It makes me wonder how a simple shift in how we listen to people’s voices could initiate a significant change in our world. Sometimes I think we expect that social change will happen through huge movements of people marching in the street or something. But perhaps our new world only asks that we learn to listen for the beauty.