Gaia: Creative Spirit - Inspiring Books

Reflections on 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

http://darshan.gaia.com — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:20:26 GMT

So what are you doing December 21, 2012? Made any big plans?

The date just a little bit more than five years away, gives one pause for thought. Especially, when one considers the hypothesis put forth in the book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. Pinchbeck, a writer and founding editor of literary journal Open City, would on the surface definitely fit into your stereotypical role of member of the East Coast intelligentsia. But that description would probably fit a Pinchbeck from an earlier paradigm.

In Pinchbeck's first book, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism we explore one writer's journey into the world of psychedelic substances and the mysticism and ceremony which accompany them. This is the story of his personal experiences and the realms opened to him while undergoing rituals surrounding such psychedelic plant essences from the Iboga tree and the Ayahuasca vine brew.

Following this, in The Return of Quetzalcoatl, we are given not only deeper insight into his experiences with these substances and their accompanying shamanic rituals, but also a work of scholarship pulling inspiration from knowledge gleaned on the journey.

What if there were phyiscal evidence in the world that suggested our days of living in this plane of existence were strictly limited? What if there were voices around us that told us we were at a true crossroads in our human history and planetary evolution?

I know that many of my fellow Zaadzsters who read these words can almost instinctively taste these ideas without a directed notion from the outside world. After all, it is a commitment that each of us have made to being a part of the change in the world that brought us here.

In Pinchbeck's book we are treated to a work of scholarship based on a solid editorial background, personal experience, and perhaps most importantly, a record based upon inspired perception.

I came to this book like so many other subjects in my life, based upon the inspiration of fear. I can recall a long line of subjects, people and ideas which societal thinking, mass media and popular opinion told me I should fear. In 1980, when hostages were taken in the country of Iran , I was given the American cultural mandate that all Middle Easterners were savages with aspirations toward killing every American in the name righteousness and riches in the afterworld. As a teenager, I would hear the stories of Tupac Amaru Shakur, a young Rapper who spoke of hatred toward women, whites and the noble American establishment. In each case, curiosity would lead me to removing the mask from the beast, to better understand just what it was that I was supposed to be afraid of. Usually, not only would I come to a place of deeper and more balanced understanding, but a place of great respect and fondness.

And then there's the biggest fear: The idea that you and I are living in humanity's end times.

It has been not only a need to remove the beast's mask, but an instinct that my own perceptions were sensing something deeper at work that led me to pick up the book in an effort to better understand what could be happening.

Pinchbeck postulates that what is going on is a global consciousness transformation that has been pointed to for thousands of years from cultures and records as diverse as the Vedas, Mayan cosmology, Tibetan Buddhism, Mystic Christianity, Kaballah and Native American spirituality. Not only have the recent and near recent voices of Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin spoken of these ideas, but science has gone on to reflect the truths in ideas put forth by these vast and seemingly divergent voices. Why, what we have come to learn from Quantum Physics in the past twenty years and it's support of spiritual ideas is enough to give one pause for thought.

My experience of reading this book was powerful. I found myself not only amazed and challenged by the ideas put forth in the book, but literally facing a series of shattered assumptions. Despite my desire to read the book in as few sittings as possible, I found myself needing to put the book down so as to give myself an opportunity not only to assimilate the ideas proposed, but to redefine my framework of understanding.

Central to the book is the concept of the idea of callendrical time, and humanity's seemingly intrinsic need to wield control over the uncontrollable. The book quite rightly asks why in a global culture so fixated on technology and innovation, do we base our daily lives around the Gregorian calendar dating back to 1582, and before that, the Sumerian culture which shifted paradigms of timekeeping from a lunar methodology to a solar model?

The book is full of questions and possible answers to the understanding of the human experience. It also asks us why we operate at such a discord from our own possible true natures and that of the universe we inhabit.

In reading this book, I was not left with some limited idea of the way things may be, should be, or could be, nor some construct based upon a particular “medicinally inspired” contingent's way of thinking, but more and more pulled away from a reductive way of thinking.

I have for sometime tried to think in expansive ways, frame my behavior and work my processes in ways that allowed for greater possibility in function and understanding, even before I knew beyond an instinctual level what that meant. At a certain level, this way of being and thinking is still at a highly instinctual and nascent level. But I feel as if the learning now taking place within this particular time in my life is tearing out faulty wiring. Destroying false constructs. Confronting paradox and contradiction. Taking greater leaps of faith every time I sit down to create something or consider a challenge. And with all of this I am left with a single core question:

If humanity has less than six years in which it can choose to take part in a positive manner in a coming global shift of consciousness, then what should I be doing with my time?

This question certainly begets other valid questions, but my sense is that the time of debate has past us. The idea of “who is right” is an ideal of humanity set in an adolescent mindset, the idea of being “right” further shackled to an even more childish mindset.

In my childhood, I remember through the specters of nuclear supremacy, terrorism, the cult of Nostradamus and fatalistic Christian end-time ideas, feeling as if I was inheriting a world preparing to flicker out due to it's own lack of wisdom, and God's desire to have “his” way with us all. Now in my own adulthood, I get the sense that the wisdom of humanity is here with us in ever-greater mass, and that the God we imagine is but a pale shadow of the true nature of what we think “him” to be. Instead, I now believe that we are about to inherit a world in a New Era in humanity and a coming expansive nature, infinite in possibility, unlimited in nature.

But still the big question that one is left pondering is if there are just a bit more than five years to prepare, what should I be doing with my time?

Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose

http://storydancer.gaia.com — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 01:46:09 GMT

The aptly named Ms. Prose does a wonderful job of bringing writing alive in this book dedicated to teaching writers how to gain inspiration from those who know how to do it best. She freely shares insight and wisdom into the rich art of a well-crafted sentance and a precisely chosen word. The book is a pleasure to read and inspired me to bring my own writing to a new level of elegance.

Developing Digital Short Films by Sherri Sheridan

http://daivanati.gaia.com — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:48:13 GMT

This book is highly, highly recommended for writers, filmmakers, animators, etc.

It appears to be a book about Developing Digital Short Films...yet it is sooooo much more. I love the quotes scattered throughout...from Sanaya Roman, Joseph Campell, Richard Bach, etc.

It's extremely inspiring and takes you through the preproduction process, character development, brainstorming ideas, visual storytelling techniques, etc.

I bought it for script writing...but now I'm thinking about taking the next step, into short films.

Beading for the Soul, by Deborah Cannarella

http://DG.gaia.com — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:32:15 GMT

I stumbled across this during a visit to the equally-surprising Latimer Quilt & Textile Center on the Oregon Coast. Quite a wonderful book. Beadwork has so much spiritual history -- think rosary and prayer beads, Native American fetish beads, milagroes, African and Indian eye beads. This book covers a wide array of cultures and their spiritual beading traditions. It also has a number of (heart-stoppingly gorgeous) projects that interpret these themes. Among my favorites: a beaded mandala on fabric with milagro fringe, and Beaded Prayers. (In which, a written prayer is folded or rolled up, and then enclosed in a fabric pouch, and embellished all over with beads. You carry this enshrined prayer with you. Lovely.)

Re: "A Natural History of the Senses" Diane Ackerman

http://TerraMoon.gaia.com — Mon, 08 May 2006 00:24:59 GMT

I, too, have been happily inspired by this book. Looking at simple things we take for granted in a way that is completely unique and creative. I love taking journeys....especially journies of the mind. Many times, when I find my writing struggling for semblance, I just flip thru this book and become re-inspired. Remembering why I want to write.....why I want to express myself. Reconnecting with my desire to share and receive. Terri

Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art

http://jenn.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:41:35 GMT

By Jennifer New, this book look at...well...journals as art. Somehow, seeing other people's creative processes can be very inspiring as well.

Re: "A Natural History of the Senses" Diane Ackerman

http://jenn.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:38:54 GMT

Ooohh...love this book, and pretty much anything else written by her...her prose is lovely, and her books are wonderful to read.

Re: Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain

http://jodi.gaia.com — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:14:20 GMT

Yeh, I have found that one really needs to LOOK. Not spend too much time thinking (heehee). Also, most of my work is naturalistic and I usually work directly from life. Working from life gives a work a sense of livelyness and movement. A tension. It gets a life of its own. love it.

Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain

http://dharmatongue.gaia.com — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:30:40 GMT

I could never really draw before I read this book.. I mean I was creative, but if there was something realistic, I couldn't draw it because I thought "draw the idea of this" and now I draw without the ideas, and the drawing is much more alive and truthful!

"A Natural History of the Senses" Diane Ackerman

http://sarah.gaia.com — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:45:16 GMT

This is a nonfiction work written by a poet, which seamlessly blends history, biology, psychology, and art. If Ackerman's insights don't make you feel more grateful and alive as a human being, more open to the beauty all around you, I don't know what will.

All it takes is a sentence of her prose to fill me with the desire to be more intensely aware of the world, to transform what I see into poetry.

Re: 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

http://DG.gaia.com — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 22:06:32 GMT

OK, then -- :-) Project #10: Write the story of why you moved to the city in which you currently live.

Re: 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:19:11 GMT

I love that idea, that kind of randomness opens up possibilities for other Forces to make themselves known to us, or to guide us in ways we would not imagine on our own. I think of how many times I have gone to the library, take a random turn down an aisle and pick up something that catches my eye, and how many times it is something that becomes very meaningful.
Give us another example DG!

52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity

http://DG.gaia.com — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 02:38:20 GMT

This book is a gem. It was born of one of my favorite websites, 52 Projects -- which is the brainchild of author Jeffrey Yamaguchi. 52 Projects the website is a compendium of creative project ideas, and it goes way beyond arts and crafts, to encompass creativity of all kinds. 52 Projects the book combines project ideas with wonderful essays about finding and keeping the creative juice in life. Read it and you cannot help but be inspired. To give you a flavor of what I mean by "projects," here's one of my favorites from the book: "Project #50: Go to the library. Find your favorite writer's books. Then, see which writer comes next on the shelf. Someone you've never heard of before? Good. Check out the works of this newly-discovered writer and start reading."

Re: Joseph Cornell + Marcel Duchamp

http://DG.gaia.com — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 01:19:12 GMT

Related to Duchamp . . . I've just finished a novel/biography of one of his contemporaries -- a muse of sorts. Baroness Elsa von Freitag Loringhoven was a fascinating woman -- a sort of punk-rock icon, hundreds of years before such a thing even existed. She was a poet, who also collected bits of discarded ephemera from the streets of New York and made assemblages. She had very modern ideas about feminity, and would make her own clothing from tinfoil, birdcages, and working tail lights, deciding that it was better to be interesting and timeless than pink and frilly. She loved Duchamp. When she wrote poems about him, she used images of lightbulbs (for his brilliance) and glass (for his beauty, and brittleness). The book is called 'Holy Skirts' by Rene Steinke. Fascinating look at art as survival.

Joseph Cornell + Marcel Duchamp

http://fzal.gaia.com — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:14:13 GMT

Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp had a wonderful correspondence going for years.

I would highly recommend any texts that archive the works.

Re: 'Eat Mangoes Naked,' by SARK

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:07:47 GMT

“We can dance through our lives and still be “responsible.” We can dive deeply into our challenges, and still chortle with glee.”

I love this idea, and personally I try as much as I can to be surrounded by people who encourage me to have JOY for life, not sense of duty.

Re: 'Walking in this World', by Julia Cameron

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:06:09 GMT

Well, it scares me to consider it, but I think it's important:

Without JC's method, I'd still stuck, low on self-worth and love for life, still in Rio de Janeiro living on the charity of my parents.

No, no, I cannot afford not take a round of tAW or WitW every year or so.

'Eat Mangoes Naked,' by SARK

http://DG.gaia.com — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:22:29 GMT

What's not to love about SARK? This is one of my favorites among her books, although really it's hard to pick a favorite. "Eat Mangoes Naked' is all about pleasure -- finding it in all kinds of situations, even those which seem mundane, or frustrating, or sad. In essence, I think it's about slowing down and paying attention enough to see the full potential of each moment. I also think that our pleasureable experiences are often the seeds of our creativity -- at least the playful kind. (Then there's the really painful experiences, which engender another kind of creativity altogether . . . but that's another post.) A little excerpt: "We can dance through our lives and still be "responsible." We can dive deeply into our challenges, and still chortle with glee."

Re: 'Walking in this World', by Julia Cameron

http://DG.gaia.com — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:15:47 GMT

I've been meaning to get to this one forever. My copies of 'The Artist's Way' and 'Vein of Gold' are well-loved indeed. Where would all we creative souls be without Julia Cameron?

'Walking in this World', by Julia Cameron

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:20:28 GMT

This is presumably the 'intermediate level' of 'the Artist's Way' and deepens on the concepts and makes the artist tools more sharp. It is also a twelve-week programme, but the focus here is not in recovering childlike innocence, but discovering new artistic and creative possibilities!