Unconditional Art

I learned a lot of stuff this year.

In particular, I learned something that changed the way I thought about art, and writing, and getting the work done.

It’s a little thing that’s really a Big Thing.

Or maybe it’s a Big Thing that’s really a little thing.

Either way, this is the year I learned this Little Big Thing: that all kinds of stuff wants to get made, and it needs us to make it.

No, wait.  It’s not as banal as it sounds.  Because what I learned is that my artful adventure isn’t only — or even mostly — about me.

It’s about the Art.  Cosmic Art.  The Stuff.

My stuff.  It needs me.

The stories want to be told.  They need me to write them.

The art wants to be made.  It needs me to make it.

The music wants to be heard.  It needs me to pick up my guitar and play.

All of this stuff is clamoring for expression.  My job is to let it be expressed. Just like your stuff — your art, your music, your words, your songs — all clamors for expression through you.  And your job is to express it.

In other words, it’s not just you wanting to make your stuff.  It’s your stuff — your cosmic art — that needs you to make it.  How’s that for a turnaround?

Your artful stuff needs you.

It’s like a holy obligation.

And the fewer conditions we place on our ability to meet it, the more truly it can resonate through us and out into the world.

Which is where it wants to be.

Your art and mine.

Out in the world.

Without caveat.  Without reservation.

It Wants to Be Made.

So we set aside our reluctance. We leave behind our infernal doubt.   We turn ourselves over to the will of our Wild Artful Hearts, and our Wild Artful Hearts reach into the mystery and bring forth that wild, wacky, wondrous Thing we aspire to do, that wild, wacky, wondrous Thing that wants to come into the world, and cannot do so without us.

Our art comes from mystery.  Which means it’s our and not-ours.  It’s part us, part cosmos.

Our creations are born through us from the seed of mystery, and they join the Great Creation and feed its continued unfolding.

And it feeds ours.  Again and again.

That’s what makes it holy.

And that’s what I’ve been learning.  That art wants to be made.  Today.  Here.  Now.  Made and remade.  Just like the cosmos.  Just like love.  Again and again.

Unconditionally.