Virtue 7: Piety - Direct relationship with source - The 12 Virtues of the Primordial Artist

This is part nine in an exploration of 12 virtues that can liberate artists from cultural enslavement.

ATTEND

We’re living in a post-god world. Rationality and scientific reason, Western reason, has developed to such a powerful degree, that the old world of magic and mystery has been obliterated and replaced by scientific method, systems of analysis, artificial intelligence, and big data. We’ve been reduced to pawns operating in a capitalist system where the higher ups are those in the org charts: the senior managers, the directors, the VPs, and god himself: the CEO. The billionaires have become the deities, those who we look to, try to understand, and strive to emulate. Even celebrities shudder in the wake of power of the titans, the tech gods, the men who are going to space.

The human mind is capable of creating simulacrums. Systems that stand in for reality. A simulacrum is defined as a wax apple instead of a real apple. In our human culture, it goes far beyond that. Rather than having a direct relationship to reality, we have a proxy relationship of symbols and coordinating measures. Examples include business. Money. Time. Productivity. Profit. Even systems like Democracy, Socialism, Capitalism, Religion. These are all systems that are in between us and reality – they are designed as a way to make sense of all of “this”. They are here to help coordinate us, they seem to serve several goods.

They provide insulation from existential terror. What if you found yourself suddenly in the midst of a new planet with new rules, you had no frame of reference. You didn’t know when the sun came up, if it would, you didn’t know when the rain would come if it would, you didn’t know what was “good for you” vs bad. You’d have to figure it all out for yourself, right there on the spot. Sounds exhilarating. But also sounds difficult, fraught with errors, mistakes which might be fatal. You might watch loved ones die of mistakes you made, you might see your own death and know it was you who brought it upon yourself.

So culture insulates us from this, and gives us a set of expectations. Culture is a simulacrum for the primordial commonwealth. The great mysterious. Culture stands in between us and that mystery and creates a framework that we can work with. It has it’s own checks and balances, it’s own sets of rules and norms, etc.

Now, what if this cultural simulacrum was not congruent with the primordial commonwealth? What if the culture simulacrum that got agreed upon began to drift away from reality and started to be its own thing?

What happens if the simulacrum becomes so opaque that you no longer see or feel or remember the real world at all? What if generations live and die and reinforce and reinforce a world where the highest “good” is money, position, power, “success”, status, acceptance by your peers, acceptance by the critics, acceptance by the academy, acceptance by human culture itself? A self serving simulacrum that takes over the purpose of the human being and turns them into a mouse in a maze.

Indeed, our personality, that creation of our childhood, our parents needs and wishes, our teachers needs and wishes, our friends needs and wishes, our cultures needs and wishes – this great collaboration – is also a simulacrum. The wax apple of “me”. How will we make it congruent with truth? How will we keep it from blocking our expression of our Nature?

These facets all block piety in the sense I’m defining it. All of these simulacrums interfere with our direct relationship with the divine, the muse, the mystery. They are in between us and it. And as intermediaries they in fact interdict our connection and replace it with a false god. Capitalism is an example of a false god. It demands devotion and obedience to its rules, it rewards with golden calfs. Yet capitalism is not Reality, is not Nature. It is a human cultural approximation, a coordination system designed to protect us from existential terror. And as such it is false. It is simulacrum, not reality. And in it’s ferocity, it blocks our piety to the real mystery. How to make money is not a mystery, it is a puzzle. The nature of reality is the true mystery the artist needs to face.

ENVISION

Piety has three elements for me. This is not a simple virtue, and it is old, and has baggage that must be unpacked. Yet it is powerful, and i feel the work is worth it.

Transparent to Nature

A seagull floating near the shore as the waves move in, bobbing up and down, effortless, quiescent, at one. They move with the waves as if they were part of the wave. Even though they are in fact a seagull. This is Transparent to Nature. The seagull is not separate from the wave, not fighting the wave, not “differentiating” from the wave in some effort of being original, being expressive. They are simply living, in accordance with the nature that surrounds them, and in accordance with their own seagull nature.

Transparent to Nature means doing the work to attend to the Nature that is around you. When I use Nature with a capital N I mean the Nature that is behind all of this, all of life, all of matter, all of our world. Nature with a capital N is most visible to me in wild places. I go to a state park near my home and as soon as I cross the gate house I know I have entered a Nature place. Here the humans are the minority and the fixtures and Simulacrums of humans are minimal, reduced to bathrooms and water spigots. Hardball roads and a few fences. The rest belongs to Nature. The rest is in fact transparent to Nature. The Simulacrum has been tuned down, made transparent, made to serve Nature. A grove of wild born oak trees after a long ago clear cut is resonant with Nature. It is showing me the way Nature works in it’s freedom, in it’s excellence, in its self-becoming.

Spinoza created a concept he called Natura Naturens. It means Nature doing it’s own thing, without interference from the human being, without interdiction, without “help” but also with enough space to operate as it needs to, as it wishes to. In a wild place, we get to witness Natura Naturens. And it has an effect on us.

In a natural place, the resolution is high. The resolution of Nature is high. It is not interfered with by systems or artifice simulacrums. When we attend in nature, we see Nature.

For me the beginning of Piety is Nature. We must practice attending Nature – both in the outside world, and within ourselves. Our Nature.

What the Artist does is they look into Nature, this deep, powerful, primordial mystery, and they witness a mystery, and abide in it, and let it change them, let it give them an image, a message, a truth, a vision.

If an artist does not attend Nature but only uses their craft mimetically, copying other simulacrums, their work will be missing the mystery, their work will be trapped within the culture, rather than transcending it.

The artist must be able to transcend the culture in which they live. They must have the courage, the love, the wisdom to transcend this culture. The work they do is trans-culture. Because ultimately culture is a simulacrum of life, of the primordial, of Nature. The artist must gaze into the mysterious and see something that is beyond anything they have learned from books or heard from other people – they are gazing into creation.

Abide in the Mystery

The second aspect of piety is the ability to abide in the mystery. Abide is a really beautiful word. It means to be with, and also to obey. It is a spiritual word. It is not to be used in terms of human relationships, not as far as I’m concerned. It’s a sacred word. And I use it in the higher sense.

To abide in the mystery means – to not solve it. To not try and rationalize it. To not try and fix it. To not try and use it, There must be a period of time in attendance. In many ways to Attend is to Abide. To be with, to pay attention to. But it adds the element of obedience. This is another powerful word that needs to be unpacked in order to be able to make the most of it. In order to put it back into it’s correct orientation.

To Abide in the mystery means: to be able to sit an feel it. And realize that it cannot be solved per se. it is a mystery of profound scale, and is beyond our rational mind’s power to solve.

The mystery I’m talking about is not the same as the mystery in a murder mystery. A murder mystery is really more of a puzzle. A puzzle that has an answer. There ultimately is an answer to a murder mystery or a story in general. The mystery that I’m talking about is with a capital M. Mystery in the sense of something that actually cannot be solved. The nature of the universe is a Mystery. Our relationship to the universe is a Mystery. Lao Tzu said that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. This is the meaning of Mystery. It cannot be rationalized. It cannot be solved. At best it can be attended, abided in. Spent time with. Abided.

Obedience to Intuition

This is the third aspect of Piety and it brings it into the personal. It brings it into our personal scaled live, our individual scale. It is my feeling that intuition is the Mystery speaking through us. Intuition cannot be rationalized or proven for the same reason that the Mystery of creation cannot in fact be rationalized or proven. They are of the same material. Our intuitions are the Great Mysterious speaking through us.

To be obedient to intuition is not easy, is not a sure thing, is not a guarantee of success. Just as a bird following its intuition out into the world to see bugs and food and mates may yet be killed by a falcon who, too, is following their intuition. Intuition is part of the great Mystery that functions at the core of existence. It is not rational, it is not measurable per se. It is primary. Simulacrums and measures and scales of justice are secondary. They are the interpretations.

Obedience to intuition is central to Piety because it is our way, as individuals, of being in alignment with the Mystery. It is our way in our every day life to connect with God. And to become in fact an instrument of God, an expression of the great mysterious.

DIRECT

Solo

Emergence exercise

Lie in the floor. Become quiet. Allow yourself to phase check your body from head to toe, letting go of tension, letting go of control, letting go of rationality. Abide in the quiescence. Wait patiently.
Allow an impulse to emerge. Allow it to come not from rationality or design. Allow it to come from the Mystery. This is a mysterious impulse. Just let it come without direction, without design, without purpose, without a reason why. Allow it to continue or to fade out and die. If a new one comes, let it come. Let it develop. Give it encouragement if you like. Encourage it to develop further. Let it lead you up from you lying position. It pulls you farther up, into activity, into standing, into the world of action, into the world of sound.

Integration: What is it like to set your rational mind aside and yet act? What makes this difficult to do? What makes it easy to do? What is it like to encourage parts of yourself that you do not understand? What is it like to feel connected to mystery, if you did feel that way?

Transparent to Nature

Go to a wild place where you can be unobserved. Really look, really attend the place. Notice everything. Allow your eyes and ears to find what they wish to find. Really sense the temperature on your skin, the feeling of the sun, the cool shade. Feel the grass or the material below you. Touch the ground with your hands. Lie on the ground. Feel the earth.
Allow yourself to express from this feeling of connection. Allow yourself to express while remaining connected to the nature around you. Feel the Nature through your body. Feel yourself being transparent to the Nature that surrounds you. Feel yourself aligned with it, congruent, expressive of it, with it.

Integration: How is it to pay attention to nature in this way? How is it to express with nature? How is it to be alone in nature like this? What comes up? Fear? Joy? Terror? Peace?

PAIRS

Prophet

Person A will say their emergent thoughts. B will enact them.
A: I feel – thoughtful.
B will enact thoughtfulness.
A: Time scares me
B will see a clock and cower, or rush, or express anxiety at time running out.
Etc.

Integration: what is it like to see your thoughts made real? B: What is it like to enact another’s vision without question or intermediation? Is it possible to simply obey the idea?
Note: This borders on the enslavement territory of vicious control. Talk about how it is similar and different. Try to understand the value. What is virtuous obedience? Is it ever OK to obey another human, or are theses messages from the Mysterious?

Mirror Emergence

A will express a genuine, emergent gesture. B will mirror them. They can begin at base line or move to this exercise after doing the solo exercises so the emergent energy is near.
Alternate.

Integration: What is it like to have the mystery you sense mirrored? Is it amplified? is it canceled out? Does it strengthen you? does it diminish you? Does it transform the energy?

Variation: A expresses, B mirrors, A mirrors back what they saw, letting go or merging with the original impulse. Integration: Is the message lost? Is the message transformed but kept true?

GROUP

Group Emergence (The Beehive) (Growtowski)

Do the emergent exercise with others in the room. Allow them to influence your emergence. Allow it to develop to group expressions, movements, soundscapes, rhythms, cries and shouts, embraces (consent), and exuberances. This can last from ten minutes to an evening.

Integration: How is it to create in this way? What is it like to set your normal persona aside and act from a different place? Did you feel connected to the Mysterious? What blocked you? What enabled you? Did it feel scary? Was there joy?

Variations: Bring objects into the space – generally ones that will do no harm: blankets, stuffed animals, soft toys, bells, drums, etc.

CURTAIN

Our rationality has given us profound power to coordinate, to create systems and machines, and artificial intelligence. But our rationality is simulacrum to the primary reality of the universe. We have given ourselves this power to abstract, but we must use our will to make our systems congruent, and we must remember how to bypass the systems in our piety, in our art creation, in our lives, and remember we have access to the primary source material – we, too, have access to the great mysterious. We must abide there in the mystery. We must obey our intuition. We must become again transparent to Nature.