I don't care for coffee. The aroma's otherworldly - the taste disappoints. I prefer tea.
Yet here I sit this moment sipping the Cacophony, an ecstatic blend of organic dark chocolate, a dash of cayenne pepper and espresso, at Barefoot Coffee Roasters (spiffy new Wordpress site & blog).
An exquisite carved snowy fern floats atop the steaming cup. While I missed the Latte Art class a few Saturdays ago, this place has a magnetic aura that I come back to over and over and over again.
Whether your art is coffee, sculpture, software or screenwriting, either way, there comes a point it's bigger than you.
Last year's horoscope promised a larger than life romance year-end that would take my breath away. (I don't stake my life on horoscopes anymore than I speak to Jack Kerouac; they're fun entertainment.) Yet there was a truth to its predictions for 2005. I just did not realize then they'd have nothing to do with a boy.
In the calm waters of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from The Holy Longing
Come on, it's not even yours. It seems absurd to price the divinely inspired. The Muse speaks and we're to market It? Well, not quite exactly. You are not trawling nets for fishfuls, you are seeking to find Its guardian.
From April 10 to May 19, join me for an online class on How to Be In Service of Art. I could have called it So How Do You Step Off 100-Foot Poles, or perhaps The Tao of Marketing, or even something named after gamer lingo, Sandbox Profusions (Wired's defn: non-linear and open-ended; but I mean in context of Life, not Second Life).
This ain't about reading pithy posts, but about real-world application. It mostly like will not make a shred of 'sense' until you see it work for yourself. This is normally advice I give to only my closest friends whom already know I'm a lunatic ("the Flawless Moon dwells pure in the human heart," says Kojiju), but it feels ready for wider sharing. Includes coaching call, small group Q&A, and course material. Suitable for curious-minded creators, owners, principals, founders, product designers and marketing directors. $375 payable via Paypal by credit card, etc (crossroadsdispatches -at= gmail =dot- com) or check: PO Box 490, Mountain View CA 94042. (No one turned away for lack of funds.)
After the class is over, I'd love to have the group continue meeting without me in the role of 'teacher'. This is what I envision for a self-organizing 'artist colony':
The great benefit to gathering with other people in this way is that the teacher emerges as the meeting itself. Anyone with a question, or needing support, can offer that to the circle and let the circle become the teacher. There is no guru in the room, spread evenly like hot butter. Rather, the body of the teacher is made up of everyone present and can only speak or move when all come together.
The musician Peter Makena sings:
Whenever two or more of you are gathered
In the name of that which loves
That which is compassionate,
That which liberates
Great blessings shower on you,
Great blessings radiate from you.Before the historical Buddha died, he reportedly predicted that a teacher named Maitreya would be the next to turn the wheel of dharma twenty-five hundred years after Buddha's death, which is about now. Maitreya is often pictured sitting in a chair, rather than cross-legged like the previous Buddha. Some have interpreted this to mean that a man named Maitreya would be born in our time, offering teachings and enlightening humanity while seated in a La-Z-Boy. But the word Maitreya means "the friend." Today people like Vietnamese monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh feel that the Maitreya has come and is actively teaching all over the world, as I write and you read these words. Today it is the spirit of friendship that turns the wheel of dharma, the spirit of honest and open investigation into and testimony to the truth. It is the gathering itself that is the guru, friends meeting friends." - page 377, from book "The Translucent Revolution"
p.s. "Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages," writes William Burroughs "Remembering Jack Kerouac" (1985). I had two hits of Cacophony, not vitamins when I wrote Edgy Is Hot. Some say Jack wasn't fueled by amphetamines, but it rather it was twenty coffee-fueled days that pumped out On the Road. Hmmm, having read a bit of my soul-bud Kerouac, I'd wager neither are totally right:
The longer you can hold this position in Cessation in Light, the greater everything (which is Nothing) gets, the diamond sound of rich shh gets louder, almost frightening; - the transcendental sensation of being able to see through the world like glass, clearer; etc. All yr. senses become purified and yr. mind returns to its primal, unborn, original state of Perfection... Don't you remember before you were born? - Kerouac's letter to Allen Ginsberg, July 14, 1955 from Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation
credits flickr photo of latte art by tonx; check out the sumptuous set of latte art
"...Come on, it's not even yours. It seems absurd to price the divinely inspired. The Muse speaks and we're to market It?..."
I've spent years and a small fortune developing my music. Enhancing whatever ability I have to respond to 'divine inspiration'. In the real world I live in, with a responsibility to children and spouse, I can not invest in developing and finding an audience for whatever I do without compensation. Sure, when the started, Kerouac and Ginsberg might have been poor. Me too. They didn't end up that way.
Posted by: David | Apr 06, 2006 at 09:13 AM
I was googling "dispatches from the world of duh"
and ran into your post "Purpose Driven Marketing: Duh, Starts With Purpose"
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2005/02/purpose_driven__3.html
So I blogrolled you.
I look forward to enjoying your blog
Scott
Posted by: Scott | Apr 06, 2006 at 11:52 AM
Hi David, Thanks for sharing your story. I was searching for an image of Kerouac drinking coffee and found none. I did find a a quote from another book citing that Jack didn't even have enough money to buy a coffee on one of his dates. Anyway, I'm taking this in the direction that the "process" of finding and reaching an audience can also be inspired. If we keep on going, eventually every movement we make is divinely inspired spontaneous action.
Thanks Scott for joining. Synchronicity. I'm including Purpose Driven Church in the Reading List as Mr. Warren understood surfing the Tao well.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez | Apr 06, 2006 at 01:22 PM
st7l6B Great, thanks for sharing this post.
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