Simply Spirit

Several issues back I wrote about “flow” moments when time seems to stop and all things come together to create a sensation of being in the “zone”.

Physicist and writer Alan Lightman discusses his personal “creative (flow) breakthroughs” in which he is transformed into a “simple spirit” of “pure exhilaration” on a plane outside the realm of the physical world. He acknowledges that the proof of these unscientific events lies not in fact, but in our own internal sense of being. However, he also has full awareness that these moments do not occur haphazardly, but are the culminations of what T.S. Elliot called the “incubation” period, “the process of study, hard work and a prepared mind…”               

Straddling the scientific and artistic worlds, Lightman theorizes how we intermingle two different belief systems in order to maneuver through our daily lives. One centered on things beyond the physical: ideas of soul, immortality and infinity (absolutes); the other, based on the “relative” factual data of modern science.

Preparing for a performance recently, l engaged in this process that utilizes both systems. First, the hard work of learning the music, practicing the pronunciation of the languages and investigating the composers and the poets. My prepared mind from years of study and experience enabled me to accomplish these “relative” steps that then enabled me to move through to the “absolute”, letting all the technical work be the foundation upon which personal creative expression can flourish; when a deeper, more meaningful connection unfolds between the music on the page and my inner self, my “simple spirit”. Nurtured during practices and rehearsals, this blending of these two systems paves the way for a “creative break-through” to emerge and (hopefully) find fruition during a performance.

So, for me, believing in things not easily defined or knowable explores and expands who I am and what I can share with others during a performance. And just maybe a chance at “pure exhilaration”!

Www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/10/alan-lightman-a-sense-of-the-mysterious & 2018/03/17-alan-lightman-searching-for-stars-on-an-island-in-Maine