I hope to do today’s subject justice, as art has a great deal of meaning for many people, more so than many older views and traditions did.

My writing class teachers even think of writers as artists. There is no less to creating a tale than to creating a painting. They are artists, just less emphasis on mimesis. My own education in those subjects, that now appear to me to have been my calling, came only through sheer determination.

That is one of earth’s greatest gifts, determination. Nothing would get done without it. Well, when you are faced with a world view where it seems you can do nothing, you will do anything to find that something, that way out, that you can follow.

I spent all morning writing and now I feel calmer from purging my brain of ideas. They have even studied that phenomenon. The process of writing tends to order nerve signals much the same as playing or listening to music.

I like doing those things too though I find I can’t do them all at once. Music needs to be off when I write or very abstract. I do think people should sing when they feel moved, even if it doesn’t “sound good.” It isn’t as hard as it might first seem.

Song writers have challenging work to make music and a story. They sort of “listen” to what they intend to write. While working, they have to focus mostly on what’s going on in their head.

The original meaning of the word art simply meant skill. There was literally no difference between building a house and writing a song. They were all seen as arts. Art has always involved the interaction between the individual and the world around them. Can you practice any skill and effectively exclude your own subjective experience of it?

Perhaps the most primal expression of this is a simple insight. You do what you prefer to do, and in the way you prefer to do it.

If your heart is not “in it” then the art is lost. True. Cooking is an art in the literal sense, a craft if you define crafts as practical arts. But everyone cooks either to suit an aesthetic or commercial training in the case of professionals, or they cook according to personal taste, personal preference.

Now the presence of art isn’t confined to the individual. Art communicates and can be communicated. It can be taught and shared and valued by communities as a whole so it has a powerful impact on life. Commercial logos have more impact on our mind and social awareness than do any of the particulars of automotive engineering.

The first sign I notice in a new town is McDonald’s or some fast food place or a gas station. Exactly. Most people while travelling look for those things, and even specific gas station logos have more meaning than how many houses are around them.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~