<![CDATA[Talisman Creative Mentoring New

<![CDATA[Talisman Creative Mentoring New - Blog]]>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:08:22 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Only Blood Can Change: The Artist as Activist and Alchemist]]>Thu, 04 May 2017 17:44:52 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/only-blood-can-change-the-artist-as-alchemist-and-activist

"The essential function of art is moral. . . . a passionate, implicit morality. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. Changes the blood first. The mind follows in the wake."--D.H. Lawrence.

Dear Creative Friends--I'm thrilled that this new article has been published by Immanence: The Journal of Applied Mythology, Legend & Folktale. In this piece I address the artist/creator's critical role in opening and expanding hearts and minds that have atrophied due to fear and ignorance. I accompany the writing with three new digital collages. See below for how to read the full-size article:

You can read the entire article "full-sized" on your browser as an Immanence subscriber. I'm also happy to email a pdf of this article to you if you wish--just let me know via the Contact page. If you recognize the relevance, and urgency, of "story" to our modern lives, then you'll love Immanence. Check them out and make sure to peruse their "submissions" page for information on submitting your own articles, artwork, poetry, short film and more!

]]><![CDATA[Persephone's Secret: Living and Loving in the Underworld]]>Tue, 20 Sep 2016 17:13:24 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/persephones-secret-living-and-loving-in-the-underworldPoor Persephone--If there's one mythic figure whose archetypal resonance is easy to constrict into a shallow stereotype, it would be this Greek goddess. Whether we've been steeped in mythology, or have had only a brief introduction, the tale of Persephone's abduction into the underworld is a classic. Perhaps too much so, in that we feel like we "get" the story on the first pass: A young virgin goddess is abducted by the old king of the underworld, her enraged and grief-stricken mother causes trouble for humans on earth as she transforms the eternal abundance of spring into the eternal lack of winter. Mom finally makes a deal with the head god, Zeus, and gets her daughter back for part of each year, thus creating/explaining the changing seasons on earth.

While those are the broad outlines, the story is so much juicier, especially when envisioned through the eyes of Persephone herself--not that Persephone (the silly goddess-ette romping through fields of flowers with her virgin girl squad) but the dark, powerful and mature queen of the underworld that she becomes.

Persephone's Secret. Collage on Board.

Like all great stories (and myths are the greatest of stories) there's often a plot twist that can't be easily explained away--a twist that allows for different, and deeper, understandings of the tale's protagonist. As the goddess Demeter (Persephone's mother) rages and sinks into depression after her daughter's abduction and presumed rape, Persephone trades innocence for maturity, maidenhood for womanhood. So the plot twist: As she is being granted her freedom, she eats a handful of pomegranate seeds (knowing, I believe) that eating any fruits of the underworld would ensure that she would have to return, that her "escape" to mother would be more like a yearly visit.

Her transformation in the underworld and her willing (or unwilling) partaking of the pomegranate seeds have been the subject of numerous works by psychologists, mythologists, religious studies scholars, and artists alike. A "re-visioning" of the figure of Persephone reveals her as a complex woman comprised of equal parts victim, survivor, strategist, lover, partner and queen. In The Moon and the Virgin, artist and therapist Nor Hall writes:

"Seduction is a kind of education. When you are educated, or educed, you are led out. When you are seduced, you are led aside. . . . . The event of first enrapturement seduces one out of childhood."

Like Hall, Chris Downing (religious & mythological studies scholar) has reflected deeply on the figure of Persephone. Her essay, "Persephone in Hades" is a powerful means of understanding how Persephone's story could have guided so many in the ancient world through the Eleusinian Mysteries, and perhaps more importantly, why myths still matter in the contemporary world.

"When [one begins to see] that the whole story is about a figure who is first and foremost goddess of the underworld, one understands very differently what it means to say that she is also goddess of spring and renewal. To start with death, with the underworld, as a given is to see life in an entirely different way. . . . We are always still virginal before the really transformative (killing) experiences."

Persephone (as queen of the underworld) by the incredible 20th c. photographer Madame Yevonde.

Those of use who are drawn to myths (as a way of understanding and enriching our contemporary lives) see within the dynamics of the Demeter/Persephone/Hecate/Hades/Zeus/Dionysos relationship a treasure trove for perspectives on fate, suffering, grieving, redemption and renewal. While, like dreams, myths can be strange and fragmentary, they can also be revelatory. As Nor Hall observes:

"Myths . . . are not false stories but are complex and essential psychic facts. They arise out of the sleep cycle of a culture the way a dream comes up int he sleep cycle of an individual."

For a deeper dive into Persephone's underworld, start with Downing's The Long Journey Home: Re-visioning the Myth of Demeter and Persephone for Our Time, where twenty five different contributors offer penetrating takes on the tale. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, translated from the ancient Greek, is also essential. A very recent take on the archetypal underpinnings of the Persephone story can be found in Carol S. Pearson's Persephone Rising: Awakening the Heroine Within. Enjoy the journey--you may even want to taste a pomegranate seed or two on your way!

]]><![CDATA[The "True" Artist: A Visionary for Our Troubled Times]]>Wed, 20 Jul 2016 17:31:56 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/the-true-artist-a-visionary-for-our-troubled-timesAt this moment in time, our world seems particularly chaotic--deep divisions and ignorance have led to increasingly brutal events around the globe. We look to political and spiritual leaders only to realize that they are oftentimes ineffective, self-serving or even corrupt. What we're craving is meaning, the type of eternal wisdom that only the artist can deliver. Throughout history, the artist (meaning all creators, i.e. poets, writers, singers, dancers, actors, painters, etc.) has functioned as a type of visionary healer, a shaman-like figure with the power to bring clarity, peace, and ultimately meaning to his or her people. But human beings are a forgetful lot--our contemporary sensibilities have become increasingly anesthetized to the vital role of the artist. It's as if we're starving for nourishment that we don't realize even exists.

An Aztec priest making an offering to a double serpent. Detail from an original mixed media painting.

While we face many challenges today, ancient cultures were just as troubled as our own. However, for some of them, the artist could be called upon to find meaning in the chaos. The Aztecs (Mixteca) recounted their reverence for their artists in accounts to their Spanish conquerers. These accounts included separating the "true artist" from one that simply uses the devices or tools of the artist. Today we find ourselves uncomfortable or perhaps simply unable to discern true art from something more shallow and commercial. The marketplace has infiltrated our thinking of value and meaning, yet our need for authentic art remains as strong as ever. What could art accomplish if we looked at it through ancient eyes? An Aztec poetry fragment from the sixteenth century provides a clue:

"The artist: disciple, abundant, multiple, restless.
The true artist: capable, practicing, skillful:
maintains dialogue with his heart, meets things with his mind.
The true artist: draws out all from his heart,
works with delight, makes things with calm with sagacity,
withs like a true Toltec, composes his objects, works dexterously, invents;
arranges materials, adorns them, makes them adjust.

The carrion artist: works at random, sneers at the people,
makes things opaque, brushes across the surface of the face of things,
woks without care, defrauds people, is a thief."

The true artist of the Pre-Columbian world, unlike the carrion or false artist, was known as a yolteotl, or "deified heart." This type of artist was "a visionary, eager to transmit to objects his divine inspiration . . . . [permitting] the people to see and 'to read' in stone, on the walls, and in all works of art a meaning for their lives on earth."

In the twentieth century, archetypal psychologist James Hillman made strikingly similar distinctions between soulful and soulless art while not inferring that any particular work or art was absolutely one or the other. The "soulless"category includes art that exudes an "inflated titanism" (self-importance), along with work that is ironic, trying too hard to be witty, or filled with "hodge-podge appropriations." Soulful work would exude "sincerity" and would oftentimes be created with the "dark, pathologized eye of woundedness and vulnerability." For Hillman, soulful work is concerned with "death, love, flesh, beauty, nature and tragedy."

Mayan Vision Serpent. Detail from a mixed media original painting.

So what is today's creator to do? How does one create soulful, valuable and meaningful work? The answers to these questions include a realization that we are not alone in our work--there is always a strange collaboration occurring between our conscious intent and archetypal forces beyond our control. While we can't coerce these forces, we can seek their assistance, we can put ourselves in their service as "visionary initiates." The ancient artist and seer knew this, as the following poetry fragment illustrates so well:

"Go to a mountaintop and cry for a vision." --a Sioux poetry fragment

There is a sense of self-sacrifice, anxiety and even suffering in this statement. The artist's path has never been an easy one, yet the artist is a vital link to our deepest humanity and to those realms beyond the human. We desperately need our artists today if we are to survive the challenges that face us. Even with this great need, the riptide of everyday life makes it difficult for artists to hold fast to their mission. It is my hope that these brief posts will provide a moment or reflection and an opening toward reinvigorating the yolteotl, the "deified heart," in all of us.

If you're curious about the stunning wisdom to be found in indigenous poetry of the the Americas, get your hands on a copy of the marvelous Shaking the Pumpkin: Traditional Poetry of the Indian North America edited by Jerome Rothenberg. (1986, University of NM Press). For more on the art and poetry of Pre-Columbian cultures, see Essays on Mexican Art by Octavio Paz, Burning Water by Laurette Sejourne, and Miguel Leon-Portilla's Aztec Thought and Culture. For more on James Hillman's thoughts on the meaning and mission of art, stay tuned for more posts here and on my social media accounts--I'm busy compiling these from multiple sources, both published and unpublished.

A treasure trove!

]]><![CDATA[Shiva's Dance of Destruction & Renewal - Springtime Insights for the Artist/Writer/Creator via Hindu Mythology]]>Sat, 19 Mar 2016 23:13:12 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/shivas-dance-of-destruction-renewal-springtime-insights-for-the-artistwritercreator-via-hindu-mythologyMyths have a way of working on us--far from being "lies," they reveal eternal truths. When introduced to the world's great mythic stories (whether through books, film, performance or music) one may begin to sense that mythology is more than just a collection of curious stories--there's something more going on beneath the fantastical imagery and dream-like plots. Contemporary scholar-sages such as C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman (among so many others) have credited psyche/soul/the unconscious as the ultimate myth-maker. Hillman goes so far to say that "we humans don't make up myths, instead the myths make us." On this Spring Equinox, the Hindu god Shiva (Siva) provides a wonderful example of the metaphoric power of myth. His complex character shares much in common with the artist/writer and creator.

Primavera/Spring. Digital Collage w. Original Painting and Photography

Like most gods and goddesses, Shiva is multi-dimensional and known by many names. Shiva Nataraja/The Lord of the Dance is one of his most compelling personas. In this guise, he is the eternal dancer cycling through never-ending phases of destruction and creation. The artist and creator will recognize these phases in himself/herself as well--there is always a dying-off, an ending, a period of disappointment, or an agonizing fallow time that both proceeds and precedes more generative, fulfilling periods. We may actually find ourselves dismantling, abandoning or even destroying our work in order to better receive new inspiration. Courage, patience and pain can accompany this phase much like excitement, euphoria, and "flow" can be present when the "making" phase is going well.

On any spot along the continuum, Shiva Nataraja reminds us of the importance of "playfulness" in the creative process--even on our dreariest days when inspiration seems to have forgotten us. Hindu mythology features a wonderful term called "lila," meaning the "play of the gods," "cosmic playfulness," and "aimless display." East Indian scholar Heinrich Zimmer expresses the concept of lila as it appears in the figure of Shiva Nataraja:

Bronze Image of Shiva Nataraja/Lord of the Dance

"[He is] the Archetypal ascetic, and Archetypal dancer. . . . On one hand he is Total Tranquility--inward calm absorbed in itself. . . . But on the other, he is Total Activity--life's energy, frantic, aimless, and playful."

Shiva, Parvati & Ganesha

Jungian analyst Rosemary Gordon further emphasizes the link between play and creativity:

"When play evolves into an act of creation . . . a person has reached the point where he tries to transcend even his urge for ego-growth . . . in order to put himself also at the service of such self-transcending values as truth, beauty, spirit and the search for meaning. Thus, through creativity a person searches out the experience of communication and of communion, and he strives to forge links inside himself between the ego and the self, the personal and the collective, the here-and-now and the transcendent."

In addition to his role as cosmic creator and destroyer, Shiva forms a family trinity with his wife, the goddess Parvati (with her own multiple personalities including Shakti and Kali), and their beloved son Ganesha. Yet another aspect of the god is the persona known as Ardhanarisha, or the "Half-Woman Lord." The body of Ardhanarisha is equally divided between the male Shiva on the left and the female Shakti on the right. This Hermaphroditic figure shares much in common with the Greek Hermes--both are shape-shifters and archetypal tricksters capable of suffering the tension of opposites. Like the authentic artist, both Shiva and Hermes are guides. They venture where few dare go--into worlds that are extraordinary (some would say sacred). They do this, as Roberts Avens (a marvelous scholar of archetypal psychology) explains, without losing themselves in the process so as to return with great gifts:

Shiva as Ardhanarisha/The Half-Woman Lord

Creative individuals achieve a "liberation of vision analogous to dreaming with one part of ourselves and at the same time knowing that we are dreaming. We are simultaneously outside the dream and within it. Poets are visionaries and dreamers, not because they are prone to reveries or capricious and erratic fantasy, but precisely because they do not lose themselves in the act of vision."

Each year the arrival of the spring equinox serves as a symbol for the union of opposites--an equal division of dark and light, male and female, destruction and creation, incubation and action.
And so the eternal dance continues--what good fortune to be alive, to be a guest on the earth as she makes yet another turn around the sun.

For more on Lord Shiva take a look at Heinrich Zimmer's Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization and Philosophies of India, Ananda Coomaraswamy's The Dance of Shiva: Fourteen Indian Essays, Richard Smoley's The Dice Game of Shiva, and Joseph Campbell's classic The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In the Spirit of Shiva, May the Cosmic Playfulness (Lila) of Springtime Guide
Your Life and Work!
Viva la Primavera / Long Live Spring!

]]><![CDATA[ART AND GIFTEDNESS: Find Your Gift, Then Give It Away]]>Thu, 07 Jan 2016 22:00:17 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/art-and-giftedness-find-your-gift-then-give-it-awayAsk almost anyone in the Western world to name a great artist (or any artist for that matter) and you can bet that Picasso will make the cut. It's been over forty years since his death, yet his iconic status has not diminished in the least. Integral to his enduring legacy (especially for today's artists, writers and creators) are his concise and powerful thoughts on art and art-making.

Recently the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum @GuggenheimBilbao took to Twitter to remind us of Picasso's brilliance as a philosopher of art - and of life:

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." -Pablo Picasso

Picasso speaks to all of us, no matter whether our gifts are "creative" or not. For those of us called to create, his words take on a special urgency. The twin notions that art is a "gift" and that the artist/creator is a "gifted" individual have captivated many a great mind - including the poet, essayist, scholar and MacArthur fellow, Lewis Hyde. His classic The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property is ESSENTIAL reading for every artist/creator regardless of discipline. The book was re-released on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary as The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. No matter the version, Hyde will transform/shift/just plain rock your "creating" world! Consider this:

Art is a gift, not a commodity. . . . We come to painting, to poetry, to the stage hoping to revive the soul. And any artist whose work touches us earns our gratitude. . . .When art acts as an agent of transformation [we may] speak of it as a gift. . . . Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come to its level, as it were, that we can give it away.

My well-loved copy. Fifty sticky notes and counting....

Hyde, like Picasso, emphasizes the importance of recognizing and honoring the gifts that come to us regardless of our personal will or actions - our talents are bestowed upon us, not created by us no matter how much our dominant "self-made" contemporary worldview might disagree. But far from being mere puppets of forces beyond our control, a certain type of collaboration takes place as the gift is received with gratitude, nurtured, and then shared. Long before the author Elizabeth Gilbert galvanized us with her TED talk on creativity and her recent follow-up publication, Big Magic, Hyde beautifully expressed the condition of "reciprocity" between the gift and the gifted:

A gift that has the power to change us awakens a part of the soul. But we cannot receive the gift until we can meet it as an equal. Once the gift has stirred within us it is up to us to develop it. There is a reciprocal labor in the maturation of a talent. The gift will continue to discharge its energy so long as we attend to it in return.

As all artists and creators know (and as Hyde makes clear) "attending to the gift" is easier said than done. There are jobs to be done, children and elders to be cared for, bills to be paid and so much more. Even when we feel that we've put everything else on hold for our art, the gift comes and goes on it's own timetable. Inevitably, the autonomy of the gift itself must be recognized - we can welcome the gift, but not coerce it.

Lewis Hyde. Photo: Walker Art Center

Even with the understanding that the gift is not really "ours," and that we may only be able to attend to it sporadically, we are nevertheless living a noble and deeply meaningful existence when we create. Our longing to make things with meaning may be a signal to this ineffable force called a "gift" - a force that from time to time welcomes us into an eternal dance of receiving and giving. Hyde expresses this with unparalleled eloquence:

Men and women who dedicate their lives to the realization of their gifts tend the office of that communion by which we are joined to one another, to our times, to our generation, and to the race. Just as the artist's imagination 'has a gift' that brings the work to life, so in the realized gifts of the gifted the spirit of the group 'has a gift.' These creations are not 'merely' symbolic, they do not stand for the larger self; they are its necessary embodiment, a language without which it would have no life at all.

When you find yourself doubting your vocation, wishing that your gift would lead to more money, wondering whether you're making a product instead of art, or just plain depressed or burned-out, turn to Lewis Hyde's The Gift. - you will be illuminated and rewarded with renewed wisdom, strength and courage. May your copy be as well-loved and as well-read as mine has been!

]]><![CDATA[Divine Dissatisfaction--Martha Graham on the Realities of an Artist's Life]]>Sun, 06 Dec 2015 23:49:08 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/divine-dissatisfaction-martha-graham-on-the-realities-of-an-artists-life

If there is anyone who can express the struggles and triumphs of an artist's life, it is the incomparable diva and dance revolutionary, Martha Graham. Her life and work continue to fascinate long after her death in 1991 at age 97. While she's most often associated with New York City, she grew up in Santa Barbara, CA - a place that she would return to throughout her life for it's beauty, tranquility and healing atmosphere. When driving past the historic Santa Barbara High School, I sometimes picture her as a young woman running and leaping across the grounds before she traded our little town for the life of a touring dancer, and before the world became aware of her great talent and presence. Like so many others, whether in the dance world or beyond, I've read just about every word written about her, including Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham written by her friend and fellow dancer, Agnes de Mille. Within the pages of this book, a multi-faceted portrait emerges of a woman both inspired and insecure. She was driven and determined, yet she was quite vulnerable and oftentimes struggled with worry, despair, precarious finances and even addiction.

de Mille recalls how after achieving her own first real success with the opening of Oklahoma! in 1943, she became confused about the true value of her work, since her earlier works had all but been ignored for years. The two women met for a soda, where de Mille shared her anxieties to her friend and mentor: "I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent but no faith that I could be. Martha said to me very quietly,

'There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself and your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open. . . .

No artist is pleased. [There is no] satisfaction whatever at any time . . . There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.'"

Image by Barbara Morgan

Graham's wisdom reminds us that the source of our gifts is beyond our control - our job is to stay awake and aware - to "keep the channel open." There will be moments when we feel truly connected to this source, and many others when we find ourselves flailing or simply subsumed into the ordinariness of daily life. In either case, she makes it clear that "satisfaction" is not the goal of an artist's life, indeed it may not even be possible. What we experience when we are called to create is in Graham's words, a "queer divine dissatisfaction" - a type of blessing that does not ease our longing, but one that keeps us restless and marching toward our destinies.

Graham's insights are a treasure trove for creators of all types. In addition to de Mille's biography, take a look at Graham's memoir, Blood Memory, Barbara Morgan's Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs, and the rare and awe-inspiring Notebooks of Martha Graham.

I love my M.G. books!

Watch excerpts of her dance, Night Journey based on Sophocles' Oedipus Rex below. She was profoundly influenced by myth, Greek tragedy, and ritual. More on the myriad of inspirations that shaped her work and her life in future posts!

]]><![CDATA[What is Art? - Octavio Paz and Art's Talismanic Powers]]>Wed, 28 Oct 2015 01:35:39 GMThttps://www.talismanmentoring.com/blog/what-is-art-octavio-paz-and-arts-talismanic-powersFor such a small word, "art" poses quite a challenge whenever we attempt to offer a definition. Like the Greek god Hermes (patron of both artists and thieves) art itself is an eternal shapeshifter. Today we're likely to hear that art is a "mirror of our culture," providing "rigorous social and intellectual critique," or that it's primarily about "self-expression," a means for creators to communicate something of their particular human experience to others. Art of any kind, from painting to poetry, from film to music, dance and beyond is also often described as "entertainment." While art may serve all of these functions (and more) it's worthwhile (and a bit fun) to explore whether there might be a "hierarchy of functions" involved when we ask the question, "What is art?" Creators themselves have offered some illuminating responses to this very question.

Inaugurating this new series of posts on the nature of art are the insights of Octavio Paz, the renowned twentieth century poet, diplomat and Nobel Laureate. Although a cosmopolitan citizen of the world, Paz remained awed by the power of the pre-Columbian art forms of his native Mexico--especially the massive sculptures created by the Mexica/Aztec.

Paz found parallels between the modernism that surrounded him in Paris, New York, Tokyo and beyond and the symbolic power of the archaic work of his homeland. His Essays on Mexican Art is a marvelous work devoted to these parallels among other themes. Here he describes an encounter with the stone figure of Coatlique:

“[The] enigma of the massive block of carved stone paralyzes our sight . . . the statue is an object that both attracts and repels us, both seduces and horrifies us. . . . Without ceasing to be what we see, the work of art reveals itself as that which lies beyond what we see”...The Great Coatlicue takes us by surprise not only because of her dimensions . . . but because she is a concept turned to stone."

"If the concept is terrifying--in order to create, the earth must devour--the expression that gives it material form is enigmatic: every attribute of the divinity--fangs, forked tongue, serpents, skulls, severed hands--is represented realistically, but the whole is an abstraction. The Coatlicue is, at one and the same time, a charade, a syllogism, and a presence that is the condensation of a mysterium tremendum . . . a cube of stone that is also a metaphysic."

What Paz concludes about the function of art after his encounter with the figure of Coatlique is one of the finest descriptions on this critical subject that I've ever come across:

"Art was not an end in itself, but a bridge or talisman. A bridge--the work changes the reality that we see for another: Coatlicue is the earth, the sun is a jaguar, the moon is the head of a decapitated goddess. The work of art is a medium, an agency for the transmission of forces and powers that are sacred, that are other. The function of art is to open for us the doors that lead to the other side of reality."

In this continuing series of posts, I'll share a variety of opinions from great minds of the past and present on the question "What is Art?". If you'd like to read a bit more about Paz and his relationship with the enigmatic Coatlique (along with a bit of C.G. Jung and arts scholar Dore Ashton thrown in) take a look at this short essay entitled, "A Metaphor in Stone."

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