Satisfaction

What can she “get away with”?

I’ve read this from critics about a virtuoso classics scholar who takes myths and writes new ones based on the structures of the old ones. What’s to get away with, when we are building on structures with meaning? Garnering awards on the one hand and being asked such questions on the other.

Artists of all kinds are asked these questions – or the critics, the public, ask them. What does it mean to “get away with”?

To me, the getting-away-with, in its best light comes from pushing a line of accepted tradition or story or image or belief a little beyond, or sometimes far beyond, where it has settled, and still gaining respect for the integrity of the internal form of creation, the life still humming. This is not crafting a machine, elegant as it may be, but the nourishing of a thought-form, which lives as it is designed and created  and which lives further through the interaction of sharing it – the reading, the seeing, the verbalization, the expectation and breathless anticipation then the birth, the ogling, the possibilities set free and the imaginations excited.

The art of “getting away with” shows when respect is earned through the expression – the individual power of the energy expression, the example of living and breathing form.

Turn to me, she says, though her expression is stoic. The playfulness is inherent, visible in the glow and the intimate knowledge when seen. Watch.

Perhaps Nelson Mandela did this too.  His mischievous nature and quick, bright, warm smile did not belie but was part of the ramrod straight, steel-willed man who was constantly open to examining his life and the purpose, the objectives for which he lived. He knew that the purpose of life was so profound, the purpose of what we devote our lives, our energies to, is so profound that to be willing to commit our energies totally to it, to living this primary focus is to be willing to die for the same purpose.  Our commitment to life and death is equal, as our honoring of change and growth and freedom is complete. The commitment is not separate, but total. And without playfulness, and a sense of humor about ourselves and life, joy is not complete.

Enlightenment of our minds from our heart’s total intention to love and to contribute to the external common and greater good is one of the greatest purposes we can have and live as human beings.

Does how we define freedom change with the times, with events in our lives? Isn’t this one definition of learning?

As Mandela said, yesterday I was a “terrorist.” Today I am accepted as a freedom fighter. More todays and he is accepted as a leader, president, even symbol. Today we have a history to view through many lenses and with many voices and visions. What we choose defines us.

How do we choose/decide except through the living?

Choice by choice, and the strength that comes from that freedom, brings us the power that is inherent in experience, the joy and sorrow bundled together with sparkles and tears, endurance and infinite patience.