Silence and Gratitude

I've done it again. . . gone over a month without saying much. . . silence is a dear friend to me but I seem to lose track of time so easily these days.

Some of you may know that I spent part of June and July on jury duty here. First on a trial jury for an eminent domain case and then, as luck would have it, my number was called to fill an absence on our county grand jury for two months immediately following that.

It was, in our small rural county, a breeze and simply a joy to serve on the grand jury. There was only one case where the members of the grand jury had any disagreement at all. And that was simply on a lesser, unimportant charge.

But I have to say that 8 consecutive weeks of listening to the stories of people who just can't get their life together, who seem to have no idea that there is another way to live and who, often, repeat the same mistakes countless times over within the lives they live. . . well, it all starts to wear on a person.

It drove me to a bout of silence and solitude in it's aftermath.

And from that comes a wealth of gratitude.

As one of my great aunts used to say repeatedly, "There, by the grace of God, go I"

I grew up with a brother, much older, who made just about every bad choice you can make when it comes to life. And while some families seem to breed a consistent pattern of such behavior, I am happy to say that he was the exception to the rule in ours. And all that I saw him go through was like a guide book of what not to do. . . how not to live.

But there is one event in my young adult life that I believe was very instrumental to my not turning out like that or ever stepping down those pathways at all.

When I was 19, out of school, a little lost myself. . . a friend of mine at a club (where I was underage) one night asked out of the blue, "Hey, do you want to go to Europe?"

She was trying to get some distance from a suffocating girlfriend/relationship and just wanted to get far away for a few weeks.Europe seemed far enough. . .

I, with little thought, said "Sure, why not."

That trip and all of it's twists and turns was a life changer for me in how I perceived the world around me. Suzy, who I always thought was such a strong person, had trouble with the currencies, the languages, the constant need to be on our guard and make decisions and meet trains, get rooms etc etc. And I, who had no idea I could, stepped up to fill in when she was unable, and vice versa. . .  we were perfect travel companions and I leanred so much about my own abilities and areas that needed improvement.

We spent an all-nighter in Piccadilly Circus in London when we could not get a train out due to not having British pounds after banking hours. We considered, but rejected, an offer from a young couple to stay and work in their pub in the Lake District, and then our proposed "day trip" to Paris that ended up being a 4 day love affair with all things French.

There was the little Riviera village of Menton where I was solicited by a little old grocery store owner as a date for her granddaughter and, again, offered a job. ( I spoke French fairly well then)

The overnight mail train to Scotland and stepping out, pre dawn in Edinburgh, just in time to see the sun arriving over the mythic Arthur's Seat. . .

The list goes on. And while I neglect to mention them there were plenty of moody moments and discouragements too. . .

But the truth is, all these years later, I can look to that journey as the time I came to realize there were no limits to where I could go or what I could do. I returned to the US but could have easily stayed in France, Britain, Scotland, Switzerland, Belgium. . . somehow, just knowing I could, was enough.

And I can say in retrospect that I never looked at life the same again. . . suddenly the world was wide open and while I had little desire to roam the world in a drifting way, I knew that I was not limited to one thing, one place, one situation, for any amount of  time.

I grew to believe that I could create any world I wished as well, no matter where I was.

This is turning out to be true creatively too. I do not feel stuck to any one thing or "life" with my creativity. If I want to try to succeed at something new, I will. And, without a doubt, I have created the ability to make a living by not only doing what I love and being true to who I was in childhood, but by adapting and shifting when necessary to keep things moving forward. 

A little compromise, a little stubbornness, a little solitude . . .  and a lot of faith.

So yes, there is much gratitude for what I avoided by allowing myself to open to possibilities. Years later I learned that this country I live in is big enough to provide a wealth of scenery, lifestyle and opportunity if one is willing to get up and go. . .

In the end, I have chosen simplicity. Small town, rural county, more cows than people. . . the internet makes this possible, opening new opportunities to just about anyone. . .

That'sit really. . . not so much a story as a meandering of thought.

With a healthy does of gratitude for everything in my world.

For any of YOU if you took the time to read this.

Autumn is hanging so close on the horizon.
My season of choice
And as always
I will emerge
Create
And be grateful. . .

~nicolas

Poem - Starling Spring

In the city, Spring was my least favorite of seasons
Winter kept the streets silent
Everyday rain makes people go inside and
Whether that was a metaphor
Or just a corner bar
Made little difference to me
In my own treasured world
I did not have to bear the cacophony of
Jumbled hearts
Or displaced souls
Shrieking in the night

The downpour of winter was bliss
And every stormy day
Sang as a liturgy of beautiful hours
And unbroken solitude

Today, in this small town I now call home
The sun is a harbinger of the season at hand
Outside my window, starlings are busily going about it
Building their March nests and
Singing their intricate arias to attract a mate
For hours on end the hopeful
Perch and croon
Preen and display
And to my surprise
Their cacophony
Breathes a beauty into the season
I have rarely felt as an adult

Spring, in all it's bustle, is suddenly
A different place
A lesson learned
An old friend
I can embrace
Once again

- nicolas hall 2013

Any Given Path We Choose

I, and so many more people I know, are certain that their life's "spiritual path" lies along the lines of creativity.  In this day and age when it is becoming ever more realistic to entertain the idea of making a living from ones creative work, I think it is important to say a little something about the reconciliation between the two.

For one, I see a lot of people give up way too quickly on their creative goals, both as a means of making part, or all of a living from it, and in terms of exploring it as a spiritual path. I suspect this is, in great part, due to what my Zen teacher used to say all the time. "Anything that you truly love or love to do will be lonely."

Creative work usually demands we spend time alone and many people simply are not good at this.

So I would just like to share a quick thought on these ideas above. Just my own perspective.

I am fortunate in this way to have always craved my time alone. It's a preference I developed very young and though it came from a myriad of factors, some just circumstance and some created, it is something I treasure for all of those reasons now.

The spiritual part of my creativity is easy for me to accept. I have been creating since I can remember and there is nothing in the world that makes me feel more at peace, more at one within my own life and more true to who I am. It can take many forms and, in truth, I have been working in fields that always allowed some creative outlet since I was 19.

Now, that spiritual exploration is separate in every way from creating with an idea of it being considered "art" or being "marketable". The two do not coexist in most ways. Any idea of what art is is a creation outside of the spirit. A marking of the time and place and a mix of history and relevance but not at all to be linked with the spirit of creating. For me, this makes it easy to see my creative work as my spiritual path. It is also why I work in so many different disciplines. 

Making music, for years, was how I dealt with the world around me. A therapy undoubtedly. . . but not my creative spiritual path.  When I realized that, I began to try other disciplines. Photography, painting, writing. . . of course, they were all there all along. But the spiritual path has to come from something deeper. More from your landscape of childhood and early experiences.

That path was reserved for the creating of worlds and sinking into them. . . BELIEVING in them. . . that is at the very heart of who I am. It is how I live my life daily. And it has always been that way since I can recall.

As a child, empty cardboard boxes became houses and cars for action figures who not only were part of a world with identities and lives of their own, but who were integral to my own. Not separate.

I became part of the sports teams I followed through my own invented games and ways of playing those games all on my own. For the most part, I could not share them. . . nor did I want to.  They were a part of me. A spiritual part I realize now.

But then I just played because it came naturally. As it does to most of us in childhood.

So, after 20 years of playing the "adult world" games and never feeling the same satisfaction, I began working towards merging it all again.

I am just two years into this process and nowhere near where I want to be though, yes, I do primarily create for a living now. I work at home and spend countless hours in my own imagination once again.

But in both the potential for that creative life and for it's spiritual depth, I am just scratching the surface.

Everything I create for sale has a story, Each story has layers to go before I reach the depth I want to achieve with my creations. Also, the level at which I execute each piece is just beginning to grow. This ideal is also what keeps me from ever being bored. There is always more to learn and deeper levels to go to. And this is another area where many often fall short and give up.

There is such depth in routine and in working through repetition that cannot be found any other way. Especially in the spiritual realm. Much like people who travel, bouncing from place to place for a day here a day there and never settling in and really taking in a culture or a locale. It is still wonderful to travel but it lacks the depth of understanding that comes only with investment of time.

I feel like the transition back to this creative, all inclusive world was somewhat easy for me.
I was fortunate in this way too.
I have always believed in what I do.
In the things I make.
In what I have to offer.

That has come with the 20 plus years swimming in the adult world.  And the time invested in places, people and endeavors. . . all learning lessons preparing me for now.

That's all I can say at this moment. . .I am still just beginning in so many ways.
And I do not believe one masters this or any path.
I think it is a daily process of learning and growing that never ends.

But at the core, either creatively or spiritually, are a few truths

Be strong enough to work at it daily
Embrace being a beginner and the learning curves that go with it
Believe it is the most important thing you can do for yourself or your life
Accept that it will be hard and lonely at times

But if you love it, if you have ALWAYS loved it. . . know that it is the right path for you too. 

Thanx for reading,

nicolas

Turning Points

There are moments that, in retrospect, seem to be a turning point in your life.

I left the Oregon coast 11 years ago.

At the time I made that decision I felt that I wasn't quite as ready for the small town life as I thought when I first moved there in back in 1995. I had picked up my life and taken it across the country to be near the ocean, near THIS ocean, and to experience the natural world as I never had before. I moved there because, upon first visit in the spring of 1995, everything had seemingly just aligned itself and I was offered a job and a chance to do what I love.

I moved there because life was going to be simpler and, much to my surprise as an East coast boy,  a whole lot more affordable. I moved there as a stepping stone. I could never have seen beyond that first step. . .

The next five years were to be both the best and worst of my life.

When I made the decision to leave the coast, I felt I really needed the diversity and bustle of the city again to inspire me and to move energy around me. I had done a lot there and accomplished things I never would have had I not lived there. I found my voice in many ways but I still felt that I needed to be where things were "happening" and people were creating all the time.  I felt i needed to balance my life between my creativity and a job and being around people I could relate to. I thought that my work would be best served in a place more like the East coast cities I grew up in.

Basically I had a lot of excuses for what I hadn't been able to do.

When in truth, the reasons I was leaving had more to do with the fact that I had lost sight of the beauty surrounding me, and within me, and I simply wasn't ready to accept the need for the deep silence of creating. Looking back now I can see that I was actually exactly where I needed to be for my creative work to really flourish and thrive. I had the time. I had the space. And, most importantly, I had the silence.

But I left.

Now,  flash forward 11 years later, (oh I'll get to telling you all those experiences in between in time) and I really do not have any regrets. I will tell you that I have felt something missing these last 11 years but only in the last few has it really reared it's head in front of me.

I am returning to the Oregon coast in one week, albeit to a different town. I think for the last few years I have known that I've needed to willingly walk into the deep end of silence to further my work.
This is life work. Work that began years before that first relocation. Work that began in the silence of my childhood days among those wildly varied Pennsylvania skies and seasons.

Work that began in the limitless imagination of a little boy.

I've also realized that "balance" is a very delicate concept in and of itself and, for each of us, it is unique. For me, this will never again mean trying to juggle an assortment of pursuits and things that I like or fell I should be part of socially, but instead, to really pour myself into the few things my soul craves and thrives upon. Just as I did all those years ago.

So ok, I can admit that I needed these years in the city too. I needed to reach this point where I can face my own limitations and mortality and realize that the clock never stops ticking and that whether I live the life I know I am drawn to live or not is a matter of my choosing it. Nothing really stands in the way but me.

But that first step is probably going to be a doozy again . . .

Most of all I realize that what I needed was to learn how to find that deep silence here in the midst of the never ending urban cacophony of so many people with so much angst and so many stories they are dying to tell. I needed to temper my will and my desire so that, when I return to the silence of the coast, to the lull of the timeless ocean and the simplicity of nature, I will not allow the outside noises to move in again.

I will not listen to those voices INSIDE that love to tell us we can't, we won't, we shouldn't and that we aren't worthy. The same voices I now realize the noise and static of the city drowns out momentarily in many unhealthy ways.

I want to close the door on them myself. . . forever

Life turning points are like the tides of an ocean, they cycle too, which means that what we think is gone is just in the midst of a cycle and it will return.

 I started this blog to remind myself of,  and to share, the experiences I have had across these 40+ years with anyone who wants to follow along. I started it as a place to collect my thoughts and my inspirations from the past and the present. I started it as a place to speak from the silence that I am now choosing to embrace.

I hope a few of you will follow suit. . . and share your experiences too.

But for now,
Shhhhhhhhh

nicolas

"To be an artist, you need to exist in a world of silence." -  Louise Bourgeois