Bridge Beyond ONYA
First of all, as a writer, the last people to see you and acknowledge your work are typically gonna be friends and family. Yep, It takes a mind open wider than le Grand Canyon for friends to know just how important it is to detach, become impartial and pay extra special attention to the artistic expression of their own peeps.
Others are lucky enough to enjoy a feeling of blind support from their peers, so this may not be their experience (be thankful) but in the hurried world that we’ve created, where friends have no time to invest in your moment, this is a more than usual occurrence. ‘What can possibly be in your mind that I don’t know already, I know you’– so they think?
For an Artist, familiarity can be a niggling iron cage that places your hard work, thoughts, and actions in a tiny little box assumed to be nothing more than the predictable ramblings of a sibling, friend or partner. This I call — ONYA (Oh not you again) syndrome.
In peevish New York street slang, the sentiment of this familiar contempt is expressed as a short quick saying, you can’t see me, we used to bark, nailing the artists thoughts exactly. Sadly, this means that you are predictable. You cannot possibly have something substantial to express that they have not already seen or heard because obviously, they know your limitations.
True this may be in some cases but as often as it is not, the surprise of genius expressions from somebody inside of their community says much about how different two paths really are, even while walking side by side? Things are certainly seen through separate eyes, no matter how close one thinks they may be to another. If we can just refrain from expressing this local prejudice and try deliberately to look much deeper it may allow an opening of the eyes to see the possible jewels right at our feet.
It also feeds an awareness of the potent value right before us and saves the redundant act of searching the world for that thing that is actually contained within each one of us. As with the beauty–eye–beholder saying, beauty is more local than you may think and actually found in the eye of the self — Paulo Coelho’s book, ‘The Alchemist’ comes to mind. It’s true, it is about living in that moment.
Being at the other end of this peculiar brotherly suppression of sapience also opens your eyes to the damage of peer prejudice. It’s as though, because you came up from amongst the group, you should not possess anything different or of value that is not exclusive to the group. Much to the demise of poor old Jesus, who was of the people yet met a sudden end at the hands of those same peers that he tried to reach, while they refused to see past plain old Jesus from the block.
You would be surprised what the guy right next to you may know. When I completed my book ‘Brush’ I presented it first to my family and friends. It was read front to back by …oh maybe one or two people like Laura Borland and Ishmahil Blagrove who, not only read my book but sent me comments that lead to deeper thoughts and exchanges between us. But I often wonder how and why they saw the work much less respected it. Was it an obligation, were they also aware of this peer prejudice or just genuinely interested in the work? Either way, they saw me, or at least tried to.
The work
The real work is to understand that inspiration is realized within, behind the backs and without the eyes of even your closest peers. Then to be able to (secretly) translate these golden, ethereal droplets of the heavens into 3-dimensional earthly sense. If you fail to do this the very best you can expect is to be labeled with the noble title of (I bow) ‘eccentric’ and at worst: be called cuckoo. Me, I will accept any of these titles, for they are indeed degrees of outstanding achievement because once you leave the plane of human language and your expression can no longer squeeze into those tight skinny genes called human you will be forced into walking a path of loneliness, left with only divinity as your insurance policy.
I would say that deserves a medal because rather than stay within the realms of safe and palatable, the initiate has a requirement to be as honest as possible and this almost always means to become vulnerable.
The bridge
One would agree to call themselves a writer in as much as the limitations of language permits this label but one would more accurately be considered to be ‘a bridge’. A writer can use the cerebrum to string soulless words together in a chain of historically proven methods to communicate a point. A point born from the left hemisphere pregnant with agenda’s (yuk). This can be done most effectively with extensive research, study and of paramount importance ‘ego’. But then just writing is not always the gift.
The true gift within authorship is becoming a bridge. Now before going deeper into this, you have to recognize that, if there is such an average person today they would naturally perceive through just five senses. Therefore, anything beyond this, stepping into realms of clairvoyance, is rarely understood. Well, how can it be without the awareness of perceiving data beyond the five senses? So before we introduce the reader to our cuckoo land we just stop and translate into the modern hieroglyph called words. Like altering a molecule’s state from steam, back into water, we appeal by way of what every 3-dimensional being trusts in–science.
In this way it’s easier for most to perceive written expression knowing that the writer must get into appropriate enough surroundings to allow the serene environment to inspire their mind; activating past conscious experiences to organize in creative order to express adequate sentences forming the information to share. It would be of benefit to understand: the job of a bridge is as different as the midwife to the gravid mother.
A broad experience of various extremes and environments with heightened empathy allows, in each person, an opening of the soul’s gates. Once the experiences are so vast and considerate, you take the form of an empath and at this point, you are granted pure information as long as you remain open.
You are also able to feel beyond the known senses. This also means it’s no longer necessary to have to read to gain information, your sensitivity is that much more heightened that you can be reached by any method other than words. But as mentioned before ‘The work’ is translating this data into palatable sounds and symbols for the 3-dimensional mind to understand without being considered a crackpot.
In the image above Tehuti (Thoth), hands the gift of internal sight witnessed by the bull, Ptah (Apis). I would be surprised if most are not aware of old Tehuti or Hermes and his role of providing us with writing, speed, translation and Mercury–the planet of speed. What may escape the mind is his placing of the eye, which is not an eye of the known senses but symbolic of the throat chakra (sound, vibration, expression). This is the way and method that information from the cosmos rains down on us and even though it is often misinterpreted by those peers in close proximity, once it has formed, as it is from beyond space and time, it may lay dormant until the receiver has given up her physical form and moved on to another embodiment. But it is, nevertheless, a thing of beauty.
Cuckoo yet?
Angel Lewis