A life well lived

On Monday, 18th April, 2011, Randall suffered a heart attack while exploring the beauty of the Serengeti with Joan (his life partner of over 50 years) and four special friends. He died while being airlifted to Nairobi hospital. On Easter Sunday, his family buried his ashes on top of the hill overlooking his beloved home of Greyton.

Randall was a spiritual and ethical giant, and his blog was an exciting way for him to share his wisdom and insights. Unfortunately, before he could share all his thinking with us, his life has been cut short. However, he had written a number of unpublished essays that we will publish on his blog (for those who are interested). We will also publish a selection of the ceremonies he wrote and led for members of his family, and for many special friends. These include wedding ceremonies, naming ceremonies, and easter and christmas meditations. Please feel free to use these in your own personal and family lives - Randall would be honoured and delighted.

We will all miss Randall terribly. He has touched so many of our lives, and offered us such an inspiring yet tangible role model. We hope his insights prove valuable to you in the coming months and years.

Discover Your Creative Self!

For the past few weeks I have tried to distil the insights of leading scientists, thinkers and philosophers. This month it’s an artist, a world class teacher of practical creativity. Julia Cameron has written 30 books, fiction and non-fiction, many of them on creativity, 2 of them novels, 4 of them poetry books, 7 plays and a movie script. And the focus of nearly all of her creative energy is to help people, all people and not just the talented few, to discover or recover their creativity.

A number of people reading this piece will know her work well, especially her international best seller The Artist’s Way. I have used her suggestions over a period exceeding ten years and found them to be remarkably helpful. So, let me tell you about three of her major insights which she describes as the essential tools to enable everyone to discover, in ever more depth, that they have a creative centre. Her insights are deceptively simple; but if practiced with diligence and discipline, they are highly effective. And like truly great red wine, over time these practices result in rewarding complexity.

First Tool: Morning Pages. Tolstoy said: The best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking, while still in bed or while walking. Julia Cameron takes this very seriously and asks of all her students that they faithfully write three pages of stream-of-consciousness thoughts before the day begins. She is quite prescriptive about it: buy a spiral bound exercise book, use a good pen (a good ballpoint is fine) and write down your thoughts in longhand. Don’t use a computer!

Anything and everything is fuel for morning pages. So, whatever pops into your head, write it down. Even if it starts out as a “to do” list for the day, plus some immediate worries about so-and-so’s tone of voice or whether the current dog food is the right one for your wonder dog. Julia says: “You may complain, whine, grumble or grieve. You may hope, celebrate, plan or plot. Nothing is too small or too large to be included in morning pages. Everything is grist for the creative mill”

As the discipline of writing three pages every morning takes hold, you will find your ability to jot down your feelings, anxieties, angers, joys, dreams and desires increases noticeably. The process will take you 30 to 45 minutes. Many busy people set their alarms 30 minutes earlier in the morning so that they can fit in their morning pages. She thinks of morning pages as a potent form of meditation for hyperactive Westerners. And I agree. They render us present to the moment, and help to harness our wildly wandering minds.

The purpose is not to produce anything for publication. It is to get your thoughts onto paper so you can consider them. You may look back at what you have written and think: gosh, that was pretty well put! Or you may read stuff that makes you blush either at the emotional content or at the pathetic manner in which you have expressed yourself. It doesn’t matter! Morning pages are for your eyes only. And whether your creativity is most comfortable with words or paints or clay or cloth or wood, morning pages will reward you richly either as an emerging artist or an established one.

Second Tool: The Artist’s Date.  This is a date with your inner artist, your inner creative child (we all have one!). Julia Cameron recommends that once a week we take ourselves off on an excursion committed to nurturing our creative consciousness. If morning pages are “assigned work”, the artist’s date is “assigned play”. Doing morning pages you are sending – notifying yourself and the universe of your dreams, dissatisfactions and hopes. Going on an artist’s date you are receiving – opening yourself to insight, inspiration and new images to fill the well of your imagination.

And she insists that the date is undertaken and executed solo. If you really want to explore your creative side it is essential that you spend time alone. And have fun! Joan and I try to go on a fun outing to Hermanus, Stanford, Somerset West, or Stellenbosch once a week. While we love having fun together, our visits often include an artist’s date when for part of the visit we push off alone and do our own thing. For myself, I find time spent browsing (and inevitably buying) in a good book shop or a good wine shop are fun activities that increase my creative consciousness.

Third Tool: Weekly Walk. Julia has written a book titled Walking in this World. In it she develops her third essential discipline for discovering or recovering our creativity. She recommends that city dwellers try for three short 20 minute walks per week, plus one longer 45 minute walk. In Greyton, where we live surrounded by mountains, it is possible to walk every morning or afternoon plus a longer hike once or twice a week.

The magic of this simple tool is that it encourages the essential unity of body and mind. Walking soothes the soles and heals the soul. Given this opportunity of getting in touch with your inner self, walking through your problems and focusing on solutions, it is surprising how few people walk. The beauty and interest of your particular environment whether rural or urban should beckon regular exploration.

There are probably a number of people who you know who will attest to the real benefits of following this discipline: morning pages, artist’s date and weekly walks. Think about it for yourself if you are not yet one of them.

Randall Falkenberg