snow

Snow covers the world, bringing everyone back to themselves. We're so used to being stretched out, pulled in multiple directions out there in social space and then suddenly we're forced to settle back within ourselves.  Elaine Aron talks about some people being too 'in', and others being too 'out'. Literally - spending too much time 'out', running around, always with people, not taking time to settle quietly. Or too much 'in', wrapped up in an internal world, forgetting to reference and open to the outside.

It seems to me that creative pursuits, whatever they may be, help to bring those of us with a tendency to be too 'out' back to ourselves. When I've been too dispersed, spending all my time on work, on chores, on meeting obligations, even socialising, something starts to feel wrong in my body. But as soon as I go back to painting, or reading about painting, or drawing, or otherwise working with the colours and forms, that something starts to relax. As it relaxes, it begins to grow, to flourish. Whatever 'it' is, it isn't  internal; it takes in the world, flows into the world, taking me out of myself, and connecting me to it in a completely different way.

Self-consciousness seems to work in the same way. It stretches you out of yourself, until you're standing on the other side of the room, watching yourself, criticising, finding fault. Barry Green in  The inner game of music talks about self 1 and self 2. If I remember correctly, self 2 is the one that sits on the other side of the room, making judgements, pulling you out of yourself, and preventing you from being able to connect to what self 1 is trying to do. Self 1, if you can allow it to breathe, is not 'selfish' or isolated. It's a portal; a deep root tapping into the endless sea that is music, a sea which anyone can swim into, whatever their level, if they can only learn how to get rid of self 2.