The War of Art.
Even the title is a mistake.
He told a generation of artists that making art is a war. That resistance is the enemy. That the only way through is to fight it every single day, for the rest of your life.
What an exhausting way to create.
I saw someone talking about the book this week, and I got the aha immediately. Great timing, too, with me moving into this work. I did not need to pick it up. I had a copy somewhere. Well, actually, it went to the op shop when I moved. Of course it did.
War of Art. War.
We are the peace side. Not the war side. Generally. As personalities.
And what else is in war? Fighting. And what have I been saying again and again and again?
The fight is unnecessary. The struggle is unskilful.
So let’s pull this apart properly.
What is with the struggle?
More than that. What is with the identity of the struggle?
What is happening here is a total misunderstanding of the creative personality. And we, even if only subconsciously, have swallowed the narrative whole. A narrative handed to us by a society that does not even understand itself, and yet somehow feels qualified to judge the creatives, the artists, so very harshly.
In spiritual terms, to be an artist, a real one, you have a dominant love type. Bhakti leanings. Devotional, sensitive, loving. That is what is needed to be a creative. None of the rest.
If you come across a wisdom type or a service type who is an artist, then that is their wing, so to speak. The less dominant type, but it is whatever love type they have doing the work.
So, we are predominantly loving and sensitive. Overthinkers and feelers. And we are never trained or educated in how to handle that. How to use it. How to be it in the world.
Well. Let me put an end to that. Because it is simply ignorance.
We can and should be well-suited to this world. And I believe we should stop letting others dictate what is best for us, like we need managing. We don’t. But we do need self-awareness and accountability. Those are different things entirely.
The struggle is not inevitable
We take it on like it is. It’s not.
A love type, a creative, a bhakta has a certain set of unique struggles. All types do. And I know these ones far too well.
A love type just needs to be really present to and honest about how we respond to the world, and what we actually need, and be full of self-certainty that we are enough.
That’s it.
The art world, in fact, I believe, needs pulling apart and re-designing. By us. Not by the rest. Not by the business people and the academics. By us.
And here is the lucky part. The spiritual side is creative. Which means we have everything working for us. Consciousness itself.
If we could just trust and believe that we are enough. And let the other parts of us, the service and the wisdom sides, give us a helping hand the right way.
The deep feeling. The witnessing. The sensitivity. That is our greatest hurdle. It is also our greatest strength, and it can be worked with to the point of becoming a superpower.
Society will never change. Or it may change slowly. But we have already proven our resilience. We keep showing up. We keep changing the world.
In fact, without us, there would be little knowledge of history at all.
So if it is not a war, what is it?
Here is what nobody told you.
What stops you is not a lack of talent. Or discipline. Or grit.
It is forgetting.
You have lost sight of your own creative nature. The source everything comes from. You have an Inner Creative Source, the place the work comes from before doubt and forcing take over. It does not run dry. It does not break.
But it can be forgotten.
And forgetting has a cure that fighting never will.
You do not push your way back to something you have forgotten. You recognise it. You return to it.
You were never fighting a shortage. You were standing on top of a source you had stopped seeing.
That is the whole shift. Not force. Recognition.
You do not fight a veil
Resistance is real. I am not saying it isn’t.
But it was never your enemy, and it was never a war. It is a concealment. A veil over what you already are.
You do not fight a veil. You do not battle fog into submission.
A veil does not need a sword. It needs remembering.
He could not see this because he did not know the nature of consciousness. Or creative energy. Or you.
The enemy was never resistance.
It is forgetting. Forgetting your own creative, mystical nature and how it moves.
You do not win your way back to your art. You remember your way back.
Put the sword down.
And where you are stuck is not where I am stuck
Some of you just need to start and stop with the fear and the excuses. You need a good self-inquiry technique and some accountability around how and why you procrastinate.
Some of you need to keep it going through the ugly, rough middle parts. This is my least favourite part, and I can put work down for months at this stage.
For some, it is finishing. The letting go. What do I do now that the work is ready to go?
For some, it is understanding why the resistance has come up at all, and why the sudden big curve balls arrive right on cue.
And for others, it is simply the creative personality being given far too much room to mess it all up.
Ugh. I know. I know all of them.
Either way. It is not a war.
If anything, it is a yoga
Yoga in the way it really means. The means to union with the divine. Or more accurately, from a Trika perspective, the means to recognising the true Self WITHIN.
We are already that. It is a recognition issue.
And it is exactly the same with artists.
I have just put a new video up on YouTube talking about all of this:
To be creative and spiritual is not for the faint-hearted, and you are my friends and my colleagues and my dear ones. I mean that.
Just don’t get sucked into the battle and the suffering.
Let’s help each other. Let’s be there for each other.
So tell me. What can I create that would actually help?
And if you are reading this and it is you
If you recognised yourself in any of those five, and you are stuck, or struggling, or standing on top of your own source and cannot see it, I have four Ignition sessions left, and I am giving them away in return for testimonials. So here’s a great opportunity for a free session!
Free. Once only. No catch and no pitch at the end.
Just book yourself a time, and I will send you the link when I see it come through.
Four sessions. Then it closes.
Be brave, mon Dieu. Do the yoga.
With great love,
Mataji xxx
Jai Jai Maa 🌺🌺🌺
MataKamaleshwari©