So I guess probably everyone here agrees with at least one of the following three propositions: that paying attention is worthwhile in and of itself, that the writing or other artwork that comes out of such moments of attention can be compelling, and that paying attention can lead to authentic/original insights. As a writer and reader, I've long admired poets such as Mary Oliver and John Haines whose poetry seems to originate in just this kind of attention to the world (which isn't to say that I don't like other kinds of writing, too). My question for writers and artists, though, is this: is there a special kind of attention that leads to the best insights? And does it exist purely in the observational moment, or is it also something that comes from immersion in the act of creation as well? What is the precise (or even the approximate) relationship between these two periods of attention?
Each response has depth and insight, and it's worthwhile to take a look at them. This is mine:
When I wrote a dent/tweet for AROS during January (and will be resuming), I found it interesting. Each day and night is filled to the brim with sensual awarenesses, emotions, thoughts, ideas, a full range, very complex, each moment, truly!
Yet I would have driven myself crazy if I thought, 'what to focus on, what to focus on.' There's so much, even in my very quiet reclusive life of daily samenesses.
What I found was it was like my 'writing self' set 'an intention' - an aros everyday. Because every day, even if it was nearing midnight and I was scrounging for something, anything, a moment always emerged with more 'weight' - like a pebble falling out of the sky.
This pebble fell from the sky as if it were from another landscape - one where 'a moment' could be expressed in a small image, or thought, or utterance, or poem.
In this other landscape, which is part of my landscape, language predominates. The pebble is a languaged construction of the world that I inhabit, I know that. Drawings, which I sometimes did, always needed the written component. And, afterall, this is a poetry group.
So, for me, it's not so much my attention in my world as listening for the moment that is realizing itself through my perception.
And it's heavy, heavier than the other moments, it carries a weight that is already transforming itself into words, and it is not likely that I would then miss it!
It's taken a morning of searching, but I now have a working page for aros, A River of Stones, my mini 140 character pebbles, and an RSS feed to that page (which is a label page):
A painting, 'Parchment Figures: Doubles, Doppelgängers, Clones,' hanging on a wall. Sunlight moving through wind-waving branches falls through a window onto it. You can also see the shadows of the window itself. That morning I was absorbed watching the light and shadows dancing quietly over the painting and videotaped it. Then, on an evening walk I came across a light on a patio with a thick white gauzy curtain around it, and shot some footage with my iPhone video camera. Later, playing with the footage, I added the billowing curtain and its light next to the painting of doubles and shadows. Then I cut sections of a photograph of the painting out, animated them and added them to the film. Finally, pondering on what I had produced, I wrote a whimsical poem of the African trickster spider god, Anansi, and wove it in with handwritten notes.
It does have a serious theme - can you guess it?
Take a moment to look at the moon.
(An aside: the video as it shaped itself inspired the poem. I made the video and then wrote the poem over a few days, meditating on each tiny section to see what was emerging/wanting to be said. I swear Anansi, the trickster, was loose in my computer, though, since sections of the video kept inexplicably changing while I was working on the text. Eventually I had to use a video I'd made of the footage only for the trickiest text -the opening title- which had repeatedly, every time I tried to lay it on the timeline, caused bizarre things to happen to all the other tracks, like shortening them or making them speed up for small durations, but chaotically and if you fixed this, that went off. Nothing like this has ever happened when I've edited a video before. It was as if the components of the video had taken on a life of their own. I kept resorting to the earlier versions FCE saves in 'the vault' before using a 'fixed' file, the .mov file I uploaded to Vimeo a few days back. These trickster gods do keep us hopping!)
This bit of fun needs a poem! I'm thinking something with Anansi, the trickster African spider god...
I'd like to handwrite the poem onto the video, if I can figure out how, but won't be able to animate it.
I'm working on a longer videopoem with more of this footage, close-ups and so on, but thought to see what a small section might look like. I'm finding editing in FCE laborious and difficult since the tracks won't run in unlimited RT or lower resolution and only play when fully rendered and that's taking upwards of 2-6 hours for each tiny change! Not sure why.
If I can get to a point where I can see what effects are producing what then maybe I can work by imagining how it might be turning out (since I can't get even a sense in low res if it won't play)?
While the clips are mostly shot with my Canon Vixia HFS100, the curtain hanging by an outdoor patio is an iPhone clip. I did go back a few nights later with the Canon, but in a Winter cold snap I was in a long, hooded black coat and huge Sorrel boots and held my camera over the fence and freaked the owner of the house who turned off the light and sent their dog out to bark at me. I may try again in a few nights, or not- the grainy iPhone clip has its own charm.
A lit, white, outdoor patio curtain billows, and I, videotaping it, frighten the owner in my black hooded coat and huge Sorrel boots. The night blasts.