On creative living as a path to fruition
A conversation with Marguerite's Tantric Teacher dampens her writing aspirations as she remembers her time at the Festival.
Hello! If you are new here, I suggest you go back to the start and read the story sequentially. The full list of scenes is here if you’ve missed an instalment, and read this if you’d like to know where the memoir is going.
[Bristol, December 2019]
Once Sacha and Luke have left for school, and breakfast has been tidied, I sit at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and open the messages that have come through in the night.
Teacher: Hello, dear one, I’ve received the package you sent. Unless it contains something specifically for me, I will set it aside. It feels energetically alive; I’m going to leave it for now.
Oh… I crumple inside. I was so looking forward to the Teacher’s reaction when I sent her the poster I had made for the festival—and it was my last copy. On one side of the poster was one of my collages, and on the other, a piece I had written about what music means to me. I particularly wanted to share my writing with her. At the time, I had been thrilled to have it turned into a poster, and even more so that other people would take it home and possibly read it, maybe even feel the same as I do about music. But was that pride? Sure, there had been a sense of disappointment in the aftermath of the Festival, in myself, in my awkwardness, but that didn’t change the words themselves, did it, the longing to share my special relationship to music with the Teacher? So I reply:
Me: Well, it’s a rather intimate look into what makes me 'me' in this lifetime…
It is past midnight over there, but the Teacher is in full swing, and we launch into one of our conversations.
Teacher: Thank you, dear one, I appreciate the sharing.
Me: It’s not 'dark' material—quite light, in terms of writing.
Teacher: Wasn’t thinking it was dark. From what you have said about it, I can tell that you have grasped and solidified roles and identities. This causes suffering and confusion. One can be creative without becoming 'an artist’.
Me: I have mostly kept my writing hidden, out of self-consciousness, lack of confidence. When I started showing it, friends urged me to 'step into the light', to show myself, share my gifts, etc. The Festival and being part of that collective through the poster was the manifestation of that intention. It was frightening, but I’m glad I did it. And because it stirred up a lot of inner stuff about worth, I shut down again, put my creativity into hiding, and turned to these practices instead.
Teacher: You got bad advice. What if creativity isn’t about being seen or validated?
Let it develop without sharing, which distorts the process, asserts unneeded identities, and causes judgement and confusion.
Keep your inner world between you and the Goddess. Stay in your seat without letting outside voices push you around.
Me: That’s part of what we’re doing night after night, isn’t it? Putting on our Goddess-coloured glasses over and over again.
Teacher: Yes, tearing down the false stories about who/what we are.
Me: I realise that validation, showing my work, may also be a strategy to be let into the circle of artists because my dream is to be one of them, to collaborate with them. Interviewing them was a way of getting closer, but identifying as a fellow artist is another step in. Why? Because at some stage, I want to move away from translation, spend more time on what I enjoy, possibly even earn a living from it. Though it isn’t specific to sādhanā1, our spiritual path, but it is a deep desire. But maybe that would be commodifying art, maybe that’s not good?
Teacher: You will lose your way if you try to make a living from art. Creativity needs space and freedom and does not respond well to timelines or financial needs. Keep steady work, and art as a passion.
We are servants of Shakti, divine energy; it must never serve our conventional desires. Offer it expression on its own terms.
I sigh, put the phone down, pour myself another cup of tea, and stroll to the living room. A vintage Underwood typewriter sits on a low shelf, a gift from my friend Emma, who has a knack for collectables.
How many years ago, now; two, three? She gave it to me as a visual prompt to write, to remind me of my dream. It also summons my father, who typed away late into the night throughout my childhood, novel after unpublished novel. Yet what have I accomplished in the twelve years since living in the art community, my first go at writing—a handful of poems and interviews, a few evocative emails? And being invited to the Festival, as a writer amongst so many exceptional musicians. I have propped the framed Festival poster on the typewriter, a freshly typed page ready to be pulled out of the platen. A rigid page. Perhaps I have solidified an identity. I can’t help re-reading the words on the poster, even though they are as familiar to me now as my own breath:
A kind of magical vortex is created when kindred spirits come together around music. For me, music summons inner landscapes and kinship. Walking to music, fingers rustle through thick air and floating blossoms; in their trail, tiny jolts of bliss. Melodies blend with caught conversations and traffic. At times, a hand will arch back to the breeze by a will of its own, forming a natural mudra, propelling me to the brink of some urban rapture.
Removing headphones, the outline of buildings is sharper against the sky. I hear clinking against a windowpane as the sun sets, feathers batting low over my shoulder. Infused in music, the city blushes to life. Café tinkering and the vacuous gaze of cyclists blur into a palette of blue and trees and I could walk forever, my course inner, head pinned to the stars.
But once these rushes of perfection have passed, my efforts to transcribe dancing hands into sentences falter. Something is missing—sharing the wonder, the joy. I want these inner bubblings to be grabbed with the twinkling eye of a kid being handed a lollipop on the sly.
For years persisted the notion that these musical synchronicities might one day be seen and celebrated by kindred spirits. Perhaps they’d even form the basis for new sources of wonder, new ways of being together. All I knew was the sound of my heart, the inner swaying, and the smile music traced on my face.
Then the first Nameless Endless happened. From an enchanted river crossing, we stepped into the polished hulls of a wood-and-echo palace, buzzing in the cross-legged intimacy that can only arise from the most devoted crowds. From dusky woods appeared a capella angels as our queues wove us to studio surprises. There were film trances, a women’s choir, exquisite strings and ungraspable improvs. There was stomping, strumming, shouting, and every possible colour and texture of sound.
A kind of grace fell upon our merry mob. Late into the night, beaming faces streamed from the cavernous Shed Hall, merging back into the neon of midnight trams.
In other times, these lines might have formed the etchings of a manifesto, a love letter, or an entry in a meditation journal. Intention. Heart. Spirit. Rippling together, they show the seams of light between music and PEOPLE. As within, so without. Same difference.
When music is a spontaneous meditation, its embodied experience becomes an act of joyful devotion. And Festivals, a place of pilgrimage.
As music reaches deep within, we are propelled into the green and gold crown where trees and rooftops converge with sky. Now, we stand ready to do it all again.
Let’s be these musicked PEOPLE, celebrating the wonders of the invisible together.
Let’s see what miracles unfold when we embrace a new ecology.
The Festival was two years ago, already. Alongside 200 exceptional international artists who loosely form the PEOPLE collective, I was invited to join a week-long residency in Berlin as a writer. The collaborations culminated in performances across the Funkhaus, the historic recording headquarters of the former GDR radio comprising a sprawling riverside complex of 30 recording studios and eight stages. As a counterpoint to the polyphonic backdrop, I contributed a meditative installation called Silence as a Creative Matrix, along with the poster design and text. From PEOPLE’s aspiration to establish an independent, nurturing creative space and mindset, to the resulting camaraderie, effervescence, freedom, and contemplations on life and purpose, the entire Festival experience left an indelible mark on me.
I think about all the times I’ve slipped up on resolutions for my own creative writing. And yet, I’m a geek in so many other areas. I never miss a deadline for my professional translation work, have moved mountains to curate and fund concerts, and am such a fastidious sādhanā geek. With all my colour-coded notes on the minutiae of our rituals, the Teacher tells me off for trying so hard to be a “good student,” rather than simply falling in love with the Goddess. Yet I’m incapable of holding myself accountable for what matters most to me. I can’t quite admit that what I truly long for is someone who will believe in me enough as an artist to convince me that I can do it. Not just anyone, though. Someone I would love and admire, whom I would support in return. For now, I might as well set all that aside and redirect my attention, pour my efforts into the practices, and my love into the Goddess and the Teacher. Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong, and the notion that creative living can be a path to fruition is too lofty a goal.
This is Faye’s Wing, a series of multimedia scenes about the creative quest for fulfilment beyond a fixed spiritual identity. It comes out every Wednesday, and often features music and visuals from contributing artists.
“Disciplined and dedicated practice” in Sanskrit.