“Building Upon the Man’yoshu”

For friend Debi Bender who knows this culture best.

Building upon, inspired by the great Man’yoshu

Heian era Woman with Tengu

Building upon, inspired by, the great Man’yoshu

It is right and proper to draw inspiration from other poetry. It pulls your own poetic voice into the mystery of love and passion. Therefore, I have taken the words from poems from the great 8th century Man’yoshu and either fashioned an answer…or a continuation of the top poem. What I believe to be termed “call and answer”.

The Man’yoshu’s poems are in bold type. All else are my own poetry. These poems are a small part of poems I am working in this fashion. Most of these poems, both from the Man’yoshu and my own are used to head up the 14 sections of “The Nightingale’s Song”.

The last section is poetry written for the plot of “The Nightingale’s Song”.

Lady Nyo aka Jane Kohut-Bartels

–

“My heart, like my clothing
Is saturated with your fragrance.
Your vows of fidelity
Were made to our pillow and not to me.”
—-—

Oh my wife!
My feet take me over mountains
In the service to our lord
But my heart stays tucked in the bosom
Of your robe.

—

Does he know?
Does he know?
Does he know about the letters?
–

“I stay here waiting for him
In the autumn wind, my sash untied,
Wondering, is he coming now,
Is he coming now?
And the moon is low in the sky.

–
The only company I have tonight,
Now near dawn, is the paling Milky Way,
And Oh, my husband!
There are not stars enough in the heavens
To equal my sorrowful tears.”

—

Strong man as I am,
Who force my way even through the rocks,
In love I rue in misery.
—Man’yoshu—

Perhaps a strong man
Should not offer love without
Having love returned
But this grieving ugly warrior
Still finds his love is growing

–Man’yoshu—

“The cicada cries
Everyday at the same hour
But I’m a woman much in love and very weak
And can cry anytime”

—Man’yoshu

My thoughts these days
Come thick like the summer grass
Which soon cut and raked
Grows wild again.

–
Oh, I wish these
Obsessive love-thoughts
Would disappear!
As they fill my head
They empty my sleep!
—

I who have counted me
For a strong man
Only a little less than heaven and earth,
How short of manliness that I love!

–
On this earth and even heaven
This weakness in love
Turns my sword
Into a blade of grass.
—

—

Come to me
If even only in my dreams
Where my head rests upon my arm-
not yours.
Let this veiled moon
Above and these dark, brooding pines below
Be witness to our love, my man.”

Come to me,
When the rocks have disappeared
Under sheets of snow,
The moon appears through tattered clouds.
I will be
Listening for the sound of
Your footfall in the dark.

Come to me, my man,
Part the blinds and come into my arms,
Snuggle against my warm breast
And let my belly
Warm your soul.
—

“ A BAD QUARREL” To be worked into “The Nightingale’s Song”

1.
My soul was blossoming,
Secure in your protective shadow.
I stumbled upon this road we walked
And all was suddenly lost.
Perhaps the fault was I did not
Tightly grip your hand?

2.
Like a ghost under water
Only the moon gives illumination.
Throw a pebble there
And see how fragmented I am.

3.
I can’t look in the mirror
when I awake.
(My eyes swollen with last night’s sobs–
my pillow filled like a lake.)
If I could turn back the hands of the clock,
I would give up those moments of life
To restore lost harmony….
But I dare not look this morning.

4.
It is raining outside,
It is raining within.
Do you think I care about that?
What happened
Has disrupted
all the essentials of life.

5.
Who opened the window?
Who let the bees in?
They are the life
I am avoiding.
Their legs have honey on them!
Too sweet for my present mind.

6.
Outside is a tender spring.
Inside it might as well be winter.
There is no warmth
Generated by memory.

8.
I am told this is a little death
I will have to bear.
Perhaps I don’t want it to end?
Then the thought of living without you,
Or the threat of living With you…..
Would upset my self- pity.

9.
There is nothing from you today,
But then, it was I who moved afar.
I did this from self-hatred,
But found there was enough to spread around.

10.
When I get to the anger
you will know I am recovering.
Not nicely, there will always be scars
and jagged edges,
tokens of our time together.
Do you feel any of this pain?
No, perhaps not.

11.
My laughter is as hollow
as that stricken tree by the pond.
I have not laughed for a long time.
It strangles in my throat.

12.
This morning I awoke,
the first time in days,
Everything sharp-edged–
Eyes were hardened steel,
Mouth a grim line of dead cinders….
But my hands are now steady.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2022

“I Remember….”

He was my father, a talented, complex and troubled man.  The parent that truly loved me, his first child and only daughter.  Today his birthday and I miss him. He was a man of gentle humor, soft spoken and deeply loved by those who knew him.  It took me years to understand him, but I cling to the memories and the lessons he so quietly gave.  He died too young.

Lady Nyo

I Remember….

I remember the scream

In the middle of the night

Of something dying

Down by the river,

Killed by an owl

Or possibly a fox.

–

I remember bolting awake

In my parent’s bed,

My heart in my throat

My father just died

The funeral over

Sleeping in

His bed,

Afraid to move from this reality

To the next,

No comfort to be had

Even with the scent of

His tobacco in the sheets.

–

I wandered the house,

Touched the walls,

Looked through windows

To a landscape not

Changed over years,

Ran my hands down the

Black walnut banister,

Smooth, smooth

As if the days would turn back

Just by this touch

And he would be here.

–

That scream somewhere on the banks

In the middle of the night,

When I jerked from sleep to

Awake, knowing, he was dead-

The father who loved me

Was gone forever.

–

I knew then

I was unmoored from life

floating out of reach of love.

A scream that challenged dreams

He would come back,

He wasn’t awaiting the fire

He would wake up,

Much as I did,

In a cold-sweat fear

And slowly, slowly

resume his place in the living.

–

There are unseen things

That happen in the night,

Down on the river bank,

Where life is challenged by death

Where a rabbit screams his mighty last

Where the heart leaps to the throat,

Where the most we can hope

Is a silent ghost

Who walks out of the river’s fog,

Extends his arms

And embraces the sorrowing.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2014

from “Pitcher of Moon”

“Lord Nyo’s Battle Cry”, from Song of the Nightingale

There’s no gap or break
in the ranks of those marching
under the hill:
an endless line of dying men,
coming on and on and on….

—Saigyo

–

When the news of Lady Nyo

Birthing a son

Reached Lord Nyo

He was far from home,

To the east,

Over mountains

In dangerous, alien territory.

–

A general in the service

Of his lord,

The gore of battle,

The issue of ‘dying with honor’

Began at first light,

The air soon filled with sounds of battle-

Dying horses, dying men

Drawing their last gasps of life,

Churned into the mud of immeasurable violence.

–

–
The river of death
is swollen with bodies
fallen into it;
in the end of the bridge
of horses cannot help.

—Saigyo

–

Death, not new life

Was before his eyes at dawn,

And death, not life

Pillowed his head at night.

–

A battle rages around me,

But inside this old warrior

A battle rages inside my heart.

It is heavy with sorrow,

So tired beyond my old bones.

What good have we done

In watering the soil

With blood and offal

of sons?

–

He stunk with the blood of battle

As his bow and swords cut a swath

Through men in service to another

And when the battle horns went silent,

With tattered banners like defeated clouds

 Hanging limp over the field,

Acrid smoke stained everything

And the piteous cries of the dying

Echoed in his ears.

He wondered if his life would end here.

–

But the gods that he didn’t believe in

Were merciful

And his thoughts turned from fierce, ugly warriors

Towards home and a baby.

–

Still, he could not leave.

He was caught by status

The prestige of his clan

And could not desert the

Fate set out for him from his birth.

–

Ah! This was fate of a man in servitude

To his Lord Daimyo.

This was the fate

Of a man chained to Honor.

–

Still, in the darkest hours of the night

The soft and perfumed shape of his wife

Floated down to him from the fleeting clouds,

Came to him through the smoke of battlefield fires,

And he turned on his pallet

To embrace this haunting comfort.

–

Off in the distance

There I see my loved one’s home

On the horizon.

How I long to be there soon

Get along black steed of mine!

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011-2024

“High Road”

Asking directions to the high road,

I got shrugs and blank stares

yet knew there were two roads-

both led into infinity

both coursed through

all manner of life with pitfalls, trenches

where bones were broken

skulls rattled loose from moorings

like ships in high winds, dangerous waters-

–

What was the difference

and why should it matter?

The effort costs

energy regardless the choosing.

–

An old man sat at the crossroads,

a bum, grizzled gray hair

sprouting porcupine’s quills,

rheumy, pale eyes staring at the world–

little interest in what passed by.

–

I asked him the way to the High Road

and with a toothless grin

he stared at my feet, my hands,

lifted his eyes to my face.

I thought him mad and cursed myself

(asking questions of a fool!)

And was moving away when I heard his voice:

–

“Did I know of the eagle and crow,

how they soared upon thermals

higher and higher

became dark, formless specks upon a limitless sky,

lost to human eye, invisible even to gods?”

–

I thought him crazed and started away-

he cackled and spat on the ground.

Something made me turn, startled,

And saw the wisdom of Solomon in his

now- shining eyes.

–

“The crow harries the eagle, the eagle flies higher.

Vengeful, annoying crow flies round eagle’s wing

turning this way and that, yet the eagle flaps upward

soars upon thinning air until the crow

breathless and spent, drops to the common ground-

falls to his death.”

–

“The High Road, the path of the eagle.

The low road, the path of the crow,

mingling with dullards

daring nothing, with eyes cast downward

only saving a bit of energy

learning nothing of worth.”

–

Silently he sat, an old man

eyes glazed with age and fatigue.

With a nod to his wisdom and a toss of a coin

I gathered my strength and pushed onward,

Upwards, the lift of eagles, now under my limbs.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2022-2024

WordPress is asking what positive changes I have made recently.

I have taken up the ERHU….a Chinese two string ‘fiddle’ (lap cello I call it) 5 years ago (I have 5 of them… 2 new and three vintage) I love the vintage erhus because they have muscle memory and character. Three of them are between 80-125 years old. Erhu came from Mongolia 1500 years ago to China. But! It has been played in Mongolia for 4500 years. It was passed down to other countries on the Silk Road.

Erhu means two (as in string) and hu means barbarian. I love the sound and it isn’t that easy to play. Each one I have is different in playing. The new ones don’t have any muscle memory. The vintage ones do. I swear that the vintage ones have heard this music (Chinese classical) before and they seem to say to me: “JUst listen and you will learn. I will teach you,” LOL. They do.

The Chinese say that it takes about a year to settle with an erhu. You fight it and it fights you. I believe this. My new (vintage) Xmas present from my husband is a Dragon Headed Erhu. Very beautiful and very Yang instrument. It is harder for a woman to play….It’s strings are harder steel, or the bridge is higher or it just doesn’t like women….like some men I know. But I rip apart each erhu I buy and see what I can do to change things. I always change the strings, padding and bridges. I look closely at the damn bows (btw the bows are placed between the D and A strings. You are not supposed to remove them but I always do.

I also have a Zounghu….an 8 sided erhu….tuned from G to D. A fifth lower than the usual erhu. That makes a deep and more cello sound. When I bought it I didn’t know squat about erhus. Thought it was just a bigger erhu,.

I played violin in college during the Dark Ages and hated it. Played cello a little bit and have a beautiful old Japanese (1940) cello from my brother Chris. A present. But I was never very good at it. Hurt my fingers. The erhu is easier. LOL.

This Aoutumn I am giving a short concert. Maybe. The centerpiece is “River of Sorrow”…. an incredibly difficult and marvelous song. Song Fei plays it the best in my opinion. I am also playing Sting (“Don’t Stand So Close To Me”) and House of the Rising Sun, and a few other pieces….if I can learn them. LOL.

Can you tell how much I love the erhu? It is the instrument that can really sound like a human….and a horse and a bee and other creatures. LOL. I studied Opera for 10 years with voice coaches from 1990-2000 and gave a few concerts..mostly Brahms, Strauss, Mozart and Barber. This erhu music is different but fluid.

Check out “Moon Over the Fountain” (that is what the Zounghu is for) and “River of Sorrow” on google.then you will get an idea of the voice of the erhu. And the Zounghu.

A Jeez….there are comments I never saw. Sorry. WordPress keeps changing and I can’t keep up!!!!

“The Nightingale’s Song”, Part II “Moon Child”, Poetry,

Lady Nyo was barren.

Once there were hopes of an heir,

Babies to raise, coddle.

But fate provided nothing

Not even a stillborn to mourn,

Buried under the snow

With the fog of incense rising

To a leaden sky.

–

Many times Lady Nyo

Passed the temple of the humble Lord Jizo,

Riding in her palm-leaf carriage

Drawn by a white oxen adorned with ribbons, bells.

Many times she peeked through curtains

At his simple, stone statue,

Bedecked with babies’ bids, knitted hats,

The offering of a grateful mother, or

A mournful one.

–

Ah! To be as much a woman

As her lowest servant with a swelling belly!

How she wanted to leave her own offering

Of her child’s garment at his feet!

–

Lady Nyo decided to make a pilgrimage.

She would walk barefoot through the fragrant murasaki grass,

She would wear a humble hemp gown,

She would seek advice from temple priests.

–

Lady Nyo and her old nurse set out one morning,

And though her old nurse grumbled and groaned,

Lady Nyo was the vision of piety walking

Through the delicate morning mists –

These frail ghosts of nothingness.

–

The priest had a long, red nose,

Wore a robe none too clean,

And he scratched at lice

Under the folds of his gown.

He had feathers growing in his ears

And feet like a large bird.

A Tengu!

A trifler of men and women!

But they were staring at his nose,

And missed his feet.

–

“When the Moon grows full,

Row out in the bay,

Directly under the Moon

And climb up a long ladder.

You will be pulled by the Moon’s tides

To its surface,

And there you will find what you want.”

–

When the Moon blossomed into a large

Bright lantern in the sky,

They rowed out in the bay,

Two trusted ladies to steady the ladder

And one to spare.

–

Lady Nyo kicked off her geta,

Tucked her gown into the obi

(exposing her lady-parts),

And ignoring the remarks of her old nurse,

Climbed directly under the Moon.

–

So powerful

Was the pull of the Moon

That fish and crabs,

Seahorses and seaweed,

Octopi, too

Rose straight up from the waters

Into the night’s air!

Lady Nyo’s hair and sleeves

Were also pulled by the Moon

And her kimono almost came over her head!

–

With a summersault

She flipped onto the surface

And found her bare feet

Sinking into the yellow-tofu of the Moon.

–

She heard a gurgling

And gurgling meant babies,

So she searched on spongy ground

Followed by a few seahorses who were curious

And a few fish who weren’t.

Past prominent craters

One could see from Earth,

Lady Nyo found a baby tucked in the Moon’s soil.

–

Ah! A fat little boy blowing bubbles,

Sucking on toes,

Bright black eyes like pebbles

Black hair as thick as brocade!

–

Lady Nyo bent down,

And lifting him

She heard a sucking noise.

He was attached to the Moon

By a longish tail

That thrashed around like a little snake

–

As she pulled him free.

She placed him at her milk-less breast

But soon he grimaced and started to howl,

 So she tucked him in her robe,

Aimed for the ladder,

Somersaulted back into the night,

Where she and her ladies rowed for shore.

–

The baby, now named Tsuki,

Was put to a wet nurse

His tail mostly disappearing,

Shriveling up like a proper umbilical cord–

Though there remained a little vestigial tail

That wagged with anticipation when placed at the breast,

Or when the full Moon appeared

In the black bowl of night.

–

The Tengu had flown the coop,

Never to be seen again.

But Lady Nyo no longer envied ladies

With swelling bellies,

For her own arms were full and heavy

With this yellow Moon-child.

–

Through fragrant fields

Of murasaki grass,

Lady Nyo and Tsuki

Would walk alone,

Where they would lay

Offerings of knitted bibs,

Strings of money, toys

And a feather

At the feet of Lord Jizo,

When the Moon was fullest

In a promising sky.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011-2018

Excellent article on Dr. Rollo May

Concerned with the study to work through life’s experiences and to grow towards becoming more fully human The basic issue in the thesis concerns freedom and each person’s posture before this great challenge to be himself and to be free, both for himself and for others It ls before freedom that the individual’s values come into question and he fumbles as he attempts to determine the meaning of his life and his goal in life

Rollo May surveyed our portion of the twentieth century he observes that man is typified by a sense of rootlessness, anonymity and depersonalization agent discovers himself confronted y a deep split which separates reason from emotiono This split heightens culture.

this is a short teaser on Rollo May, and from LinkedIn. It explains May’s basis and theory on Extentialism, and breaks the mold that Freud, etc. (even Heinz Kohut) put on the development of humanity.

The Courage To Create

The Courage to Create”, a reading of Dr. Rollo May’s book.

(Watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, “Italian Dawn” 2007)

Recently I have come to believe  it takes courage to continue on in our interests:  people are challenged because others want to pigeon-hole an artist.  Perhaps this is human nature.  Labeling  artists makes them easier to grasp, and we can be kind of slippery.  But overall, it is rather uncomfortable to have to feel that you need defend your talent or interests. Having to explain yourself to people who just don’t get it….the creative impulse, is exhausting.  Further, it takes time and energy that should be used in creating things.  And anyway, what is this creative impulse?

Recently I have been reading Rollo May’s “Courage to Create”.  This book is an eye opener.   It’s  a little dated, having been written in 1975, and points to cultural issues, political issues of that era. However, the issues of creativity are timeless.

I am going to pose some of his arguments and also some of my own conclusions.  I do this because I believe the issue that is so many times pressed, that creativity is all about will-power, is wrong and limited.  Actually, defeating.

I am struggling to understand the deeper issues around creativity and Dr. May has produced one of the best books that breaks through to new territory.

Rollo May (a world distinguished psychologist) wrote lucidly about creativity.  Besides being in a medical field, he was also a gifted watercolorist.  Actually, he was many things and embraced for his humanistic writings by people all over the world. In his “The Courage to Create”, May parcels out his theories of courage in six parts which I will cover in only a small way.  Very crucial to this issue of courage is what he defines as not the absence of despair, fear, insecurity but the capacity to move ahead in spite of all these things.  I think many creative people do this without thinking: However,  I think we are deeply mired in these negative obstacles but we move ahead anyway, full of doubt, haltingly.  We do it because of our personal, emotional involvement with creativity.  It’s the issue of acknowledging courage that throws a new and confusing concept in the mix. Perhaps we create more by instinct, or that we can’t not create. Something to do with the ‘pounding in the blood’, the intense concentration that erases all else in front of us….for good or bad.

May made the observation that a chief characteristic of this courage was that it required a centeredness within our own being, without which we would feel ourselves to be a vacuum.  The ‘emptiness’ within corresponds to an apathy without and apathy adds up, in the long run, in my belief,  to cowardice.

For me apathy extends to an inability to move, to think.  Just giving up on life. And creativity.  I have known people who end up forever apathetic. (I also have come to understand the relationship between apathy and violence.  Apathy ultimately becomes a ‘black hole’ in the psyche….a disconnect from humanity, and this becomes ripe for violence.)  People might be very talented, but they hit a roadblock in their pursuit of creativity and they give up. They don’t pursue because they don’t feel this centeredness.  They just give up.  They may have talents, but they flail around and in the end, they abandon the process.  I would suggest that they feel ‘outside’ to all attempts of creativity, and this certainly goes against this required “centeredness” that Rollo May speaks of.

We must base our commitment to the center of our own being, or else no commitment will be authentic.  And real courage isn’t bravado or rashness.

This issue of centeredness is interesting.   It accounts for many years of feeling alien, different, out of sync with the people either you meet or know from family ties. It basically is a denial of ‘difference’ in order to feel ‘connected’ to people.  I have found that it also means that I ‘dumb down’ myself just to ‘fit in’.  (This phenomena is seen in women, first in girls, where we deny our strength, our speed, our intellectual prowess because we think boys will be rattled by what we can do) . In the end (and beginning, middle) it’s just not worth it: this behavior delays, denies any creativity that might be brewing. This behavior denies the courage to create. And that creativity is the center of self.

In humans, courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.  In nature, this isn’t exactly so, as an acorn becomes an oak by automatic growth, but a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and the exhibited commitment to them. Our self-worth is predicated on our choices. (I can’t say this enough!) This is a hard lesson to learn because it doesn’t come fast or easy.  It’s something that comes only with an understanding of what choices lead to clarity, against choices that derail us.  And it’s time consuming and something we have to do over and over.   It is also key to avoid the people who more than doubt, but would rather see us fail.  There is jealousy in such people, and even a closeness of relationship, as in family, can bring this ‘quality’ out into the open and allow destructiveness to blossom.

May describes the physical, moral, social courage and finally, what he sites as the most important courage of all….creative courage.  Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which, in part…. a better society can be built.

Why is creativity so difficult?  Why does it require so much courage?

George Bernard Shaw put forth something that has a profound truth to it:  “Creativity provokes the jealousy of the gods”.  And a creative person, IF she or he is authentic to their art, is always in some sort of turmoil.  Either internally, because of doubt and fear, or externally because the gods:  those in authority, or something like this, the status quo…are never accepting of something new and strange to them.  I remember a gallery owner who challenged me as to whether I was a painter or manufactured sculpture.  I was both, but this rather narrow woman could not accept this. My painting was fine, and my sculpture was fine, but she demanded that I choose between one medium or the other.  I couldn’t and was very confused by her mentality.  Now I can understand her limitations.  For a while her perspective deeply affected my thoughts about my own creativity, and then I came to my senses.  Who was she to limit my creativity, regardless of medium? (Her gallery closed soon after because what she carried was rather boring and stilted ‘art’.)

I faced this mentality for decades with a close family member who tried to diminish my own attempts in being creative.  She was no paragon of creativity, preferring to produce ‘safe’ poetry that was pretty dull, trite, sentimental  stuff. IF she had applied herself to the study of poetry, perhaps she could have written better verse.  However, she skimmed the surface, preferring it to be a product of her ego, and for her, that was enough.

We need to get out of the way of our creativity at times!  Regardless of emotional ties, we need to see what boxes people attempt to stuff us into.  If we are truly committed to the center of our own being (and we know what that entails) we will break free of this enforced dullness, this oppression.  It leads only to a depressing state of affairs.  Some people can try to enforce this dullness because they aren’t the people who create.  And some are just envious of another’s creativity. My mother ‘suffers’ (or actually others suffer from her) from narcissism.  And narcissists deny anything of creativity that they can’t claim…especially if it is produced by a family member.  This came home to me in a real way when the last letter I received from her in 2012 stated this after the publication of my third book:  “I can never be truly proud of you because you haven’t allowed me into your artistry.”  Well, hell mother…had I done so, there wouldn’t BE any ‘artistry’ as you call it.  But further, this statement from her, a functioning narcissist, is the leitmotiv of a true narcissist.  It is always about them, regardless who holds the pen or paintbrush. This isn’t a fertile ground for true creativity: it’s just a reflection of shallow ego.

How Religion Also Screws With Creativity

In Judaism and Christianity, the second commandment states:  “You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens, earth or sea”.  But this commandment holds the fear that every society has about its artists, poets, writers, those that express their authentic creativity:  These are the people who threaten the status quo.  In Russia for generations, and in many countries today, the struggle to control speech, art, dance, writings, poetry, etc. is continuous.  We see this in our own country in many ways.  And we certainly see this in Muslim/ Middle East countries (and India and Pakistan) where women especially are denied access to their creativity. To do so will upset the status quo and get you in a world of trouble. And probably stoned to death.

Mythology’s Impact

Our human psychology and social evolution is also seriously impacted with mythology. The Greek myth of Prometheus, who was chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, (because he gave humankind fire) where a vulture would eat away his liver, only to have it grow again at night.  Zeus was outraged, the gods were angry, and it is very common for artists to be exhausted at the end of the day, to despair of ever completing their vision, to have their ‘liver’ grow back at night, and for them to have a fresh perspective the next day. Artists strive with renewed hope and vigor in the smithy of their soul. (Funny, in my studies of the Berber culture, the liver is the seat of the soul, and the soul is destroyed if the liver destroyed.)

It is obvious to most artists that the creative artist and poet, etc. must fight the actual gods of our society- the gods of conformity, apathy, material success and exploitative power.  These are the usual ‘idols’ that are worshiped by the multitude.  And it is across the board regardless of culture.

The Nature of Creativity

There is no general agreed upon definition of this nature, especially amongst psychologists and the therapeutic field.  Some hold that creativity is reductive: in other words, they reduce creativity to some other process.  Also, it’s an expression of neurotic patterns, or “regression in the service of the ego.”  This last immediately smacks of a reductive theory.

No wonder artists, creative people, have a hard time of it!  When your attempt at creativity is seen as neurotic you lose confidence.  You seriously doubt your sanity. And the general public isn’t at all helpful.

But there is a consideration (of which I won’t belabor here….) that when we define creativity, we must make the distinction between its pseudo forms and its authentic forms. Superficial creativity (art forms) that deal with only appearances or decoration, but not with reality is part of this collection of pseudo forms.  True artists give birth to some new reality….and it is usually fought against by the multitude because of its alien-ness. Picasso was a good example of this, (and his creativity took so many forms and not all of them embraced) and it can take generations for acceptance by the status quo.  And then the artist probably is dead and only the super wealthy can afford the genuine art.

The Encounter.

Dr. May is big on this issue of encounter. He states that escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter. (the reality of encountering life, etc. and it’s impact upon creativity. In escapist, exhibitionistic forms of creativity there is no real encounter, no engagement with reality).   We all know people who have great, elaborate ideas:  they can talk about them forever, but they never actualize them.  They are all fantasy and in the end….they lack the encounter with reality. I have found, (being a poet) that poets are some of the worst offenders of this encounter.  Recently, I left a prestigious poetry and literary journal because the vast majority of poets and writers wrote abstract, academic work that had no reflection of the myriad problems of their respective countries. (unfortunately, these were all male poets.) They refused to.  In fact, I was told basically ‘not to rock the boat’.  How much more interesting and informative it would have been to read essays on the social issues of India, Pakistan, Africa, etc. and some solutions to the troubling issues of these countries…especially  concerning the oppression of women.  I have little patience with what I feel is an ingrained misogyny of many writers who just “aren’t interested” in these social issues, and consider them beneath the level of ‘true’ creativity.  I put these writers and poets on the level of escapist creativity that lacks true encounter.  I try to avoid them like the plague.

The Difference between Talent and Creativity.

And that brings up the question of the difference between talent and creativity.  A few years ago, a woman who was a writer and artist was a house guest.  She said she was writing a novel, and as she elaborated on it, I could see that she hadn’t put down a word.  She was making it up as she talked. It was all fantasy, all in her head, and not in a very collected state. I shouldn’t have been surprised.  As I knew her from five years on different writing sites, she had exhibited a lot of emotional issues:  she couldn’t face them, but they certainly directed her life and her ‘creativity’.  She refused any consideration of therapy and continued to stroke her wounds. (and cut herself for psychological reasons..)   At that time, I tolerated her behavior.  Now?  I avoid her.  We are all responsible for the choices we make in our lives. She certainly had talent, but her creativity (the act) was truncated. She refused the encounter with reality in her own life and her creativity suffered because of it.  She stuck to unicorns, dragons and flowers.

I’ve had this struggle of encounter with a therapist for a number of years.  The concept of encounter also allows us to make clear the important distinction between talent and creativity.  Talent might well have its neurological parts and can be studied as ‘given’ to a person.  But creativity can only be seen in the act.  Picasso is again a great example of this: great talent, great encounter with life and this produces great creativity.  He is great because of his intensity of encounter.  It is not necessarily pretty or polite, but it should be intense on a fundamental level.

This is the second part of the creative act:  the intensity of the encounter. Genuine creativity is known by this force or power.

Many readers of this essay will recognize the altered state that comes when one is deeply involved in their creative process:  time disappears, sound doesn’t impinge upon the project, hunger is ignored, a single mindedness becomes absolute until the creative person comes to a stopping point, either through exhaustion or something that intrudes too hard to ignore.  The creative spell is broken.  But it definitely is an altered state.

I have written only a few words about this intensity of encounter, but I intend to write more as I figure it out.  I also want to get to what in my own life has been a propellant in my creativity.  And that is that Creativity is born in the Encounter with Opposition.  True creativity needs this frisson to birth or reveal itself.

The Courage to Create, Part II

I came across a part of Rollo May’s book, “The Courage to Create” that had a particular interest to a number of readers who were raised by narcissistic parents.  I am posting Dr. May’s words here just for further contemplation and discussion.  I find this idea of May to be intriguing and thoughtful. 

It is a particular discovery concerning a class difference in the behavior or the result of narcissistic parents on their daughters.  In my opinion, it is true and reveals the basis for the misery of many young women from the early teen years but with an interesting class difference.  Readers can draw their own conclusions.  I think Dr. May revealed something very powerful, true.

Dr. May was studying the issue of rejection and anxiety of young women by narcissistic parents, mainly the maternal rejection. (This made it into the book under the section: “Creativity and the Unconscious”) What was surprising to him was what he and other psychologists had assumed to be true, that they would be hardened, apathetic so that they didn’t feel the rejection?

“Where they sociopathetic or psychopathetic types who didn’t feel rejection? (these were young women who were unwed, pregnant and basically thrown out of their birth families, some the victims of incest) No, they weren’t.

As one, named Mary said: “We have troubles but we don’t worry.”

One day I was walking down the street,  I was tired, and out of the blue, it struck me that all these women were from the proletarian class.  And as quickly as that idea struck me, other ideas poured out.   A whole new hypothesis broke loose in my mind.  I realized my entire theory would have to be changed.  I saw at that instant that it is not rejection by the mother that is the original trauma which is the source of anxiety (in the daughters…);  it is rather rejection that is lied about.

The proletarian mothers rejected their children, but they never made any bones about it.  The children knew they were rejected; they went out on the streets and found other companions, (and I believe mother substitutes…JKB) There was never any subterfuge about their situation.  They knew their world—bad or good—and they could orient themselves to it.  But the middle-class young women were always lied to in their families.   They were rejected by mothers who pretended they loved them.  This really the source of their anxiety, not the sheer rejection.  I saw in that instantaneous way that characteristics, insights from these deeper sources, that anxiety comes from not being able to know the world you’re in, not being able to orient yourself in your own existence. “

Above From “The Courage to Create”, Rollo May, 1975

Though Dr. May is talking about how concepts can be overturned, how the unconscious holding to something that might not be true in theory (what he was taught by his professors) there comes a point hopefully, where a radical rupture with what is ‘known’ is overturned and something new, a new development in theory …is formed.

I will just put forth my own speculation, and this is because of my own experience with a narcissistic family member and also from my own class position, or that of my mother.  Middle class parents, or upper class parents have a social position to ‘protect’.  They would be ‘shamed’ for outright rejection of their children, be ostracized by their peers, social class, IF they were open about their hatred, dislike, contempt, etc. of their children, and especially when the mother is the narcissist and a daughter is her scapegoat.  They are protecting themselves, and hence the extended lies about their pretended love of their children.  They will talk in ‘glowing terms’ (to outsiders) about the very children they dismiss, demean, abuse privately, but they don’t want to get ‘caught’ doing this by their social ‘club’.  That would mean that they failed in some important way as a parent.  Within dysfunctional families of a particular class, it’s all about protecting the ‘image’ of the family.  Further, it’s all about protecting the narcissist. (However, the longer this behavior of the narcissist continues…say decades, they lose the impulse to cover their behavior:  they rewrite history to say the victim, the scapegoat has left the narcissist, caused the ‘riff’,  thereby pulling sympathy for themselves from anyone who doesn’t know the actual history of the narcissist.)

I remember an incident in an ex family.  The adult children were heavily involved in drugs.  They were a prominent upper class family, with much social connections to protect.  One of the sons wrapped his sports car around a telephone pole, and his mother said that “they had enough money to make anything disappear.”  Again, it’s all about protecting image.

So, we have discussed this issue before of rejection by narcissistic parents, and our anxiety is never really knowing where we are in the family.  We are kept unbalanced, anxious, by the (sometimes sociopathic) behavior of narcissistic parents.  Our anxiety comes from not being able to know the world we are in, not being able to orient ourselves in our own existence. “

And the narcissists in our lives take great sadistic pleasure in doing this, in increasing our confusion, our inability to know our place in the family.  They depend upon this.

For me, this above relates to what I wrote in the first part of this essay, that our creativity comes from our core, our centeredness, knowing ourselves and believing, taking courage in our abilities regardless what and who are trying to throw us off our mark. When we attain clarity as to the functions of a dysfunctional family, or family member (and there usually isn’t just one….other members are impacted and take on the behavior of the Chief Narcissist) we can put these destructive people behind us and go on to developing our creativity and living a better and fuller life.  They are only boulders in the road, though seemingly solid ones,  and we have to go around  or over them.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2015

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Press This
•  

Customize buttonshttps://widgets.wp.com/likes/index.html?ver=20210818#blog_id=4077204&post_id=13415&origin=ladynyo.wordpress.com&obj_id=4077204-13415-61656724a6d9b

Lady Nyo’s Torment, Part II

Lady Nyo’s Torment, Part II, from “The Nightingale’s Song”,

“The cicada cries

Everyday at the same hour

But I’m a woman much in love and very weak

And can cry anytime”

–

The rain cleared, the sun came out

And all was polished bronze.

Leaves sparkled, the air shining.

Lady Nyo would visit a shrine,

Had her palm-leaf carriage

With the white ox made ready.

–

There on the carriage cushion

Was a bone-white fan.

“How strange. And here

In my carriage!”

–

Lady Nyo opened the fan,

Saw the character

And her face went from

Pale to red,

Changing with the speed of a squid.

–

Oh! How elegant!

How sublime this character!

Of an excellent hand,

Surely a noble one,

Of great depth and emotion.

–

Then she recovered herself.

How fickle she was!

How shallow,

How low her nature

That it would allow her to be

Swayed by a stranger’s painted fan!

–

No, she would answer this

She would end it.

She would remain

A virtuous wife,

Would not sully these long years

Of marriage with a trifler.

Let her dreams be enough passion,

Let her unbidden dreams keep her warm.

–

But could she live like that?

Better to be a shave- headed nun

Take up the staff with iron rings–

Hold a begging bowl!

–

At dusk,

Lady Nyo took to her inkstone,

And in her journal

Wrote poems,

Verse she hoped would

Cleanse her soul,

Rest her mind–

Calm her heart.

–

“While I wait for you

With longing in my breast

Back here at home

My bamboo blinds are fluttered

By the blowing autumn breeze.”

–

“The moon has risen

To that predetermined point

And I am thinking:

The time has come to go outside

And wait for his arrival.”

–

“Even the breeze

Increases painful longing

Even the breeze

But I know he will come

So why feel grief in waiting?”

–

So lonely am I

My soul like a floating weed

Severed at the roots

Drifting upon cold waters

No pillow for further dreams.

–

The autumn air floated

Down from nearby Moon Mountain,

A holy place where no woman

Could tread the path.

The darkening dusk

Fused the color of leaves, pines

And a Corn Moon mounted the sky.

–

The morning wren sings

I stand in the moonlit dawn

Kimono wrapped tight

Last night I made my peace

Now free from all attachments

–

Lady Nyo knelt on the veranda

A paper lantern behind her–

Monstrous shadows in the night-gloom.

She would wait for her husband

She would wait until the winds

Of dawn blew down from Moon Mountain

And brought with them

The return of her mate.

–

“From the high mountain

The sound of a crying stag

Carries down valleys

How inspiring is his voice

Like yours, my loving lord.”

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011, 2016

.