The Source of Artistic Inspiration: Stillness

"Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance". Morgan Freeman

I am often asked where I get my artistic inspiration. I find that it is an awkward question to answer sometimes, so I mention some artists and writers I admire. But really, in my experience, inspiration does not happen as a direct cause-and-effect action. I am not able to 'go get inspired'. It would be more accurate to say that I do not find inspiration anywhere, but when I am in stillness it finds me. 

If inspiration could be obtained by simply going out and finding it somewhere, everyone would go find it. Unfortunately, inspiration cannot be obtained on demand. 

​However, an open and creative mind can be available to discover loose particles of interesting things floating around in life like bits of ideas, feelings and perceptions. And because you enjoy them, you carry them around with you for awhile, like favorite rocks in a kid's pocket. Then one day you discover that some of those loose bits of life have connected themselves together in surprising ways. Then a light goes on and you say "Ah ha!" The Ah-ha! moment is when we become consciously aware of something that had already been working in us at a deeper level without us being aware of it. So the artist, in my opinion, has little to do with causing inspiration,  it arises out of stillness naturally on its own.

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