When I saw this passage in Rollo May’s book, My Quest For Beauty, I wanted to share it:
“Artists are the ones who are particularly sensitive to experiencing scenes in new forms. They have the capacity to look at a scene until it is born in their inner minds and imaginations, born in their consciousness….This is one of the contributions artists make to the world: they experience the living forms, and through their art they enable the rest of us to see them—or better to experience them in their lives.
“The artists, including any and all of us who choose to create, to “make” imaginatively, are the ones who bare themselves to this experience of essence. They are the ones who are caught up in greater or lesser ecstasy, and they hasten then to reproduce it on paper or on canvas or in music. Their vocation is to communicate that experience to others. Not to communicate it is to surrender the vision to atrophy; the artist must paint, or write or sculpt—else the vision withers away and he or she is less apt to have it again.
“There is also another accompaniment to this experience of ecstasy, and that is gratitude. I think I have never painted a watercolor, sketchy as it might have been, without feeling a strange gratification afterwards. I sometimes fell I have been invited in where angels fear to tread, and for that who would not be grateful? The wonder of being human is that any of us who so choose may be privileged to participate in this experience of ecstasy, with its accompanying gratitude….
“Art is the instrument by which beauty is actualized. Artis the eternal endeavor to realize beauty. Sometimes it is successful, sometimes it is a failure; but the poignancy of beauty will never let us go.”
I love everything about this beautiful meditation on creation! I love the way Rollo May captures the feeling of ecstasy, of being transported beyond oneself and seeing into the heart, the essence, of things. At one time or another, we’ve all felt that fleeting feeling—as if, through our words, we’ve touched something deep and even holy. What a joy!
And beyond this, I love the Rollo’s words about gratitude being part of these rare moments. So true! How grateful I know I’ve felt when somehow I managed to capture something wonderful and even powerful in my net of words.
Rollo reminds us that pursuing and sharing our creativity in all its forms—writing, music, painting—is a privilege. Let’s keep this ever in mind as we all write on!
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