Spitting out the Buddha's teeth

Dispatch #50: The call to expand our perception

Hello friend,

I have a calling. Not to be a nun or a professional soccer player as some of you who know me might guess (LOL). Although the calling is religious and athletic by nature. It requires the nimble, radiant mind that monks strive toward their whole lives. Just like an athlete is asked to tend acutely to the body for optimal performance, this calling asks the spirit to be keenly aware, open to possibilities and, importantly, to practice practice practice. The calling is to be an artist. I’ve known it since I was hip-high and didn’t even know the word artist yet. The calling to be an artist is marked by a deep desire to practice and nurture one’s perspective. We know that by expanding our perspective we will have greater access to deep insight, our own emotional lives, and to connecting with others. Whether working with words or in charcoal, perspective becomes a tool in our hands. Artists walk around the world with a refresh button on our mind. With our material at hand we plumb our ordinary vantage of the world. What we see/feel/hear/touch is distinctly ours, yet we want to uncover it for the effervescently universal.

Anaïs Nin wrote, “It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.”

Source unknown

Perspective makes magic happen. The world shifts on its axis. What was is forever changed. Consider the transformative power of this poem by Charles Simic:

Because of Simic’s gaze, fueled by his call toward being an artist, Simic equates a watermelon with a buddha. Can’t you see it? The watermelon, like Buddha, is plump and often sits in the market in meditative repose. But this poet takes it even further. He tells us that we eat the smile of the Buddha. A slice of watermelon is now a smile – and yes, that too is easy to imagine, easy to perceive, now that Simic has perceived it for us! But does this poet stop there? No! He extends the metaphor: we spit out the Buddha’s teeth. The image is air-tight. One can’t argue with it! The poet has made us see the world differently, but also, he has led us to a question: what does it mean to be a human interacting with the Buddha in this mundane, every day way? What does it mean to take the Buddha into us joyously? I think about how Christians eat wafers that symbolize the body of Christ during Communion, a visceral reminder of Christ’s last meal and his final sacrifice. Religions and philosophies across the board look for ways to imbibe the holy, to become it, not just conceptualize it from a distance.

Here sits this tiny, squat poem by Charles Simic, reminding us that it doesn’t take a grand ceremony to be connected to [insert your chosen synonym for God]. We can pick up a watermelon and taste divinity. In fact, we can spit out divinity’s teeth.

Artists seek to continuously refine our perception because it simultaneously turns the world upside down and right side up. It provokes imagination. It evolves new meanings from worn-out definitions. It undresses ordinary life for keen insight. Artists are devoted to expanding our perception because we understand that the universe is vast, intricate, and begging to be explored.

Both images by Robbie Shone

Let’s be clear: it’s not just working artists who nurture the artist within. There are surgeons, teachers, bodega owners, librarians, and baristas who exhibit this calling. It doesn’t need to be defined by one’s vocation. It can happen in a flash, whether in one artistic afternoon or one lightning bolt moment, the calling is more so about a way of perceiving.

As an example, as a teen I’d sometimes find my dad (whose mind is deeply analytical and whose past jobs mostly exist in the realm of computers and engineering) absentmindedly drawing on a napkin at our kitchen table, doodling away his time, dreaming onto the page. For that moment, he was answering the calling.

About a decade ago while visiting my hometown, my dad excitedly pulled me to the side to show me a half-finished canvas. My dad doesn’t paint.

“What is that?” I asked him.

“I found it on the side of the road,” he answered, “and then I took it home and filled it in.”

He told me that when he found the canvas there had been three unfinished squares of varying blue. Now there was a boat and mountains, a strange masked face, and a flowery-sun. ‘Who is this person?’ I wondered. This sudden painter! The artist within overtook him. Who knows why? This question remains one of my life’s greatest questions and joys! Why are we called when we are called? What turns an ordinary walk into a bizarre heist into an afternoon painting?

What is it that calls us to finish the unfinished world? To pick up a paintbrush? To make a choice where there was only empty space? To say yes to creativity despite the to-do list, our Type A disposition, our lack of funds or time, or capitalism’s incessant demands?

I believe that refining our perception refines our openness to this world. That it keeps us innocent and curious. That it shucks off hopelessness and invites us to be participants in an unfolding world rather than consumers of a fixed one. Instead of succumbing to an unbudgingly violent, fear-mongering landscape, we ask What if? This what if is powerful. It evokes agency. It prizes imagination. Where the world says submit, it conjures up devotion. As Agnes Martin says, “Art work is a representation of our devotion to life.” To constantly refresh our perception is an inherently humble act. We are willing to not know. To see. Then look again. To hear. Then listen deeper.

Here is recent artwork of mine. A triptych:

Dear reader, I’m curious about what you see above. Do you imagine these are canvasses I spent hours in front of? Do you imagine I used expensive paint? And how did I get those creases into the fabric? How many hours did I pour into these abstractions? And how large are they? Wall sized?

What if I told you that these three “paintings” are wet-naps a flight attendant gave me when a pen burst all over me during a flight to Michigan this summer?

The pen exploded all over me. I did my best to clean my hands with the napkins. When I opened the napkins up I was astounded at the beauty of the lines and shapes, the colors (how was there green? my pen had been black!) I saw them as inarguably beautiful. I couldn’t help it. Why? Simple. Because I’m an artist. When I’m not in front of a poem or a painting or a song, I’m still cultivating perception. This cultivation comes in handy during my “off-hours” (LOL) and “inopportune” moments. What can I say, I’m in the daily training of finding high art in wet-naps.

What starts as a watermelon transforms into the Buddha. What starts as dirty napkins transforms into a painting series I’ll soon frame and hang on my studio wall. It’s not the world’s job to tease affection and inspiration from us. It’s our job to refine our approach, over and over, to practice finding beauty until beauty finds us everywhere. This is the artist’s calling. You can access it and answer it at any time. By the fruit stand or mid-air.

some snaps from daily life (which is actually extraordinary life)

Calling all perceivers! Last month’s Revision Bingo was so fun that we’re doing it again! Join us next week on Saturday November 15th from 3-5 PM EST for a deep dive that renews your perception of your dustiest drafts! Email insurreallife at gmail dot com today to sign up!

We’re also running a line of limited edition In Surreal Life crewnecks! Get yours here! It’s a soft wearable reminder that life’s surreality is ever-present and it makes a great gift for the holidays, if I do say so myself.

Don’t wait, dear reader. Look now! Look again! Dive into the world. How you emerge from its depths is premised on what you do in the deep. If a thousand voices tell you there isn’t wonder, be the thousand-and-oneth. Say, What if? Then fix your gentle gaze on what’s closest. Heed the world’s incessant whisper to not just look, but perceive.

The call is coming from inside the house. Answer it.

With maple syrup,