Version Without Pictures--Inspiring Newsletters 43-49

Inspiring Newsletter

re-inspiration for clients and friends of www.InspiringWebCopy.com

an "aperiodical"—to speak when I am moved to speak

issue 43-49, June 2009

Note--the photographs by my father in this issue may not display in
your email client. To see them you can go to
www.inspiringnewsletter.blogspot.com. Thanks.

Issue 43, Tuesday June 9th

Mozart Makes You Happier

The benefits have often been touted for increasing intelligence*. But
can it make you happier too?

After a few minutes of research, I was firmly convinced it can--my
memory is not clear now but I think one of the things about it, the
Divertimento in E flat, is the almost ludicrous upbeats to the
continuing phrases. As I replay it in my head I'm not finding the
spot, but I remember being struck by that. It's just not right to be
that happy! Maybe it's the viola accompaniment, the repeating pattern.
Nope, it is the three up beats in the second theme, and the whole
sense of this very silly thing being taken absolutely seriously that
seems to reset priorities to a healthy and appropriate lightheartedness.

(Update--later the same week I, normally very self-conscious in public,
found myself singing the first movement in the subway station. I never
do that with Mahler, occasionally with Brahms, hoping my voice will
sound reasonably operatic, but with Mozart it's just not possible to
stay self-conscious about one's performance because I'm having too much
damn fun.)

--
*I've also read somewhere that research on "the Mozart effect"--in
raising intelligence-- was actually inconclusive but had gotten hyped
by the popular media. While the Mozart Happiness Effect remains to be
validated by further scientific research, it's also pretty obvious if
you do a controlled study on yourself for two minutes.

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Issue 44, Wednesday, June 17

A Sense of What It was Really Like for You:
inspiring Interview with Eric Myrvaagnes, photographer

I've grown up with my father's photographs and took it for granted that
every father must take such beautiful pictures and see so much in
nature. It was a bit surreal to be interviewing him, and it allowed me
to see his work again with new eyes. It's also been an honor and
privilege to work with him as an un-coaching client, and not only has
he learned something new in each conversation we've had, but I've
learned something fascinating that has fed my soul. This interview
captures a little of what he says when he's made comfortable to speak.

IN: What inspires you to photograph?

Eric Myrvaagnes: Hm. One of the things that interetsed me abut it
first was that you cudl point this device at something that you saw
that was interesting and be able to remember it later.

Also, my first experience wiht a camera was seeing my older brother,
he'd gotten one and was interested in the process, so he was developing
his own photos. We didn't have a darkroom, so he got contact sheets
and chemicals and trays and worked in the closet, and I remember he
would work so long that at the end his leg would have cramped up so
much he had to be helped out of there. And I was very intrigued that
anything could be so interesting to someone that they would be willing
to undergo physical discomfort.

I go to Plum Island and feel a very moving spiritual presence in the
patterns of sand and water and light, and these move me really deeply.
. .

Then when I was at Greenwood [Music Camp], I borrowed his camera and
took snapshots of people. I remember that at first they were
self-conscious and put on a face when they saw me with the camera, but
soon they got used to seeing it and ignored it, so I was able to get
natural expressions.

[go to www.inspiringnewsletter.blogspot.com to see picture]

Untitled (Vermillion Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, July, 2004)

The clash of the clutter of rocks with the unreal-ly smooth water in
this feels so sad and right to me.
--JDM.

Then at Harvard someone suggested I get on the Crimson photo board. I
learned more from that than from my classes. But it began to look like
the assignments from that would take 40 hours a week and maybe I should
start going to at least some of my classes.

A classmate of mine saw my photographs and thought they were pretty
good. I was able to sneak into the Kirkland House darkroom after
hours, thanks to his expertise at making master keys, so I worked in
there. He also encouraged me to work on my landscapes, and introduced
me to the photographs of Ansel Adams, Minor White, and Edward Weston.
I saw an exhibit of Minor White's at MIT and was so amazed I wrote him
a letter. He invited me to take his workshop, so I did. Taking the
workshop with Minor White was life-changing. And he validated things
I'd already felt to be true but hadn't been able to articulate, and got
me to really see, in closer detail. The lessons from Minor White and
Paul Capinigro keep coming back, and I begin to understand things now,
fifty years later, that sort of went over my head at the time.

IN: What inspires you now?

EM: It's strange, since I started with portraits and have done very
little with people since then. Most people do tend to get
self-conscious; it's such an effort to get them to look natural. I
guess that's what attracted me to rocks, sea, sand, trees, and
wilderness, nature never seems to be putting on a face for the camera.

Translating an uplifting experience in words, unless you're very good
with words (and most of us are not), the person you're talking to gets
that you had a sublime experience, but has no sense of what it was
really like for you. This is what painters try to do and photographers
try to do.

Things that interest me now--I used to think that content was more
important, but I no longer think that, now what's most interesting and
compelling to me is how an image is a metaphor--for a feeling or idea
not directly to do with the thing itself. This is in my tar drip
photographs and Plum Island sand pictures--their not about sand or
water, but the interaction of shadow and light in sand and water
produce forms that can be very expressive. . .the way tonalities can
come together in the moment to produce very expressive images. One
thing I learned during the first Minor White workshop was that when
forms and shapes and sense of lighting all comes together the scene
comes alive--or is living but at the moment everything comes together
I'm privileged to be able to experience the life of the scene (trees,
water), and this sense of the scene coming alive is a very important
thing for me.
[go to www.inspiringnewsletter.blogspot.com to see picture]

Untitled (Newton, late 1990s)

My father knows more about the life-cycle of tar drips than anyone else
I've met, and can recognize the "signature" styles of the different
road repair crews in Newton.
--JDM

In the context of our lives as a whole, how can photography most
nourish people?

One thing that drives the impulse in both serious and amateur
photographers is that you experience something that gives you great joy
and you want to share it with people. For example sunsets and
rainbows, even though millions of pictures of them have been taken,
when you're experiencing it it still feels sublime: this one moment is
happening. Translating an uplifting experience in words, unless you're
very good with words (and most of us are not), the person gets that you
had a sublime experience, but has no sense of what it was really like
for you. This is what painters try to do and photographers try to do.
I go to Plum Island and feel a very moving spiritual presence in the
patters of sand and water and light, and these move me really
deeply--one of the challenges in photography is to determine what
aspects of an image will convey it to someone else? recently I have
been getting there. It's taken responses from viewers giving me
feedback to know.That kind of sharing can happen, but it doesn't happen
automatically by taking a picture at a time when you're out there,
that's where skill and experience are necessary. When I'm looking at
something mundane or ugly, if I can see beauty and can present it in a
way others will see--one way is my tar drips--a number of people have
said they have started looking at pavement in an entirely new way,
after seeing those photographs. Also graffiti on an abandoned railroad
car in Kingston: "I never knew rust could be so beautiful."

[go to www.inspiringnewsletter.blogspot.com to see picture]

Untitled (Plum Island, January, 2006)

Most people are in a rush these days--anything that can encourage
people to take some time out to experience something beautiful can be
nourishing.

If you could hang an exhibit anywhere, if you had a magic wand, where
would you want to hang it?

At a good museum like the MoMA, but partly because people who go to
museums are looking for that kind of experience. But on a more mundane
level, I like the idea of more exhibitions are the Newton Library,
because people who go there are a trained audience and are used to
having a comment book and a regular invitation to respond to what you
see, and people give feedback.

Is there any last thing you would want to add?

Your style of interviewing encourages the interviewee to come up with a
pretty good "artist statement"--it's a good way of getting people to
think about what makes people tick. I'm delighted, and I hope this has
helped you in your quest.

Thank you for giving the interview, it was a pleasure.

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Issue 45, Thursday, June 18th

They Don't Need to Be Persuaded

My mastermind partner again twisted my head around. I thought I'd
already covered the entire idea of the need for my purpose (my gift,
what I'm best designed to do) to be operating only in a circumstance
when the client wants me to succeed, without opposition). But hearing
the same idea come out of his mouth, again, pulled me into a state of
feeling how appealing that would be, to be working with someone who
didn't need to be persuaded that what you have to offer is of value.
It would be so much more pleasurable to be able to put one's energy
into doing the work rather than into asking oneself the "what's wrong?"
questions of "why is this person not persuaded that what I have to
offer is of value?" To be putting one's full attention into being
curious and asking questions.

In that way John Dempsey inspired me again.

It's also interesting to note that, in so doing, he persuaded me of
something--a return to the belief that this kind of situation could be,
that it was possible. If another person wants this, I felt there must
be lots of people who want it, and if lots of people want it, then we
ought to be able to find those people and work with them. Anyone who
appreciates not having to persuade someone of their usefulness will be
able to value the idea of not requiring others to do this. But I'm
pretty sure this was persuading without an effort to persuade, since we
were actually talking about his practice this week, not mine.

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Issue 46: Friday, June 12th

I said my purpose aloud in a room full of people

I told my artists group about my project of interviewing 100 people in
100 days, and it felt great to say this, and to say something about my
purpose: I am pure capacity-to-be-inspired, and there is no way I can
guarantee that I will be inspired since I don't inspire myself. I
depend on you--whoever or whatever else is present--to inspire me, I
don't do the inspiring. I may appear really serious and grim even, and
yet when something comes along and inspires me I am ready to perceive
it, notice what makes it inspiring, what makes it work, and describe
this with clarity, specificity, and appreciation of its pleasurability
and usefulness.

One of the other artist's had said something that inspired me to talk
about this project--what we say in the group is confidential, so I
can't talk about her project here unless/until I have her permission,
but I want to note that what I say above had just happened, in fact.

The temptation to lie, however, to be polite and please people, is
quite strong--"Sure, that was inspiring," I want to say, though not
really feeling it. Technically, everything is inspiring--the fact that
I have lungs and can breathe is such a miracle, of magic or chance,
however you look at it, that I could theoretically appreciate every
breath as inspiring. (That's what the word means, even.) But the
kinds of things that inspire me in other people seem, to me anyway, far
more interesting to talk about than breathing. I see an image of
invisible streams of energy moving around in their bodies, in their
abdomens, in particular, as somehow connected with inspiration.

I asked all the artists if I could interview them--that should be
showing up here soon.

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Issue 47, Saturday, June 13th

What are the Elves' Treasures?

I was rereading The Elves of Lily Hill Farm, about a woman who is
contacted by some elves and, with their help, grows many times more
grapes in her vineyard with far less pesticide.

I'd remembered the events in this book with a lot of clarity, and the
facts, and thought there'd be fairly little that would be new in a
rereading. Yet I was totally transformed.

The passage that especially inspired me--the elves are complaining to
her about how humans tear up everything in the fields and leave them
with no place to store their treasures! It gave me this wonderful
feeling of the happy, giddy joy that elves must take in their
treasures, and curiosity about what would be a treasure to an elf, a
being of nature, how that would differ from what we humans think of as
a treasure (gold and money). What can they be burying in their special
spots in the earth that could be allowed to grow and multiply if we did
less tearing up of that earth? I was smiling as I read.

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Issue 48, Saturday June 13th

My character tells me he's got a story to tell

I recorded myself reading a chapter of my novel, so I'd be able to
listen to it and it turned out my character, who is leading a ritual
with some people who are not used to ritual, has a story. He, and I,
both thought he didn't really have one, that his was less important
than another character's. But in listening to my own voice speaking I
had the space to feel what was going on as well as think it, and
thereby to realize that something is happening in the novel in this
chapter more than any other: he is allowing the other characters to
expand their reality.

in this chapter, the protagonist leads a ritual and in the course of it
he insists that he is a great poet and also that what the heart feels
to be true is true. It is precisely by doing something that annoys
them, something that is taboo in our culture--to claim that one is a
genius--that he gives them permission to admit that they're geniuses
also. My analytical brain had said, Nothing happens in this novel,
nothing happens in this chapter, I need to fix it. But my intuitive
brain saw a larger picture.

Since we all have an intuitive brain, we all have genius--1,000 to
10,000 times the processing speed of the usual brain we see used in our
society.

Issue 49: Monday, June 15th

My Client Reminds Me Reality is Real

My client and colleague called and we chatted for a while. She talked
about how it was difficult to see reality at times, when we're not in
the right "mood" we can project so many things onto what's actually
there that we may as well not be looking. She mentioned that the
plants on her walk are actually explosions.

She's been re-reading a book I read recently, Summer with Leprechauns,
about elementals, and at one point the leprechaun tells a human that
one of the things they want from humans most is for humans to believe
in their existence--that human disbelief is actually powerful enough to
damage them.

The truth is often like a leprechaun, I find, and Kurt and Patricia
Wright describe intuitive brain's voice (which always knows the truth)
as being like a prairie dog: the minute it sees you coming, it's gone,
popped down its hole. That means we need to make it very safe for the
truth to show itself before it will show itself; if we're waiting for
the truth to prove itself to our analytical brain, we can wait forever
and never be satisfied.

My business has taken me in unexpected directions, and one particular
project has seemed like it was failing miserably, running into
obstacles at every turn. My client pointed out the similarities with
the story we'd been reading--how the initial goal of harvesting 100
tons of grapes and becoming famous in the process eventually came to
seem small compared to the larger goal of creating healing, and balance
with nature. Was my story really as significant as that one? I felt
it was--in a way, comparing them is not the point, but the felt sense
of their measure is important.

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