Catherine Ann Jones on Learning & Creativity

ON LEARNING & CREATIVITY
Catherine Ann Jones
Sunday, May 22, 2011 11-1pm
The Ojai Retreat

Goya at age 92 once remarked, “I am always learning.”
Learning is a life long process. As a writer and teacher for over thirty years now, I know how important it is remain open to learn. There is no greater danger to a teacher – as well as to the students- than to believe she knows. This is true both professionally and spiritually. To learn is to grow. Most educational systems condition us to develop left brain learning, conceptual learning, memorizing and parroting back knowledge. What of the other side of our brain though? Feelings, intuition, creativity. Are these less valuable than logical, linear learning? If you agree that these are also necessary, is there a way to encourage this part of ourselves to grow as well?
When I moved to Ojai, I left teaching graduate school at USC in Los Angeles, and created The Way of Story workshops first at the Esalen Institute then other venues in the States, Europe, and Asia. When I taught writing at graduate school in New York and LA, the focus was to teach the craft of writing, story structure, dialogue, character development, plot, theme, and so on. Later on, I realized that something was missing. The other side of the brain. So I began to teach writing in a new way, an experiential way. The attempt was to integrate both sides of the brain, to teach not only craft but the soul or essence of writing. This includes writing from sensation, feelings, intuition, channeling, and deeper places within. I created visualizations, improvisations, and short writing exercises to tap into these deeper parts of our psyche, and to express ourselves from there. Participants of The Way of Story workshops would leave saying that the workshop was a life changing experience. What happened here? I didn’t do anything other than create a safe and sacred space for the deeper learning to occur. The exercises became a catalyst to access a deeper place for transformative learning. This made way for authentic self-expression and an integration of self.
What do we mean by learning anyway? Claude Shanon in 1948 wrote about information therapy. He stated that meaning had become irrelevant to engineering information. Hence, a message devoid of meaning is what we have today, in this Age of Information. Information is not Knowledge or Wisdom. There is outer learning or linear, logical learning which while valuable represents only half of what is there for us. Inner learning is at least no less valuable than the other. To value both and to encourage both is to integrate a balance life. Otherwise, there is always the danger of fragmentation, a splitting apart of who we are at a deeper level and our outer conditioned, reactionary selves.
Creativity is a leap into the unknown. It takes courage to live a creative life.
The rewards are endless: a sense of wonder, both an inner and outer adventure, to create form from invisible energy, to connect and share with the collective in a form of music, art, theatre or film or books. To live the daily life from a creative perspective is to live a creative life. Years ago, a friend of mine was a prima ballerina with George Balanchine and his New York City Ballet. I had the good fortune to be invited to attend rehearsals. I observed Balanchine create a new ballet – a master sculptor who used bodies as his clay. He would take an arm or torso and shape it into something new, something daring. After rehearsal, Balanchine invited a few of us to join him at his home for dinner. So we went to his west side apartment. There I observed the maestro cooked in much the same way as he created a new ballet. He took a little of this and a little of that and a gourmet meal was created.
There’s more, for after a sumptuous dinner, his cat performed for us. Yes, Balanchine had taught his cat to dance! What stayed with me was that for this genius, there was no separation between his art and his life. This was a creative life.
Creation demands courage. By daring to tell our truth, we mirror the collective voice. In other words, in the specific are the universal – and not the other way round. To site one example from my own career as a writer: Years ago, I was writing plays in New York. I had written two plays which had been produced and received awards. I had written about Virginia Woolf and Calamity Jane, but had delayed writing the inevitable dysfunctional family play – something every writer must face at some time. Invited to Yaddo, an art colony in upstate NY, I determined to finally face writing the inevitable dysfunctional family play. It was the hardest thing I ever wrote. I knew instinctively that it was necessary though my logical mind knew that it would probably never have an audience as it was so intensely personal. I figured I’d write it as a kind of exorcism, to free myself of family ghosts, put it in a drawer, and then write something else afterwards. Well, this play, The Women of Cedar Creek, was not only produced, but won more awards than any of the other plays, and was optioned by MGM which resulted in being invited to work in Hollywood. And so, I learned a valuable lesson: that in the specific is the universal. So dare to be personal.
Creativity – as life- is a process, and a process which demands all of you. The trick is to know that creativity is something that comes through you, but is not yours. At moments of pure creativity, there is no ego, no doer- only creativity. Not my creativity – only the creative energy itself. If the ego claims this gift, then you are in big trouble.
The Muse is simply the willingness to open and surrender to something larger than you, to be an instrument to a greater Will. To do the work you are called for and then – as the Bhagavad-Gita says –to let go of the fruits of that action.
This can be both a Creative Life and a Spiritual Life as the two will eventually merge. This allows freedom from that conditioning which seeks to bind us with wrong identifications. I’ll go even further and say that living in this creative way can be a kind of love.