https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=iteirgNDKrg
When you’re in a creative moment and we’re pulling from our stirrings, like we’re pulling, like the relevance realization machinery is just like logging away and pulling this stuff in. And the aesthetic experience, the creative muse moment is the through line. You’re literally living it. You don’t quite know what it is because it’s not there. Like it’s… But you know that there’s an organic truth, right, that you’re approaching. I freaking love that moment. Like when you’re sitting there and you go, I don’t know what the hell this is, but I know it’s there. And I know that when I get there, there’s going to be a click. It’s going to be an or… It’s going to be… What’s in my brain and what’s in the world are going to come together. And there’s going to be a harmonic moment. It’s going to go, oh… And I’ll know that the poem’s done. I’ll know the shape of this thing. And all of it was playing with that through line all the way down. See, this is exactly what we’re trying to bring in, Chris and Guy and I, Grister, Master Pietro, Guy Sandstock and I, into dialectic, into dialogos. Like you set up all these conditions, but what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make it so that that, you know, those two dimensions of logos catch fire, right? To bring all of that artistry and flow. And as you said, you can tell that you’re pushing your relevance realization machinery to its max. That’s like those are the features of dialogos. And that’s why I don’t just use the term dialogue because our term dialogue doesn’t capture this flow, the artistry, the generativity, the emergence. And in that sense, you have that sense of the entrustment. I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m going to… I trust myself to follow it, right? All of that. Yeah. Hallelujah to that. Welcome, everybody, to another Voices with Reveke. I’m very excited to have Kevin Bowers here. And I’ve met Kevin and we’ve talked a bit. And I wanted him to come on with the Voices with Reveke because the work he’s doing is extremely interesting. It intersects with the work I’m doing in a lot of powerful ways. So welcome, Kevin. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so just before we got on here, John said, you know, give a little bit of biography to unpack what brings me to his work and how it sort of fires me up so much. In some ways, it’s a long tale. I’ll try to shrink it down, but let’s start as a teenager, shall we? I’m a creative person. And sometime in my teenage years, I sort of like fell upon this weird headspace that was available to me in writing, particularly, and in music, where I could improvise these things and make weird sense out of language and music. And I always found it kind of odd because there was nowhere in the world, like my teachers weren’t talking about it, my parents weren’t interested in it. It was this strange headspace that was all of a sudden available to me. And it sort of brought me into some interesting spaces in my life, and like jazz music, and I read like On the Road, and Jack Kerouac, it’s sort of the beatnik thing. And I got very interested in this place where creativity and sort of a good life, or an interesting life, were sort of referenced to each other, where they touched. And I always felt like artful living was part of the game, right? To figure out how the artistic experience, which was sort of like the favourite part of my consciousness, could be sort of turned into an extraordinary life. And it was really important to me for… Well, it still is. And so, you know, flash forward, and I’m a teacher, and I teach English in high school. And the institution and this kind of consciousness that I had sort of been playing with and finding great joy in was… They didn’t necessarily meet. Again, you know, there was like plot graphs and novels to read, but this idea of this sort of special kind of consciousness that was really important to me and really freeing and engaging was not sort of on the curriculum, at least explicitly on the curriculum. When you read the curriculum a little deeper, you know, it can surprise that there are sort of doors to these kinds of experiences. But at first, I didn’t see them. And I was really dedicated to this idea of like having students experience this thing. And so I, you know… And I guess this goes part to this awakening from the meaning crisis and the role, the creativity of my play in it. It’s like having practiced that kind of consciousness, I was… I’m sort of unwilling to sort of let an institution or sort of normality sort of get in the way of, you know, there’s a fight in it, you know, a motivational sort of grind, a little sliver that just won’t let you be. So I went digging. And one of the first pieces that came to me that brings me here is a book that I found, and I’m old enough that that comes out of an old card catalogue in a library, you know, shifting through, looking for creativity. And I remember I found a card and on it, it said, A Wack Upside the Head by a guy named Roger Van Ouch. What a great name. And he it’s an entrepreneurial book about creativity and getting entrepreneurs to sort of break outside of the box and think creatively so that they can invent. And in that, he gave me some language that has stuck with me all this while. He talks about the artist, the explorer, the artist, the judge and the warrior. And these are sort of mindsets that one can take upon engaging in creativity. And this was really important to me because I just thought it was when the moment sort of struck me is that I can take this creativity thing that felt. The muse, you know, always feels like an almost impossible thing to unpack, like it’s this weird thing that takes over and it’s joyful and strange, but it’s elusive. And but here was a guy saying, no, no, you can take it. You can break it down and we can put on hats. And so he has these little sort of diagrams of the explorer hat. And what is the attitude of the explorer? And so I started giving my students explorer activities where we would just use a sort of consciousness that would act quickly and engage in the world. And. And so I got really good at separating and making distinct aspects in the in a creative process. And as I did it, I found that it was helping my creative process. It’s like all of a sudden I’m writing more and engaging more and my kids, my students are immediately. Glomming onto this like they get their consciousness is ready for any of these activities like it’s just it kind of never fails like it’s like these these strategies are sort of latently like the humans just waiting to be triggered in these ways. Anyway, so I’m having great success with that. I decide that, you know, this has become my life’s work at this point. And I went and got a master’s degree and I found John Dewey just the title of that book, Art is Experience, grabbed my attention. And he just goes deeper and further into this parsing apart, this elusive, ineffable thing that I thought was creativity. But now it’s being articulated and I can. So I spent a lot of time just going deeper and. Um. Sort of gearing my entire practice as a teacher around explicitly teaching and operationalizing aspects of creativity for learning. And then I found Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and an unbelievable sort of like. What’s the word when it just sort of like my schema in your words just kind of clicking and there’s sparks flying as you’re as you’re going through these as I’m going through these podcasts. It’s like one after the other, I’m sort of having these aha moments, these little epiphanies of like the connectivity between, you know, relevance realization or contact epistemology and, you know, all these words that are all new to me. Like they’re, you know, they’re fresh things in my consciousness. But my God, the conversation between Dewey and your, your work just felt to me too, too real to be ignored. And it, and it, um. And it’s come to me at a really sort of an important time because it’s really, you know, as an educator, I’m like. The success that I’ve had with creativity in an educational domain has been really life fulfilling and thrilling. But I started to see with sort of your sort of mandate of like Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, it’s a much broader story, right? It’s this, it’s huge. And I’m like, so you’re catching me at a time when I’m like, seeing that this creativity thing is not just for teachers and not just in the domain of the classroom, but it’s a way of really finding, um, sort of a broad spectrum efficacy in, in joy and meaning making, um, uh, for anybody. Um, and I did a workshop not too long ago with some adults, but they’re just like people that were sort of searching for meaning. And I said, I sort of put my hand up and did a workshop. I’ve done a million of them as a teacher. And I was like, I’m so excited to be here. I put my hand up and did a workshop. I’ve done a million of them as a teacher. Right. So I was like, in 50 minutes, I can bring someone through a creative process and articulate some of these pieces and just the amount of enthusiasm and joy. There’s, oh my God, I can do this. Like I can have people surprise their own consciousness really quickly. And for them to have to sort of redefine themselves a little bit, like, holy shit, I didn’t know that was in me. Right. Um, anyway, so that’s, um, that’s sort of what lands me in your, uh, on your podcast, I would say. That’s an excellent landing. Now, maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought you also like, you also sort of created a specific program that you’re teaching now. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s right. So, well, I’ve been doing it for years, actually. So I’m at the limestone board and that’s in Kingston, Ontario and Canada here. And, um, somehow before my time, there was some wise person who came up with this, an idea called a focus program. And the concept there is that a teacher can come along and sort of say, oh, uh, wouldn’t it be great to get a bunch of students and let’s say we could, uh, let’s say they’re a contractor and they can build a house while I, the teacher is. And they, I bet there’s a bunch of students who’d be interested in learning that. And we could put together a credit package and we can give it a fancy name and brand it as, you know, I think the one was called renovations plus, and they get the kids that go out and get all the skills together to, um, to build. So I was, I’m a musician. And so my first, uh, focus program was called, let’s make a demo. And I’m a songwriter. So I was teaching kids how to write songs. We had a little recording studio, um, and the kids come, they could bust them from all of the different schools. And, um, and, uh, I bring them through, uh, process of recording an album. We do live shows. We do, we make videos. And, um, so I did that for about a decade and then, um, and then I switched to film. So now I’m doing one called studio. I’ll see similar concept. Students get bussed in from various schools and, um, and, uh, I, yeah, there’s a few things that are really unique and important about this program. And it’s taught me a lot about, um, uh, what works, uh, for teaching. And one is, um, sort of a shared community of interest, right? Like everybody’s there because there’s a calling, like there’s something within them that said film is important to me. It doesn’t mean that they’re filmmakers when they walk in the door. Like many of them haven’t held a camera, uh, with that intention before, but they do love media and, um, and now they’re in a group, uh, of other teenagers with a teacher who’s chosen to build that space. And the other trick is that they have, we have all day together. So for a semester, I’m giving them in this case, three credits. Um, and so we get this sort of like time to, uh, um, play with the materials and go deep and build a, build a project that comes from their own interests. And, um, you know, and the bell doesn’t ring and they go off to chemistry, right? They’re able to sort of stay in that consciousness, um, and in that community. Um, and of course I build into it, this sort of creative process teaching. So I’m like, I’m doing all of this creativity work and the expression of that comes out into, um, the making of films or the writing of songs or whatever it might be. Um, so I feel like, uh, I gotta be the luckiest teacher on, uh, if in this province, if not beyond, uh, cause it’s, um, it’s a special space that I get to occupy and, uh, and, uh, yeah, the motivation is just like, I have to slow them down. I mean, really my, you know, there’s, there’s this sort of cliche or like, oh, teenagers, you know, you can’t get to do anything or something. It’s like, it’s quite the opposite. Like they’re, the wheels are spinning and then they want to go. And it’s sort of my, you know, I got to use some of my age and experience to say, okay, well, well, well, like we’ve got cool plans here, but let’s get, let’s organize it a little bit. Um, anyways, it’s a joyful, uh, joyful space. Yeah. I think young adults are actually, if they’re given the right conditions for serious symbolic play, they will engage in it quite, quite passionately. So I guess, uh, there’s a whole bunch of questions I want to ask you. Uh, I guess I first want to ask you some, uh, almost phenomenological questions. I want to ask you questions. Like, first of all, what you’re observing in these kids, like what, what do you see happening? Um, I, I mean, they’re with you all day versus semester and they’re with each other and they’re doing a lot of, like, how deep does the transformation go for them? Like, do they start to reframe their sense of identity? There’s their, um, sense of connectedness to the world. Um, and not, not, not to put my thumb on the scale or anything, but, um, does it, is it sometimes, you know, affording, uh, you know, maybe, um, uh, an existential or spiritual awakening for them? Um, is that, are these questions landing for you? Does this make sense to ask them? Yeah, it, it does. Um, the sense of community is that we get the sort of sense of belonging and, um, right. Um, sort of shared momentum in life is really quite profound and quite moving. Like it, like, um, there’s a dearness to it, you know, like there’s a, a real care, uh, for, we call it studio. Like that’s sort of the, you know, to be in studio has an, there is an identity sort of attached to it. Yeah. And I’m not, it’s funny because I’m not, I’m a very sort of uninstitutional guy. Like I don’t dress up on, you know, like, uh, school colors and I don’t have pom poms, you know, like I’m, I’m very much different than that, but, um, this very organic and sort of like, um, important and specialness is, is in the space. Um, and, uh, because I’ve been doing this for so long, I have to tell you, it’s one of the joys of my life. Like I live in Kingston here and all my students that you’ve been, I walked down the street or, you know, go to a bar or something. And it’s like, oftentimes my students are there and I’m a musician. So oftentimes they’re doing sound or maybe they’re drumming in a band that I’m in or something. And it is so heartwarming, you know, the amount of connection that still exists, um, with that experience, having done this thing together. Um, uh, I would say, you know, I don’t want it to come across as like a presumptuous or arrogant or something like, but it, it, it was a central moment in many people’s lives. It was a, it was a, it was a transitional moment for lots of people and it’s still sort of, um, helps. We talk about this explicitly, like, for instance, like we’ll be sitting there, maybe storyboarding for a film or something like that. And the students are just like really excited and they’re laughing and they’re drawing and there’s like, something’s being built. It’s very much like logos, right? Like you can see the fire in this space and I will often stop and I’ll say, okay, I just, just for a moment, I want you to remember this feeling guys, like right now, you feeling it? Like it’s like the world offers you this, this is a space that you can occupy and do not take anything less. Like do not find yourself in some fricking cubicle somewhere wishing that you had that fire. Like it’s available, it’s real, and we can shape our lives towards that. And I think that sort of notion of that specialness and sort of holding on to it is sort of lands with, with them, like that it is important to maintain and to sort of, like it’s sort of like a sacred fire that we got. Yeah. That’s how it’s feeling for me. That’s how it’s feeling for me. Right. So, I mean, you’re using a lot of terms that are important to me, the sense of belonging, a sense of connectedness. I take it that it’s not only with each other, but they are also connected to this, the shared fire. Yeah, yeah, that’s nicely said. Right. What about- It doesn’t have to be that community, right? It’s this thing that you can sort of bring into the world. It brings me back to myself as a teenager and feeling there was, I know there’s something special and- Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you. So, I get, you know, with each other and with the shared fire, but does it translate also into, well, I’ll use another one of my phrases, falling in love with the world again. Does it have that impact? I think the moment you said that on your podcast at one point, and I almost cried when you said it because it was just like, I use that verbatim and I have for years. That feeling of when you’re engaged in a creative process and the world is sort of opening up to you and you’re opening up to it and it’s happening amongst us and there’s this thing and it’s like falling in love. It’s falling in love with the world. It’s falling in love with art. It’s falling in love with being alive. It’s one of my rifts and it has been for years. When you said it, I was like, God damn it. I talk explicitly about that with students and it lands every time. I know because I’m in it with them. I’m part of the logos with them and I’m feeling it. It’s palpable. It’s participatory. The other thing that I want to credit you for and let you know, because I’ve woven your lectures into my, it’s woven so nicely into what I’ve been doing for years. I’m starting to use your language. It’s just coming out of me. I’m not really thinking about it, but as I’m talking, I’m using words like logos and reciprocal opening and belonging and it’s like 17 year olds, no problem. I don’t have to translate. I don’t have to say, oh, there’s this guy I’ve been listening to on YouTube. I don’t mention you. I just use your language and it’s been fun to watch. September is when I’ve been with this new class and when this language has been and it’s seamlessly entered into our culture. It’s present, your language and it has that sticky beauty to it. It’s nice when you build a community and it gets its own language. That’s part of what culture is. It’s this offering language, ways of interacting, mannerisms. It’s all of it. We’re all sold in it and walking in it. And it’s quite a high for me to watch it happen. I can imagine. So a couple questions then. First of all, you embody what you’re saying so palpably. Like you’re doing gestures and you got rhythms. I’m going to ask you these impossible questions. That’s not fair, but go ahead. Well, I’m going to ask you, but I’m going to ask you them in the spirit of fellowship. I’m not here to in any way embarrass or call you out. I want to just explore this with you. I’m talking to more artists. Try your best and I will work with you and I’ll try my best. What does your muse feel like? I get to these moments that I find it’s almost like everything’s connected such that I can’t make a mistake. My brain will land on some object that’s just near me and it’s the right object for the next sentence if it’s a poem. And there’s this joyful sort of loftiness to it where it’s like, it’s light but it’s fast and it’s light and fast, open and goofy a little bit. It’s a bit like, you know, anything goes so it’s a bit of sort of slapstick to it. Am I in the right domain for your question? I think I have to be because it’s coming out of my mouth. No, you’re answering the question exactly as what I want. Because for me, the stuff that you’re doing with the kids and everything and the way they’re getting enhanced meaning in life and they’re getting into the flow state and they’re getting belonging and they’re getting connectedness and they’re starting to fall in love with the world. I get all that but for me, I can tell that there’s something in you that helps them catch fire and that has been leading you and it’s also wrapped up in your proposals for an artful life. I’m getting allusions of Nietzsche and Plato out of that. But before I move into that conceptual stuff, I want to really zero in on what this is like because I’m trying to see what the variations are between people. But also more importantly right now for me, I’m trying to figure out what are the commonalities when people experience it. So you’re in the flow state, that’s obviously part of it but there’s something more. Like do you feel it? I mean you used fire gestures and fire metaphors. Why those? Why are they right? There’s definitely something heightened about it. Like there’s something sort of like when you’re on fire, like we use that in language right here. That guy’s on fire, he’s giving her. That is palpable when things are going well. It’s rolling and it’s like you’re on a wave, it’s flow state. It has that sort of feeling of like you’re cresting this thing and you’ve got to respect it man because it’s awesome but you’ve trained yourself to hold it. But not be too serious about it because it’s like balancing on this. So I guess I’ve moved away from fire a bit, I’ve turned it into a wave. But there is like this, I guess when I was going fire, I was more into the sacred element of it, wasn’t I? I was talking about like this wave or this feeling is like it’s so sweet and it’s so important and it requires your attention and care. So all of those things I think are at play. What do you feel like? What’s what? This is helping me. What’s happening to your sense of the way you’re attending to the world? Yeah, I kind of recognize myself. I’ve been doing it long enough that I sort of recognize myself when it’s coming on and there’s a poem wanting to come out or a song or something. It’s like, oh, there it is. Like, oh, and how do I tend to things? When I get into that, I think it’s like, oh, I’m going to be a little bit more of a how do I tend to things? When I get into that space, things become, Dewey calls it stirring, like I’m stirred by things that sort of like come up and say, me, me, me. And somehow like my eye can land on things or maybe it’s my mind’s eye and it’ll just go, yep, yep, yep. And it’s a very quick sort of and I’ve got good and this is what I teach, like getting this stuff down fast, like inviting that feeling and then get out of your own bloody way and let those things that come to you and get them down. So the world does get more things that come up strike as important really quickly. Okay. Yeah. And then and so and then correlated with that with something you just mentioned, getting out of your bloody way, like what does this that’s a weird thing to say, right? It’s almost like it’s almost like the muse and of course, even using that term, it’s almost like it’s personified and you are in the way of it. But you have this, you’re identical to it, but you’re not identical to it in that kind of statement. That’s a very interesting way of talking. Is that resonating with what you’re saying? Oh, yeah, yeah, because you can second guess yourself, you can. So in the way that I teach students with that is like the artist and the say judge, these are two characters. Do not let them in the same room at the same time. They must be separated. And I practice, you know, getting into that artist space and just and I say, just write crap like it doesn’t have to be good, but just get in that habit of just letting it flow and get good at that. And as soon as you hear some if you’re writing something, oh, that sucks. If you say that in your own head, then use this practice, just quietly say, go away, judge, like I’m on to the next thing. Like if I write crap now, that’s fine, because it’s just one moment like I got 30 more moments right ahead of me and I’m going to ride the wave through those. So get the judge out of the way. So get getting out of the way. I think I think I’m referring to this judge character who will come and be useful for us at some point in this process. But you got to be good at separating and not having different parts of your cognition sort of parts of your cognition sort of get knotted up and tripping on each other. You just did now. It might just be an artifact of you talking to me, but you do. Do you actually like say to the judge? It felt a little bit like IFS and parts work where you like you say to the judge, no, not right now. Your time is later. Or or do you like how do you what do you tell your students to do in order to do that act of keeping the judge out and keeping the artist in? I do say it explicitly. And I mean, I in my own consciousness when I’m doing it, I’m probably not saying the word judge, but I do find myself like if I’m writing and I’ll I’ll start editing and trying to figure out a spell a word and I’ll be like, no, no, no, no, fuck that, like, go. Yeah, yeah, I like it’ll be like. And with students, I I do all sorts of exercises to make that free flowing artist music experience separate. For instance, like time, like I’ll time them. So you got four minutes to write on this go like and you can’t stop your hand. And you know, like there’s literally strategies designed to have them outflank their own judge. Right. And you know, invariably, they will surprise themselves with what they are able to do if they don’t edit themselves. Right. Yeah. Am I on the right track still for your queries? I’m finding this very fascinating, Kevin. So now the other end, you can’t stay on fire. So like. How do you guide your students? Because I take it that you want them to live more on fire, but you can’t live always on fire. And so what’s what’s the guidance you give about that? Well, in in the specific sort of teaching creative process, that fire part is only one one strand of consciousness that I’m interested in. And I make it very explicit that that’s your relationships to these things are temporal. You’re going to be in there just for a little while. And I put time frames on them like quite explicitly, because, yeah, you’re not going to sustain this thing forever. And so the judge that we’ve sort of pushed aside for a while will be invited back. And I invite back quite quickly. So we’ll do a quick I call them wild minds, like a quick wild mind. Yeah. And then grab their attention again. It’s OK. I want you to put that consciousness aside. Let’s invite the judge in now. Read what you just wrote. And, you know, the judge, she acts real quickly to just find two or three phrases that you think. And I’ll give them some kind of boundaries that sound cool, you know, moments that just sort of like feel a little bit more interesting, cool, sweet and just like a highlighter pen. Right. So it’s a different immediately. You’re sort of transforming your the landscape of what you just did. You know, you you set up the fire and then you walk away and then you look at the fire and you go, I could adjust some things here. And yeah. And so like some of the things that might come out of in a wild mind would just be like one line. Well, that line may be the beginning of something later, like we’ll plant that seed for an activity down the road. It might be a prompt for a character that we’re going to build into a film or it might be right. There’s another trick that I really that’s really successful for me is like not knowing where the hell it’s going. Like we do all sort of explorer activities and I explicitly do them in such a way that it’s like what we’ve arrived at is a bunch of random, cool sounding things that have no meaning. And then within 10 minutes, I can say, OK, look at it this way. So here’s a list of words. I’ll say come up with a cool band name from all of those things. It’s just random words that we just came up with. And the landscape of those of that list shifts immediately. And people could say, oh, that’s a cool band name. That’s a cool band name. And then I’ll get the kids to like, OK, so Johnny said lip service is a cool band name. And then I say, OK, in your mind’s eye and I maybe talk to a partner, it’s like build a band. What are they? What kind of music do they play? What’s the instrumentation? Design the logo that is on the thing. And it’s like, again, I use the word logos for this. It’s like it’s just it will develop in front of you. Like if we have faith in the band lip service, it will come to you. And when you feel that happening, like respect how cool that is. Like that is really cool that you’re able to do that. This is like eight minutes of a lesson. Boom, you do it once. And then everybody’s come up with different band names. So I guess what I find interesting about it is this. In the creative process, you keep changing perspective on the thing. Yes, totally. You’re in it for a while in a way that’s like all of your consciousness. And then you look at it with a different viewpoint and then it offers you these little things. And then you ask those little things to do. You know, you put a different boundary on it. Yeah. And so in that same list, I can come up with three or four totally different activities based on these sort of random explorer activities that we would have done. And so when I when I take that into like, how can you bring that into life? Yeah. Like, isn’t it fascinating that we can take random beauties and just based on how we play with them, the perspective with which we bring to them, the questions we ask of them, the limitations and boundaries that we set for ourselves, you know, untold glories can just sort of like fly off and sparks in every which direction and do. So I just find that really optimistic. You know, I find that like, wow, like, we can do that. Like, we can, like, if we have an aesthetic mindset, if we look at the world with that intention, we can carry it with us, right? Like, that’s part of this artist experience. Artful living thing that I’m, it’s been sort of my, you know, the longest riff in my life at this point is trying to figure out, you know, how art and meaning and good living are we’ve, you know, and I and yeah, that’s so I mean, you’ve got this multi perspectival stuff, very perspectival, and the multi perspectival is you’re setting different agent arena relationships, and then, right, you’re getting, and then you’re trying to find the through line that’s being being right. And then. And so I love that through the through line isn’t only between the things that have been generated. It’s the through line between the different perspectives, right? There’s an inner dialogue. There’s a so there’s an inner dialogue between the perspective, the perspectival agents, the eye positions, and then there’s right a through line from all of the things that have been made salient and all the different ways they’ve been made salient. And then those two things. So you’ve got this inner dialogue and this outer dialogue running and they’re they’re sort of empowering each other. Does that land with you as a way of talking about this? It sure does. Yeah. Because because this through line thing that I you know that you taught me. I find that really generative, like really exciting. The way in which the thing is not the thing it’s the exactly exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that but there’s but the through line because when you when you’re in a creative moment and we’re pulling from our stirrings like we’re pulling like the relevance realization machinery is just like walking away and pulling this stuff in and the the aesthetic experience, the creative muse moment is this is the through line. You’re literally living it. You’re you’re you don’t quite know what it is because it’s not there. Like it’s yeah. Yeah. Like but you know that there’s an organic truth, right, that you’re approaching. I freaking love that moment. Like when you’re sitting there you go I don’t know what the hell this is but I know it’s there and I know that when I get there there’s going to be a click. It’s going to be an it’s going to be what’s in my in my brain and what’s in the world are going to are going to come together and there’s going to be a harmonic moment. It’s going to go oh and I’ll know that the poem’s done. I’ll know the shape of this thing and all of it was playing with that through line all the way down. See this is exactly what we’re trying to bring in Chris and Guy and I, Grister, Mastro Pietro, Guy Sandstock and I into dialectic into dialogos. Like you set up all these conditions but what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to make it so that that you know those two dimensions of of logos catch fire, right, to bring all of that artistry and flow and as you said you can you can tell that you’re pushing your relevance realization machinery to its max. That’s like those are the features of dialogos and that’s why I don’t just use the term dialogue because our term dialogue doesn’t capture this the flow, the artistry, the generativity, the emergence and that sense you have, that sense of the entrustment. I don’t know where it’s going but I’m going to I trust myself to follow it, right, all of that. Yeah, hallelujah to that. That’s entrustment. That’s a great word. I don’t know that I know that word but I think I know what it means to trust, right, like you’re trusting that there’s beauty underneath there and that the beauty is important and that it’s maybe just like you know next to truth, right, it’s just sitting there right next to truth. You know it man. I think it’s Michelangelo and the David, I don’t know if this is true but the idea is like you know there’s this big chunk of marble and it’s like someone asks him like you know well what do you know how are you going to do it and he’s just like well David’s in there I just I just got to get him out. Yeah right right yeah and I feel that way about a poem that’s evolving. It’s like because I do these wild mind things I don’t know what the hell it is when I’m doing it but I feel I’m following the flow down this through line. I don’t know what the hell it means and I talk a lot to students about this like don’t worry about meaning. It’s a pain in the ass right now. Get it out of your head. Just feel it like just ride that thing and I’ll give them like they’ll have resources around them like I will we will have played stirring games so there will be stuff to play with. There will be materials that are relevant and important that they chose that are amongst them as they’re starting to weave so the artist weaves those materials together and just have and trust I’m gonna start using that and trust that when one word follows another it will be right and I say to them these are the rules make it flow and sound cool. Yeah if you get those two things forget about meaning. Meaning will come. Yeah exactly and then you get all this language and it’s like and then it’s and then it’s Michelangelo in the marble. What the hell is this thing? Yeah start like be a judge pick out a few of those really salient pieces and maybe put that at the top. Maybe that’s if that’s the title what does the rest of it mean? You know and they just start scraping and shaping and so you know poem this big gets that big but that big is freaking beautiful beautiful. So I don’t have you know that Michelangelo got that image from Plotinus the Platonic philosopher but Plotinus actually used the image for becoming oneself that what you have to do is remove the the rock to release the self that’s been trapped in. So he took this artistry metaphor towards right participating in one’s own aspiration is an artistic endeavor and so this is what I like that yeah this is one of the great things about neo-platinism is its capacity to weave to use your language to weave rational spiritual and aesthetic together so seamlessly so seamlessly which is why it keeps recommending itself to me as a as a kind of template we should be trying to learn from. So you’re here. What Tim what do you think about art in the world today because many people in this little corner of the internet are largely dissatisfied with the artistic world today. I’m not taking that stance but I was just talking to another artist and and she was saying she finds that the artistic community is too sort of self-referential it’s too much about finding your place in the history of art and following with that and she wanted to make a criticism of of I guess maybe a predominance of a sort of not postmodernism but maybe a postmodern attitude a kind of cynicism and and being drawn towards ugliness and startling people and I mean I’ve seen several art exhibits that very much meet that it like it seems and I’m not an artist so I could be ignorant so I meet that right now but I’m just right relating what I’ve seen and some of the people I’ve talked to it seems like beauty isn’t very important to a lot of artists these days and making a statement which I think is a worrying trend seems to be more prevalent in what artists are doing. Now you invoke beauty and falling in love with the world and the path the real possibility that beauty could usher us into the truth and that sounds very different so I mean you are an artist and you are an artist teacher and I’m asking that question very open to you do you reflect do you reflect on that because I mean you must have to at some points because you’re setting your you’re sending these kids out and some of them are going to perhaps try to enter into the artistic community and the artistic world and so surely that must come up at some point that question does it or am I being presumptuous? Um yeah I don’t spend much time bumping into I don’t think I’m that interested in in I’m interested in the experience of being creative and and um like I’m not I’m not trying to get into you know the Museum of Modern Art or something like I’m not you know what I mean like it feels a bit that that space feels a bit lofty to me and I do know what you mean though I mean there is there’s a very self-referential world out there um I just I feel sort of very distant from um the art world like I’m I’m just a artist you know what I mean like I don’t know I feel like I’m just I’m just a dude making art and uh and feeling lucky to be able to share it with students um and um and one of the things I love about art is that other artists inspire me and you know that the materials that’s laying that are laying around in my landscape that that you know stir me um I get to choose them you know like so if there’s I guess because of that the the things that inspire me are not of that ilk I suppose like I’m being inspired by uh things that touch me and things that touch me typically are I’m not going to say like it’s not about being life-affirming there’s it’s not like kitschy like feel-good hallmarkian kind of vibe I’m going for I’m more than willing to go dark like that that I’m happy to play in those um in the shadows um but it’s not referencing the art world and nihilism or something like I’m right right it doesn’t um I don’t have enough um interest to bring me there so it’s not influencing me I think is what I’d say do your kids bump up against it I mean maybe they’re it’s in Kingston that’s not the case I don’t know um my partner’s uh daughter she’s in art school uh okad and so you know uh and and sometimes I’m trying to get a sense of to what degree she’s bumping up against this or not that’s why I wanted to ask the question uh from you uh because I’ve been thinking I’ve you know I’ve been reading quite a bit about beauty um and you know a hans book saving beauty and uh you know and the work on the trends and dentals the true the good and the beautiful and how they relate to each other dc schindler on beauty which has been a huge impact on me and that’s come through from von baltasar um do you think we’re at a place where we can start talking about beauty seriously again I guess that’s maybe an unfair question so I don’t I just want to ask you like what do you think about that well I do I you know and I and I don’t feel any anybody pushing back like um I think there’s a real yearning for it you know I think uh um and I don’t know like in the world that I you know am in as a teacher you know uh and as an artist is like the will to have moments of joy and transcendence and connection and belonging and all those things we started with is like there’s a hunger for that stuff like that’s like you know there’s like no there’s no urge to go bleak really um uh like for instance today was an important day in Canada right it was for reconciliation truth and reconciliation yeah um and I take that stuff very seriously um and we spent some time today in class talking about it and man that’s bleak or we’re you know you can’t get bigger words than genocide and you know like the horrors of residential schools um I tried to reframe it a little bit today and like I find that this doesn’t get enough attention and it speaks I think a little bit to sort of what a creative mindset sort of like the rifts that it allows it’s like when I hear truth and reconciliation my first instinct is oh my goodness we white people have to apologize for the horrors that we’ve perpetrated on the first nations and yes for sure and I do think it’s important that we have truth and we look at it and accept it but the part that sort of irks me is that it’s like it’s it’s feels like still a bit of sort of an arrogant disposition to just sort of say oh yeah we screwed up um because what we what I want to do and when I sort of share with my students and again you know the willingness to go here was was evident it’s like we have so much to learn from the mindsets of the indigenous people that we were you know that we perpetrated these evils on their relationship to each other and to nature and to the you know the way that they sort of the way that they saw forest like I would freaking I would love to be able to sit in a forest and feel what an Ojibwe would have felt 300 years ago like to just be brother and sister to the verbs all around them like everything’s alive everything’s connected um and we got you know we have we have to be so humble and and and um and imagine that relationship you know I heard you talking about the imaginal right the space that we can occupy uh we can we can learn so much using our imaginal spaces and I want truth and reconciliation to be 80% that what can learn from them what can what can we what guidance could we if we were humble and we just shut up with our colonial surety and I think what you call the tyranny of propositions like like oh I know the problem we need to apologize and give them money like that’s the solution it’s such an arrogant place to be it’s like no no they understood their relationship to the world in a way that we so desperately need and if we could just humble ourselves and listen and then allow the imaginal sort of space in where we could sit in a forest and really belong um so I guess that came to mind because that was a really you know we’re talking about genocide and we can sort of spin it with a little bit of imagination and turn it into hope and beauty and love and connectedness you know like uh and they’re willing to go there and they’re smart man these kids like they know about genocide and they are really cynical about capitalism and you know like they got cynicism for sure and and well earned I mean you know they say stuff that I find fascinating and true um but that doesn’t it it doesn’t come across as um a cynicism that is restricting potential right it’s they still want love and connectivity and beauty right like yes yes it’s not uh it’s not a closed door right like it’s not like uh oh I’m cynical therefore the whole world sucks I’m not getting that I’m getting um they want the fire you know that stuff we were talking about that’s that’s a present and real yeah I that was really well done Kevin that’s a really excellent answer right so right the response to the dark aspects of reality is an imaginal response of trying to see what can be learned um yeah about different ways in which other groups of people have connected to the world I can’t remember the author of the book right now but Sand Talk is exactly about the the kind of wisdom that we should pay be paying attention to from Indigenous people um and I find I found it interesting your proposal that instead of political negotiation and economic negotiation which of course has to happen but I like I agree with your proportioning 80% of it has to be imaginal it has to be artistic but it doesn’t it doesn’t have to mean it doesn’t have to mean despair right it I find that very interesting that you’re the way you’re you’re sorry I’m struggling because it’s really grasping it’s really grabbing me right there the students are cynical but not in a way that one makes them want to put out that fire they still want to fall in love with being they still want to fall in love with the world they still want to explore deeply they’re not they’re not like there’s there’s a there’s um I don’t know there’s an element of I guess what I’m saying is there’s almost like courage like encouragement um they they’re they’re developing right an active courage in the face of that because many people of course could just you could you could just be you could just be sort of wounded by it yes or you could just you could just be hardened against it uh but you’re you’re kind of recommending and this is almost a Daoist thing that they learn to flow with it um in some interesting way and not I don’t mean interesting in a dilettante way like interesse to be within that’s what the word interest means interesse to be within like they’re learning to be within it and flow with it um um and I want to thank you for that that was that that was a really a really profound answer um because I worry that the opposite will happen that we’ll get hallmark card art on both sides right that um is largely captivated by some political intent rather than and they’re getting the causal arrow the wrong way around no no no you do this work first and then you take that into your political negotiations your economic you do you understand what I’m proposing that you get this right this ratio religio this right relationship going first and then you get clear about what might need to be done at the propositional level at the technological level that’s what I heard you saying and that no that yeah I think that’s right I mean because your propositions are going to be wrong if they’re if they’re coming from the you know the mindset that got us in this in the first place right like the the colonial mindset that sort of saw this land and these people as sort of an inconvenience and you know in the way of modernity or some uh some shit like that uh you know you better get a new mindset before you try to heal that stuff right and so the perspectival and the participatory stuff that they have to offer us if we could just humble ourselves down and hear it and uh um uh you know there’s so much wisdom there that we um are you know too arrogant to hear I’m afraid um um but you know to go to the kids again like when you bring that stuff up to students it’s like yep like there’s no there I didn’t get any like cynical pushback like they’re like uh um that feels good you know like this idea of of being more connected to nature and not looking at a forest as a natural resource that we could dare down like that resonates loud and clear like there’s a you know it’s one of those things where it’s like truth you know you you kind of sense the veracity of the thing yeah yeah um you don’t um and and it’s good to be near it you know it’s good to be near to a concept of an you know an uh I was I shared a video by a beautiful um uh thinker and uh writer uh Robin Kimmerer uh who wrote a book called Braiding Sweetgrass um and she’s an indigenous woman and a botanist so she’s lived both in the scientific sort of worldview and the indigenous worldview it’s a beautiful image right we need more people to do that we need more oh my god so this book I’d love anybody that’s listening to us here pick up Braiding Sweetgrass the image itself is braiding sweetgrass is the indigenous knowing and the scientific knowing you know the things so that’s the first essay and it’s a series of essays that bring us through um anyway she gives a talk that I shared with the kids today um and um again you could feel it in the room like this um it was beautiful actually it was it was quiet after she was done and we were all like uh there’s that fire again uh and uh because they yeah it’s a weird thing when you approach something that is um true and beautiful um and sort of are well articulated it it has it has an effect on a room right it’s like it’s like uh and um yeah I released a video well today not the when people are watching this video but when you and I are talking um with Kyle cock and from when I went away with uh Return to the Source Rafe Kelly’s uh you know he’s the guy that runs through the woods real good yeah yeah you know I love that guy yeah Kyle Kyle was one of the teachers there and Kyle especially is on the the nature connection and some of the things we did you know and we you know and we did the sit spotting where you go into a particular place and it’s a meditative exercise but instead of turning inward you try to open quiet and sensitize your awareness so you’re picking up on everything that’s going on all around you um and and we we even did the these games I uh to me they’re closer to rituals we did the thing where we uh we took on various bird rolls uh like and like uh you’re this kind of bird you’re this kind of bird and and you’re a hawk and you’re right and and and and you you and you play this game and you it’s a I mean to the degree that you can you get into the mindset of a bird and then you start to see the environment very very differently you see you you you start to I mean it was almost shamanic in that sense you start to see oh this is oh if I was this kind of bird and then there was one scene where I uh where Kyle is the hawk and he just he just ran in and tackled me out of nowhere and it was you know and uh and um very powerful and I am now that work and the work we’re talking with uh uh with other other people that respond um I think serious play ritual imaginal practices of connect connection to nature are a vital and indispensable part of any actual ecology of practices um I’ve become convinced of that um and so it’d be interest like interesting to see how to take the creativity that you’re doing in your classroom and and compare it to the the kind of creativity in these in these nature connection uh uh groups I’ve been participating in and getting them to talk to each other totally totally actually you remember Ethan he had you had him on uh from Japan I just recorded another video with him that’s going to come out in a bit yes oh good good good um because that was really inspiring to me watching him and so Ethan and I have been in touch excellent so you know the the ecology idea lives um and in fact he’s going to come in and work with my students um over zoom good good see if I can do much more of this cross pollination and afford it and get this all catching fire right totally yeah no I’m really excited and Ethan and I talked for god it had to be two hours uh sort of just riffing off of what we’re what we both do what a delightful human being um and uh yeah we just had this like immediate like uh connection and you know we somehow our lives have you know he’s doing it through movement and I’m doing it through film and writing and whatever but it doesn’t matter you know the modalities are are um not irrelevant but um uh but they’re not foundational right it’s like it’s this cognition piece right it’s this and when you’re when you’re talking about perspectival you know uh when you’re the bird and you see the world differently um I just love that that we that we’re so good at that like we’re like you know what I mean like you didn’t you went there and he just said be a bird and then within eight minutes the world changed yes like how fantastic is that and how how um how usable how how important how um and how do we um to use another word that you taught me um how to exact that right um that we have these cognitive abilities um they’re just sitting on the shelf of our of our experience so just sitting there like you just pull them off and any human can just sort of look at it like I can get I can get people in half an hour to have an experience in their own consciousness that surprises them I know because they’ve done it again and again so it’s like it’s just sitting there waiting to be exacted and so or to used and then once used how could we um put a perspective on it that will change your life that will make your meaning making machinery that’s enacted that will that will connect you to others that will bring you belonging that will um help you transcend like to get the um sort of the you have this other image that I like is some kind of like a a virtual engine of character creation yeah right um that you know and I feel like when I you know I started this conversation talking about an artful life it’s like I feel like the mechanism of of transcendence of making meaning is sitting on the shelves of our creative abilities it’s just there and you just pluck them down and play a little bit and and um it feels like I feel so optimistic when I talk like this because it’s like you know you just told me that in 10 minutes you were a you know a blue j and someone else is a hawk and it made a difference like you saw the world in a way that you hadn’t before what great creatures we are holy smokers like we can do that and yes we can and we can do it again and again and again and it’s it’s it’s it’s um it’s catchy it’s it’s it’s contagious it’s joyful everyone wants it everyone wants in like there’s you know what I mean like it’s this isn’t uh yeah um it just it strikes me that you know the goal of of creating an ecology of practice and a community of people who wish to find more meaning more joy more connection um you know and sometimes some days that might feel like a big task on other days it’s just like it’s just everybody wants in man and they all got the cognitive skills so let’s go you know like um yeah well Kevin our time is coming to close I strongly hope that you and I talk again I think we have more to discuss and more to explore uh it’d be it’d be interesting that even maybe have you and Ethan and I to talk together I think that might be a wonderful experience um so I like to give my guests sort of the last word it can be summative it can be cumulative to use some of our educational jargon or it can just be you know uh you know opening the door for next time what comes up for you as what the final thing you’d like to say oh that’s generous um well yeah I find myself in sort of a an interesting like I’m I’m getting to the place where I can see retirement you know like over there uh you me too yeah and you know I spent a lot of years with great joy doing this work and I and you know I might keep going for a while even after the retirement date I don’t know but you sort of you know brought this fire into me of like I can all of this you know whatever wisdom creativity has afforded me in time and practice as a teacher it’s like I want to bring it into uh new new domains to new audiences um for a while I always said I wanted to teach teachers you know how important creativity was to teaching and I still do I think that’d be great uh but I’m now more interested in this ecology of practice thing of bringing it as a wisdom cultivation device or mechanism and just and and like you say like add it to all these other things like when you know you’re talking about being a bird in the woods it’s like hell yeah like I could play that game um and um so I sort of anybody that’s sort of uh in this corner of the internet watching this stuff and if um if the idea of creativity as being a practical and enactable and operational way of in enlivening and creating meaning if I’d love people to reach out and sort of touch base I I intend on um building a life around working in this domain you know and I’ll have time in a few years while I’ll be retired and I really want to workshop with people I want to bring people through some of these experiences and I want to participate in other people’s experiences I want to play you know uh um um yeah and I know I’m supposed to be summoning this up but uh you know I I’ve been a political activist for years and I I just was getting burned out man I you know I care so much about this planet and I do political debate and argumentation you know on Twitter and stuff and and it’s just like god damn it all these skills that I have just aren’t working in that domain right it’s the wrong it’s the wrong arena right like I guess um and uh so you’ve really helped me and I so let me say that like you came at a good time in my life you know I needed I needed a new direction I actually have a YouTube channel where I did all sorts of political stuff and um and it I just I was like no man I I need a new trajectory and and you came along with uh awakening from the meaning crisis and ecologies of practice around wisdom cultivation and I’m always interested in the sort of the subterranean like politics is here and there’s something else underneath it right that’s you can’t have this conversation because we’re not there yet you know and um so I want to go to where it’s at man and I think uh and you’ve uh you shone a light for me so um and thanks for this opportunity to be uh speaking here and then speaking to this community that might um agree right that we need some uh meaning making and um wisdom cultivation so um yeah let’s keep talking and I would love to sort of be invited into new spaces and yep keep growing this thing that’s what I want to say count on it thank you so much it’s been great