“Stuff your eyes with wonder,” remembered and repeated by his grandfather Granger in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Granger’s grandfather also said, “Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds see the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”
Stuff my eyes with wonder! That is a purpose-driven battle cry I want to live and breathe by.
Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is born an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.” My newly born great-children Anita Marie Pfeiffer and her cousin Jonah John Pfeiffer are every moment stuffing their own eyes with wonder. All is wonder – every sight, smell, sound, taste, touch. Awe, wonder, and surprise a way of being that is innate and always active.
Staying in wonder requires intention and paying attention. Joseph Jaworski in his book Source speaks of shifting from resignation to possibility. “Seeing the world as open and full of possibility is the fundamental shift of mind that opens the door to connecting to the Source. Each of us has a capacity for awe, wonder, and reverence. The human species has an inbuilt passion to serve life, to learn, to know, and to experience the thrill of discovery. At the heart of the path, there is a passionate pursuit of hidden meaning – the act of creating something of significance that has never existed before. Each of us can choose to let go of obstacles that impede our development and to release the possibilities that lie latent within each of us.”
The act of creating something of significance may happen as we practice creating day by day. We are all born of the Divine Creator. Our thoughts, inspiration, intuition, and imagination are the materials we use to create. The form and function may be a new recipe, a garden planted, a new poem, or a new friend. Your art doesn’t have to be framed, packaged, and sold to make ripples and waves. You were born to create.
Ray Bradbury in his book Zen in the Art of Writing devoted a chapter to feeding and keeping the muse. For Bradbury, the subconscious is The Muse. No man sees the same events in the same order in life. “When a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry.”
Bradbury writes of asking, “Dad, tell me about Tombstone when you are seventeen or the wheat fields in Minnesota when you were twenty.” The Muse ready for Bradbury’s dad. The fuse lit, and the flares and fireworks begin.
Everyone is a poet when asked what they want in life, or what inspires them, or a memory rekindled. “When their souls grew warm.”
Inspired by Bradbury’s speaking of his dad and others moved by The Muse and their souls grew warm I wrote this poem:
ALL POETS SOME DAYS
the fuse lit now flares
fireworks explode
stories told
first-time mom
fear of dying or her child
a locomotive engineer riding steel
Grandma’s blush about her first kiss
Dad telling of swims in Loon Lake
their hearts open
their tongues saying
all poets when
their souls grew warm.
What warms your soul? What wonder are you stuffing your eyes with?
@Eva Marie Cagley, yes we are all artists and creative! May you never lost that energy and express it. And, help others to do the same!
This is wonderful we are all artist and creative its sad some of us loose that when we get older! It’s still there hidden waiting to be reborn! I loved this