Art and Soul

A secular society devoid of spiritual vision will not produce art but entertainment and will soon succumb to selling the artist's soul. Einstein saw that when he declared that "The purpose of both art and science is to keep alive the cosmic religious feeling."
--Matthew Fox, Original Blessing

A friend of mine, a jazz musician, plays mostly in Europe because Americans he feels lack the musical education and patience to go into his music. Most Americans, conditioned on entertainment, will approach an art piece with an immediate reaction of attraction or repulsion. If they like it it is "good." Most movies cater to this emotional centerness of viewers who need emotional excitement instead of contemplation. I remember when I was in a gallery in Palm Springs and I started to listen to the owner's advice on subject matter to cater to client's likes. After a few attempts my wife said, "That's not your work." And it wasn't. My focus was on selling, not creating. The artist, the poet, the writer, the director, must go to the Center to truly create what Spirit wants to bring into the world for revelation and transformation, as well as to that place of being a Cosmic Child of creating for creation's sake.  Now, is entertainment bad? I don't think so. It can lighten one's burden. But when all art comes out of that arena it becomes empty; it is just more of the same, over and over again.