An amazing Shiva Nata story.
So amazing, in fact, that I can hardly stand it.
Last year my friend Andreas and I co-taught a series of workshops that combined Dance of Shiva and painting/drawing to …
… well, to unleash mad creativity, destuckify blocks and have big crazy beautiful understandings.
We used the space at SPOLZ, which is this neat collective studio space for artists. (And yes, we’re doing it again in the next few weeks if you can make it.)
Some of the people who came were artists, art-ey people, or people who don’t really self-define that way but really love engaging in creative things. And some weren’t.
So yeah. It was an incredible experience. But get this:
One of the artists from SPOLZ has been doing Shiva Nata every day for five minutes since last year’s workshop in July 2008.
And she recently showed Andreas a series of paintings she had done and asked him (he teaches design at the Art Academy in Berlin) which ones he thought were the “good ones”.
These would be the ones to star in an upcoming show.
He sat with them for a while and then made his choices.
She looked at him and burst out laughing.
Actually, she was completely astonished.
Because?
Yes, okay, because those were the ones she thought were best too. But that’s not the exciting part.
Here’s the exciting part.
All the paintings he had chosen were the ones she had painted directly after her Shiva Nata practice.
And the ones that he had left out were the ones she had done without doing Shiva Nata first.
He could see the difference. Or feel the difference. It was obvious.
I had to know.
What was different?
What made the post-Shiva-Nata paintings different from the this-is-me-doing-my-painting paintings?
After carefully analyzing the winners, here are some of the qualities Andreas and this woman found:
Freedom. Intuition. Clarity. Knowing.
And a deep internal creativity where you aren’t taking into account anyone else’s stuff. Where you aren’t involved with anyone else’s interaction with the work.
I have more to say about this.
As you might imagine.
But I’m not going to. At least, not for now.
I want to leave you with this image of my artist friend, buzzing into stillness, going straight from shavasana into the studio, fearlessly mixing colors. And letting her art happen.
Twitter: elizabethhalt
that is fascinating/exciting!
it makes me want to do shiva nata and then take my camera for a walk and see what happens.
thank you for sharing the story.
We (say no if you don’t) want to see this pictures!
Both of them.
I’m doing SN each day, and it becomes quite easy since I get the idea of how it work. (In a sesne ther is a pattern in changing the pattern. I’m starting with level2 and with legs.)
So I’m trying to making more hard and is not easy to make it hard.
Maybe a post with a list of ideas to make it hard could help.
Twitter: kimianak
What an awesome story! Thank you for sharing it. It gives me great pointers about what my routine needs to be for me to make my things happen in the best way.
I’m looking forward to reading what else you have to say about this. In the meantime, I’m letting the image with which you concluded this post sink in. This is inspiring.
Twitter: williehewes
Wow, that is impressive. And I am interested in what more you might have to say, too!
Like Alvaro, I struggle with keeping it challenging enough. I’m about to get started on level 2, hopefully that will shake me up. :)
Twitter: _i_n_g_e_
That is a great story!
Reading this, I just got an idea to try with Shiva Nata. I never know how to say what I want to say when I write post cards to people. I love to send cards on happy occasions or for cheering up when one of me mateys is having a hard time, but it isn’t easy to get past the standard messages. So next time, I’ll do some SN first and then see what message will come out.
Just wow. That is the coolest story.
I’m more in the into-creative-expression camp, but I can see how the Shiva Nata completely frees up your ability to create from yourself without the blocks you usually put up that come from outside.
I hadn’t painted a thing for the past seven years, and the other day after about 10 minutes or so of Shiva Nata (and I’m just getting started), I went into the attic and dug out all the supplies and a canvas and started one. Because my brain finally stopped comparing my (very novice) work to masters, or even to anyone. And I could finally just let it be me and the paint, without a need to be any “good.”
Twitter: victoriashmoria
Love this.
Really makes me want to change up my practice so I can go straight from shavasana into *some* form of creative expression.
I think this is telling me I need to move my practice to the evenings before I sit down to work on my art stuff! I have felt like it is a little wasted when I just go to my dreaded office job in the morning…. such a great story! YEA!
@EmilyRoots – ohmygod. What a terrific story! Whoooo! We’ll have to have you guest post on here at some point. Awesome. Rejoicing for you!
@Victoria – definitely. Painting, creative dancing, free writing, anything really. I like to do it before writing because that’s my thing, but really it goes well with anything.
@Alvaro + Willie: Totally! Coming up with ways to make it harder is a great challenge.
I’ve written a few posts on making the practice harder (plus we’ve talked about it quite a bit on the recordings), so I hope there’s some helpful stuff there.
There’s this post on making it hard and then more on finding the challenge.
Hope that helps!
Yep, this pretty much sells me on Shiva Nata. I can make better paintings? Dude. It’s necessary to my artistic development that I do this.
Now I just need to work out my stuck around why I *haven’t* bought it yet.