The Oddest Thing

I haven't painted in over ten years. When I was painting yesterday just on a whim, the oddest thing happened. For about 10-15 seconds while painting, I completely zoned out -- it was as if I were on this dreamy trance-like plane, and while my hands were still steadily painting with a mind of their own, my mind was absorbed in some surreal experience, almost -floating-. I don't mean that I was daydreaming about other things or absorbed in other thoughts; I mean that for that short interlude it was as if I was completely lost, transported out of myself. It was such a rare, and awe-inspiring feeling. My hands, though, knew what to do, and when I "came to", I was amazed at how nicely the painting had turned out. It was as if thinking and consciousness, for once, was a hindrance, and their suspension had somehow enabled a mysterious deeper part of me.

I do believe that these are the moments when Muses visit and earthly reality pales in comparison to divine inspiration. I don't claim to be a Picasso or a Shakespeare or a Chopin, but I do believe there is some part of that we can all share, to some extent -- the beauty of creation, of the liberating and refreshing utter freedom of the mind. When we suspend rules, and logic, and instruction and we just merely listen to the call of imagination.

My words fall short to explain how wondrous and fantastical the feeling was, but I have felt it at least once before, while I was writing a short story in the library and the hours slipped by completely unnoticed as I "left" myself into an all-consuming world of imagination. Those moments of absolute rapture are moments of true beauty for me, a soaring uplifting sensation so painfully rare and so moodily unpredictable. I can't call on them whenever I feel like it, cannot summon these sensations at my whim -- they are like shooting stars in the sky of my soul -- sudden and ephemeral but always simply breath-taking.