When my little soul came here it was alive, pure, playful, bold, intelligently knowing and being love; giving, and emanating divinity within. I don’t know exactly when the cloud of misery dawned on me. It must have been in High School, with the onset of puberty. Protecting myself from the great mean world I created a crust around my soul, a functional one; acceptable, and normal. That crust solidified along the way and I knew myself as rigid, boxed in, and half-alive. 

Thankfully, the Gods blessed me with music. Inherent in my soul is song and its expression, my salvation. 

I did not realize that every song was healing me. Eventually, I couldn’t deny seeing my crust as a lie. When I wrote songs (engaging in authentic, natural soul expression), I was free. The mask slipped on when I reentered the great mean world.

I walked the path of art for fifteen years now. Every art session, a purge. Every sharing of art, a manifestation of the true me in the world. From divinity to multiplicity to divinity. From being my soul to taking on false form, to dissolving the form back to my soul. A masquerade. The Gods must have been bored alone. 

Art is a tool to free authentic soul expression. Art is a tool to become a child again. Art starts in misery. Art starts with a desire for fame, attention, glory, respect, money, sex = longing for love. Art ends in God. Artists are selfish until they burn away their crust of pain. Beyond the pain lies God, a selfless expression of soul for its own sake. 

Art is a healing modality. Karma Yoga in nature. The Yoga of Action (non-action). Performing the act so completely that one gives himself entirely to the work and disappears into the act. That moment of pure surrender is meditation. An act that flows naturally without one's involvement is active meditation. The meditation of action (non-action). Where life takes over. Where God plays you a fool. Where you let life carry you. Where you observe the divine play through your very hands. 

Such work heals and nurtures the soul engaging in creating the work (non-creation) and the soul receiving the work (non-receiving). Such work is created and consumed alone. There is no commerce and that is real commerce (gift-giving). 

 Real commerce is gift-giving. 

Give gifts. That’s the game.

The more you give, the more you become the artist you seek to be. Your songs, your works of art, your paintings, and your pamphlets are gifts. Gift-giving is real commerce, given that the gift is complete work. When creating complete work, you give and you get at the same time. When complete work finds its host, it appears effortlessly. The host simply steps aside. The host feels he has not touched the work, simply brought it to the world. The host steps aside and conceives the gift. The receiver steps aside and consumes the gift. There is no commerce. And that is real commerce.

As gifts are received and consumed alone, they need no advocate. Complete work always finds its way to where it is needed. Real artists perhaps call that helping hands.

It is important to understand that selfish artists will never touch complete work. Instead of gift-giving, they participate in hole-filling. The work is about them and their story. From their art, they hope to get something. By that, the gift eludes them, and they grow bitter making art. Perhaps what they make is not art at all.

The intention behind your creation matters. Simply give your gift to God and choose a life of service. Your art can be your gift. Serve the world instead of filling holes. The only spiritual discipline you need is gift-giving.

Real artists give gifts. They have come to heal parts of themselves that make them available to real creation. Real creation is complete creation, the healing arts.

Gifts don’t leave the world. They are recognized as gifts by everyone; hence, they are cherished.

Real art is. God is. And real commerce is gift-giving.

Listen to this week's podcast episode HERE.