“If one were to accept, even provisionally, the possibility that consciousness is primary and that life is one of the ways it enters manifestation, then the artist would have to rethink the nature of creative work from the ground up. The question would no longer be merely, “What am I trying to make?” It would become, “What kind of instrument am I becoming, and what is trying to come through me?”

“That is not a small shift. It changes the posture of the whole life.

“Most people are trained, implicitly or explicitly, to think of themselves as producers. One is expected to generate output, manufacture originality, shape a career, and maintain a stable and marketable identity while doing so. The artist is often encouraged to treat creativity as an extension of personal will – a matter of intention, force, style, and self-expression. There is some truth in that, of course. Art does require decisions, labor, discipline, and a degree of selfhood strong enough to withstand resistance. But if consciousness is something larger than the individual personality, if the human being is less an isolated author and more a local aperture within a wider field of intelligence and feeling, then the work begins to look less like pure invention and more like participation.

“This does not make the artist passive. It does not excuse vagueness, laziness, or pseudo-spiritual hand waving. It places a greater demand on the artist, not a lesser one. Because if the work is not simply “made” by the isolated ego, then the task becomes one of refinement. One must become capable of receiving, recognizing, shaping, and transmitting what is trying to emerge. That is a different kind of work. The emphasis shifts away from self-display and toward internal calibration.

.”..And perhaps the most liberating consequence of this whole view is that it loosens the artist’s obsession with self-importance. If one is an instrument within a much larger process, then not every work needs to carry the burden of proving one’s worth. Not every piece needs to announce one’s identity. Not every project needs to justify one’s existence. Much unnecessary pressure falls away when the artist stops trying to manufacture significance and begins trying to cooperate with what is actually alive.

“Paradoxically, this often produces stronger work. Meaning arrives more cleanly when it is not being strangled into existence… To maintain the instrument. To attend carefully. To follow the next necessary move. To remove what is not needed. This is not a formula for genius. It is something better. It is a way of living that keeps one in usable relation to the source of one’s own work.  If consciousness is indeed trying to know itself through life, then the artist may simply be one of the places where that effort becomes visible.The task is not to force meaning into the world. The task is to become a clear place where meaning can take form.”

by Cecil Touchon, exerpt from here