About Art Energy – Qigong For Creativity
Great Music is not about notes.
Great Art is not about color and shape.
Great Acting is not about movement and voice.
Great Writing is not about words.
What makes art great is the use and communication of the energy of
life. Most listeners, viewers, readers only subliminally sense this
vitality. They do not know it in the verbal part of their minds, but
they demand it from music, films, and books.
Without that life energy--here we call it qi energy--any art is lifeless, academic, weak.
Art Energy/Qigong For Creativity is about consciously directing, then becoming one with this Creative Energy.
Qigong means energy work. It’s Chinese and sometimes spelled
ch’i (or chi) kung, and pronounced “chee gong.” Its
conceptual foundation is what Art Energy is based focused mental intention. In the act of pure creation they then become one.
Great artists in all the art forms do this and have done this—usually intuitively--throughout the ages.
The first step is to mentally perceive and experience creative energy
(Chi-Energy). The next step is learning how to move and direct it. The
final step is when mind and energy and creating and the object that is
created all merge into a unity of beauty that is beyond the ego.
PERCEIVING THE CHI-ENERGY
Everyone from birth to death
continually uses Chi (Qi, ch’i). It is the vitality energy of
life. It’s like the atmosphere around us: normally we are not
aware that it is there—but without it we’d be dead in a
moment.
Here is an easy exercise to perceive
energy flows in your body. Stand up now and stretch, as you would when
you wake up in the morning.
Do it now.
Feels good doesn’t it?
Stretching opens pathways in the body for the chi/energy to flow and
bring an aware non-ego relaxation that is needed to create the best
art. And it harmonizes your entire being as well.
Another chi exercise: breathe
comfortably, deeply, and gently into your lower abdomen. The same as
you might tell a friend to do if he or she were emotionally freaking
out about something.
Paying attention to the way it feels
inside, breathe deeply into your lower abdomen. Don’t just read
this and think about it. Do it now.
It should feel really good. As with
stretching, deep aware breathing opens pathways in the body for the
Chi-Energy to flow and bring a full relaxation that is needed to
harmonize your entire being—as well as to create your best art.
Now sit with your arms straight in
front of you, palms facing each other. Have your elbows loosely hanging
down as you pretend there is a string around both wrists lifting them
up.
Breathe in as you move your hands apart; then breathe out and have your palms move toward each other-but don’t have them touch.
You should begin to feel the Qi/energy
radiating between your palms. It may manifest as an magnetic electrical
tingling, or an increased bodily heat, (or in fact as any other kind of
physical sensation). If you don’t perceive it yet, just imagine
it--that trick will make it work for you just the same.
You probably will not see the Qi/energy, and that is absolutely ok; but in time you should be able to perceive it rather like the way you can perceive
there is air around you: you know it’s there--without it
you’d be soon dead)--but you don’t “see” it.
(Advanced students of energy work (qigong) may witness it as something like a multi-dimensional phosphorescence.)
An Exercise For Vocalists--to have any chosen emotion flow up from the creative center and become its own sound.
An Exercise For Musicians--to have directed power flow from your hands into your instrument.
An Exercise For Visual Artists--for intuitive spontaneous automatic painting.
An Exercise For Actors--to add energy dimensions and transformations to yourself, and to any character that you might play.
An Exercise For Dancers--for chi-energy interaction with other dancers.
An Exercise For Writers--the essence of creative energy is led from the lower chakras to the head, eyes and inner-ear where it becomes words.
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