I believe that we all yearn to create. To nourish our unique gifts and bring something new and authentic into the world. This is how we affirm our identity and find meaning in the world.

The role of the artist is to show us the way, and point towards the vast possibilities that are available to us. Great art can reignite our imaginations and awaken us from our dogmatic slumber.

Our lives are blank canvases waiting to be filled with our hopes and dreams

I explored these themes in a poem I wrote entitled ‘The Artist’

The artist retreats into himself 
He closes his eyes and surrenders to his imagination 
His mind opens a gate to vast inner landscapes 
Time collapses, the heavens slowly unfold 

The artist loathes mundane ‘everydayness’
He raises his brow at the gossip, trends and fashion of the masses 
They are those who walk blindly, who worship false idols;
Who revere fancy things, shiny things, the kind in which envy brings  

For the artist, his path is clear 
He follows his call towards Truth and Beauty 
His pen is the hammer which frees us from the chains of conformity
His art shakes us out of the prison of ‘routine’ 
His words pull us towards the divine, the sacred 

The artist is our liberator 
He lights a flame deep within our souls, and
awakens us from our dogmatic slumber 
This paves the way towards authenticity and self-actualization 

The moment is fleeting yet urgent 
We receive our gift 
A new way of living,
A new way of being in the world

We scrape away the superficial rot amassed in our souls, and
seize the possibility of true freedom

For in order to find ourselves, 
We must first lose ourselves

---

This article was originally published on my personal blog: alifeofvirtue.ca

Source Image: Pexels Free Photos