Stark Raving Muse Unleashed
At 7:21 this evening, on Highway 536 somewhere between Anacortes and Mount Vernon, Washington, I officially launched the year-long Stark Raving Muse project by telling my four-year-old this story:
Once upon a time, there was a boy who loved the ocean. He loved it so much that he went there every day with his mom and dad. He loved it so much that his mom and dad decided to take the boy and his baby brother to a beautiful place called Orcas Island, where they could be near the ocean all the time for four whole days.
Well, the very first morning they were on Orcas Island, the boy and his mom and dad and baby brother went down to the beach to see the ocean. They found crabs and clam shells and starfish under the rocks. The boy wandered close to the water and saw a big black and white orca whale swimming toward him.
“Hello!” said the orca. The boy was surprised, but said hello back. “Won’t you come underwater with me,” said the orca, “to our beautiful fish village in the deep?”
The boy was so excited that he jumped on the orca’s back, and the orca taught the boy how to breathe underwater through a special, secret hole in the back of his neck, and the two of them swam down, down, down, to the magical fish village in the deep of the ocean.
The fish and whales and crabs and mermaids were all so excited to see the boy! They cheered and lined up and clapped and the boy felt like he was the star of a parade! The fish offered him the finest chair, which was big and beautifully decorated and sitting atop a little hill at one end of the village. It was a special kind of chair called a “throne.” Well, he sat in it for a while and, at the fishes’ request, taught them how to play all the games that boys and girls play up on dry land: Duck Duck Goose, and Hide and Go Seek, and Follow the Leader.
The animals played the boy’s games all morning long, and all afternoon long, and the boy came down off his throne and joined them, too. He had the most wonderful time playing with the whales and fish and crabs and mermaids.
But soon, the water started to darken into shadows and glint like gold threads through the drifts. The boy’s orca friend looked at him solemnly and said, “Boy. The animals and I have discussed it, and we would like to ask you to stay with us forever and be our King. We love your games and we love your spirit, and we want you to lead us forever.”
“But what about my mom and my dad and my baby brother?” the boy asked. For although he loved playing with the sea animals in their village in the deep, he loved his human family, too, and longed to be back with them.
The orca looked very serious. “Well, we are only allowed to invite one human to come live with us. And we have chosen you. If you choose to stay with us, boy, you will be our King and play all day long, every day. But you may not go back to dry land and see your mom and dad and baby brother again.”
At this point, I looked at the Dragon and asked him directly, “What do you want to do? Stay with the orca forever, or go back to dry land with your mom and dad and baby brother?” “Go back to dry land,” he said quickly. I was a little relieved.
“Well, Orca,” said the boy. “I love playing with you here and it would be so fun to stay and play every day, all day long, and be your King. But I would miss my mom and dad and baby brother too much. So I have to go.”
The orca was obviously disappointed. He wanted the boy to stay. So he asked three more times, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?” And each time, the boy became more and more sure that he had to go back to dry land and be with his family.
The orca sighed and realized that he was never going to convince the boy to stay in the magical village in the deep. He bent his head and cried a little and allowed the boy to climb onto his back. Together the two friends swam up to the surface of the water. The orca kissed the boy on the cheek, and the boy kissed him back, and then he ran across the rocky beach into the arms of his family, who was waiting for him.
Stark Raving Muse is an attempt to get back to my core passion – doing juicy, potent, pulse-rocking creative acts – by consciously creating every single day for the next year. Here are the rules, made up by my husband and me on the ferry crossing from Orcas Island just a couple hours before I told the Orca Story:
1. I have to consciously do a creative act every single day from June 28, 2010 through June 27, 2011.
2. Every creative act gets a blog post on this site.
3. The blog post does not count as a creative act.
4. Nothing is off-limits in terms of what may be considered a creative act. So while traditional arts like painting and writing obviously qualify, so too might cooking a new dish, wrapping a gift beautifully, or putting together a rock-star outfit. HOWEVER:
a. I have to be able to justify that the chosen act is, indeed, creative.
b. I cannot make the exact same thing twice, but I can use the same medium more than once.
c. I have to experiment with a brand new medium at least once a month.
5. Whenever possible, every project must be accompanied by an image, sound clip, video, or some other documentation of the creative act.
That’s it. Too many rules = Too much work.
Deep breaths. Here goes – everything.
In: Uncategorized · Tagged with: the dragon
on October 15, 2010 at 12:18 am
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[...] When I unleashed Stark Raving Muse in June, my intent to do a creative act every day was focused solely on my own needs, activities, and identity as a writer and artist. I needed to get back to my creative juiciness, to make time and space in my everyday life for potent, creative originality. I imagined I would sneak tiny little slices of each day to hole up in my office typing furiously, or in my studio painting or sculpting, while my husband and children were, I don’t know, elsewhere. [...]