Ripeness is all

I once stepped out of my comfort zone into an acting class taught by Scott Plate. Asking his students to journal about their experiences, he promised to read every word. Now, Scott may not have been as overjoyed as Susan who, to her surprise, began to richly dream, and freely add the findings to her journal.

The dreams were more vivid and complex than usual, my sense and sensitivity at full tilt. A gift, I thought, that just when assigned the task of introspection, dreams should surface, ripe with illustration.

Bill Moyers recently aired an interview from 2004. He asked Maurice Sendak, author illustrator of ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ how he calmed his own demons.

Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain. I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me.
Maurice Sendak, Bill Moyers Journal

Sendak took comfort in art as he ventured into public television.

Like coming here today, I was anxious about this. Would I be all right? And I have a little tiny Emily Dickinson that I carry in my pocket everywhere. And you just read three poems of Emily. She is so brave. She is so strong. She is such a sexy, passionate, little woman. I feel better.

So what did the 75 year old writer want to be when he grew up?

My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative. And also, I want to be free again. I want to be free like when I was a kid, working with my brother and making toy airplanes and a whole model of the World's Fair in 1939 out of wax. Where we just had fun... I want to see me to the end working, living for myself. Ripeness is all.

Sendak’s invocation of ripeness reminds me of the vivid dreams that lined up with my acting class back when. And my vivid dreams now.

By day, I’ve left my comfort zone to make a video about a sensuous song, It Falls Away. At night, dreams sway luscious in the branches, or squish beneath my midnight ramblings.  I’m not so sure about the comings and goings of dreams.   

I used to think imagination preceded art. If dreams run rampant, haunting the day with their memories, that’s inspiration, right? If feelings are ripe, it’s time to create something. Yes?

Except that maybe it’s the other way around. Art comes first. Dreams, and vivid intrigue, follow. As Sendak mused, ‘when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain.’

This berry bears our artist mission: get our souls away from the languidly familiar, out onto the fertile plain where dreams chase us down to captivate our longing. Each act of art, whether absorbing or making it, is birth and death and depth perception in between.  It's where the wild things are. It’s where the master placed his benediction:

Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all.
William Shakespeare, King Lear