Inner Genius

"In ancient times, everyone was considered to possess inner genius. It was a kind of guardian spirit that accompanied a person through life and helped one overcome odds and achieve personal heights. We've lost touch with this original meaning of genius (related etymologically to the fabled genie in the lamp) in all our concern over IQ testing and similar nonsense. It's time we brought it back."
Thomas Armstrong, PhD

Recently, a man who had read part of a play that I am currently writing, asked me: "how can this character claim to be "every-woman"?! If she can be "everyone," then what is to stop me from being you or you from being me?" To which I replied, "Exactly!"

Exploring this question is what motivates my very life and has led me to explore and experience myself as a poet. It occurred to me recently that years of experience in the Theater as an actor helped me develop me the very tools I would need to tap into the "poet within." It would seem that in terms of my own evolution as an artist and a human being, I am no longer happy to merely regurgitate and interpret other people's words. I have a compelling need to discover my own "voice" through poetry, which for me, is a spiritual journey.

Ever-fascinated by all subjects esoteric and mystical, I feel I am exploring the pathways that connect us all through poetry. When people say that we as a human race are "one," I believe that. I feel that by exploring the poetry that exists with in me, I am actually practicing a form of ancient Gnosis where the self is the ultimate portal to higher consciousness. The adage "know thyself" is Gnostic and contains more wisdom than people realize. Through the relationship I have created with the deepest, most cavernous places of my own being, I am learning to navigate my own inner labyrinth, and in doing so, seem to have found a portal, a tunnel that seems to lead me to a universal consciousness.

As an actor, I sometimes had what I like to call "quantum moments" onstage where I was able to exist for a few moments in a state of consciousness where it seemed that the "I" that was fearful and small and separate, no longer existed. In these moments, the "I or "me" that has a distinct form with visual and physical boundaries, would fall away and be momentarily forgotten, like I imagine an out of body experience might be. I focused my attention so deeply inside myself that there was only consciousness and a sense of calm and contentment. In every-day life we seem to buy into these walls and boundaries that show where you stop and I begin, to say this is where my country ends and yours begins, to state: "this is my home, not yours." Or, we observe these lines that tell us this is my skin, and that is the bark of a tree, and they are not the same. Many spiritualities teach that this thinking is an illusion, that the tree and the human, the bark and the skin, are facades in this 3D world of form that mask the consciousness that lies within. It is consciousness that unites us all. There really is no separation. This is the greatest fallacy, or dilemma, facing the human race, preventing our evolution, and allowing us to stay under the control of an elite few who know that if they keep us distracted from our true power via media and marketing, we will never tap into our true potential as spiritual beings. And by subjugating our own power, we enable them to remain in control, and allow them to continue the patriarchal profanity that they call "reality." Television and all of the gadgetry that creates constant noise, prevents us from hearing our own voices, our own wisdom. This wisdom begins to ring out loud and clear when we tap into the silence of our being. Poetry is but one means of tapping into that eternal source of power and wisdom.
When others hear my poetry and respond to me with an embrace, I see that gesture as confirmation that I have tapped into that universal stream of consciousness that is available to all of us. I have gone so deeply inside myself that I have touched a place not unlike "deep space." I imagine this place to be Carl Jung's "collective unconscious" which refers to that part of a person's unconscious that is common to all human beings. Jung said that it contains archetypes, the language of dreams, and these symbols are manifested by all people in all cultures. These symbols are said to exist prior to experience and are instinctual.

Sometimes I access this symbolic language through my dreams. Some of my best work comes out of the symbolism of dreams. Sometimes I access this symbolic language while awake. I see pictures or images in my imagination and then try to translate them into words. Other artists translate their visions into paintings or sculptures. But, the medium that seems to best suit my nature is that of words and language. As an actor, I used visualization techniques to refine my performances in my head before performing them in reality. Now, I improvise dialogues in my imagination with characters of my own creation, and sometimes these visualizations become a poem or a play.

Conversely, I have also created poetry by first allowing my mind to quiet itself of all thoughts and dialogue, to become a "tabula rasa." Eventually, out of the darkness and quiet, pictures or images emerge, and flash across the movie-screen in my mind. (For this reason, this coming to know the quiet and darkness within, I am absolutely not "afraid of the dark." For what lies within the darkness can be illuminating. I know that what happens inside me is reflected in external reality. For instance, people often chastise me for walking by myself at night or for hiking alone. To which I say, "Pshaw!" for I know that walking alone at night or hiking alone is an external reflection of what is happening inside me - a reflection of my learning to navigate through, and becoming comfortable with, the darker spaces of my being . Jung called it "integration." It is the process of coming to know the yin and yang, the dark and light, the feminine and masculine energies within myself. The more I learn about and befriend the darkness within myself, the less I fear the "shadow" in others). Mining myself for the poetry within, allows me to observe images in the darkness of the movie -theater in my mind (my imagination). At first, I just try to observe the images without attaching any meaning to them or trying to "figure them out." I find that if I jot these images down in a journal, then put them aside for a few days, oftentimes the images will manifest in my waking world when I travel to a new geographic area I have not been to before; or I may meet someone while I'm running errands who says something that creates an "aha!" moment, and my mind jumps back to the image I saw while I sat in quiet contemplation and some meaning begins to evolve. Often, these "aha" moments turn out to be a clue to an answer I am currently seeking in my life, or, it can be like a breadcrumb, leading me down a new path in life. After a few days of allowing the images to gestate in my subconscious, I will actively free-flow associations onto paper. For me, writing it all out in long-hand feels organic. Then, after having written a page or two, when nothing else seems to want to reveal itself, I actively attempt to craft a poem. At this point, I can see a message beginning to take shape out of the free-flow. This process of crafting the poem is exciting, like solving a mystery.

In the past I have been inspired by Hemingway's terse, clipped, journalistic style of writing, and I let that inform my poetry. Efficiency of words is key in poetry. Also, as an actor, I am always inspired by Shakespeare, who knew not only the current vernacular-usage of a word, but also knew the etymology. Thus, when Shakespeare chose a word, he chose the one that would embody double-entendres or convey triple and quadruple levels of meaning. He was also a mystic. He knew the ancient wisdom of the cycles and rhythms in nature. He was often commissioned by Royals to write plays, but within these political plays one also finds the language of ancient alchemy, the tarot, and astrology - which all carry within them the language of dreams, archetypes, and symbols. Elizabethan audiences understood this language very well as the more intuitive forms of knowledge were still within their ever-day lexicon. Shakespeare's plays were poetry. Poetry is alchemy. And the purpose of alchemy has always been a search for the mystical correspondences between the material and the immaterial.

Kathryn Preston