Preconsciously

After a pretty long lull, it has come back. The fulcrum, the spirit, my working method; the driven pulses of creative desire.

Often I'm confused by my own compliance to certain motives, but there are those more ghostly than others who skim swiftly past and give you a yes, or a no, and they are the ones I listen to.

To be clear, I am not religious - not even vaguely. Nor am I wontedly spiritual. There is no progression or permanency of belief about this. What I'm talking about is something very gentle, a subtle key that links itself to my life, latches into my emotions and thoughts; and only when I am aware of it, releases them - and this is what grounds my creativity. Spirit is something that grows with you naturally, and is released naturally - the important thing is to recognise it.

Though Freud coined the idea, I think the preconscious is a beautiful term, and one that describes this quite well. As a semi-permeable membrane between two worlds, it contains the elements of the subconscious at the same time as allowing the consciousness their possession.

But to bring this concept into the framework of artistic endeavour, I think, is most powerful. Here is the way we live. First comes living, doing, acting; day-time, conscious and normal behaviour. Then there is the sleeping, resting, dreaming; night-time subconscious or semi-conscious behaviour. Where I want my artwork and music to grow, is in between these two places: in the preconscious. Making music, for me and at least for this stage in time, has to come from this place. To slip and slide between aware and unaware, drawing from me with an unrelenting dynamic to clasp at the pieces of gentle glimmering beauty and string them out for me to play. It has to be fluid and honest, and to permit vulnerability. To be truthful. Such creativity is by nature a spiritual expression of something subconscious, facilitated by a consciousness.

Much of the time, improvisation means to musically articulate something that is close to a mental process but that cannot be articulated verbally, or expressed any other way than by such a spasmodic act - as if involuntary. And so it feels as a submission sometimes to something much more important, a despotic mistress knowing of everything who walks in the most beautiful and divine way, giant and elegant, always one step ahead. Or it's the case that an assembly of ideas will be forming, brewing away somewhere inside... and instead of having to reach in and draw them out, they are lifted up, easily, up and out on their own and at their own pace. Sometimes it is just the practice of taking pen to paper, in mindless simplicity. Either way, you are the vehicle and not the driver.

So now, in order for this to be at its best and for my expression to be most true and most pure, I just need to wait, to listen, and to follow.