thejaymo

June 11, 2023

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Permanently Moved 🔊

It is a choice to carry stale yesterdays into tomorrow. Shed the flotsam and idle chatter from the surface of the mind. Writing a diary is a daily exorcism.

Full Show Notes: https://www.thejaymo.net/2023/06/11/301-2320-stale-yesterdays/

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Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded by @thejaymo

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Stale Yesterdays

We have spoken much of navigation.
The Artist’s journey under unfamiliar skies. 

We have paid attention to what The Artist is doing and where they are going. Too, have we spoken of The Gardener and The Dance. But eventually, regardless of circumstance or discipline, there comes a time when The Artist must ‘make sense’.

Make sense of where they are and where they have been. 

Some may draw maps, symbolic representations of selected characteristics of place. Others may navigate by charts of tides and forces of the sea. The Gardener too must navigate – not in space, but through time. When do the shoulders of the season begin to shrug? When did the last rose bloom? and when did the first warbles of the willow carry on the wind?

All work unfolds amidst the turning of the earth. The work changes as The Artist changes. The nature of the adventure changes too. Just as friends and companions change, loved ones depart and others arrive. 

So the artist must, at some point, make sense of where they have been:

The artist must keep a diary, and they must write in it – every single day. 

Tolstoy said: “Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs”.

A diary’s only audience is the artist.

There is an endless well of words, thoughts and feelings within you. Draw them from the deep and them forth for 20 mins every single day. Express the experiences one has experienced, the thoughts thought, and feelings felt. The diary is a deeply private space. How The Artist felt the day the art got made. 

The Artist must learn to automatic write. The Artist must write at the speed of thought. Every single pickled thought and sour feeling can travel from the soul, out of the body, and be purged upon the page.

It is a choice to carry stale yesterdays into tomorrow. Writing them down becomes a daily exorcism. A shedding of all the flotsam and idle chatter at the surface of the mind.

Re-reading a diary makes the words of yesterday, useful for tomorrow. Over time amidst the rhythm of its creation you may see patterns. It will reveal weeks, months, even years of regular negative self talk amidst The Adventure. 

The Artist upon review will uncover insights, patterns, recurring themes – illuminating the innate sense of intuition and revealing hidden truths about oneself.

Confronting your own words, your own thoughts and feelings, is a practice of deep introspection. To witness your own growth is to understand your own change. Yesterday is not solid, but a shifting and malleable canvas upon which The Artist can paint anew each day. 

The artist though this process however, does not empty their mind – but instead fill it up with emptiness. A space to think new thoughts and feel new feelings as the day begins. 

A diary not a catalogue, but as a space for growth. The Artist’s value is not tied to the words they spill onto the page, nor the amount they produce, nor the frequency of insight. A diary is the work of the moment, not its product. 

Henry Miller once said, “To paint is to love again. It’s only when we look with eyes of love that we see as the painter sees.”

The Artist too must look at their own diary with eyes of love. Seeing not just a record of their thoughts and feelings, but a testament to their own existence. Their own resilience, their own capacity to love, the hurt, the hopes, and all the dreams of doing the doing.

The Artist’s diary, this treasure trove of self, is much more than just a confessional space. It is a canvas of the now. Each morning ink may bloom upon the page, ideas unfurling like sails in creative winds. The artist must record their life each and every day. Each stroke of the pen, made without fear of judgement or the pressure of expectation.

As the artist continues to journey, to navigate unfamiliar landscapes both outside and within, the diary will remain the one constant companion. A silent witness to the evolution of the soul. This journal becomes a tapestry of thought and emotion. The work of writing and recording each day becomes an offering to the future self. Over time The Artist leaves behind the past selves and forgotten dreams, that were written in the present. Thoughts thought at the surface of the mind.

So Artist, remember to make sense of where you’ve been. Begin with a blank page and a willingness to bare your soul. Create your own map, chart your own ocean, write your own almanack.

The artist’s journey is not a straight line, but a spiral. If you leave stale yesterday’s inside, it is impossible to navigate by the deeper truths that can be found amdist the diaries rhythm. It is the diary that The Artist builds upon the island’s highest peak. 

It is said that to journey is to be an artist.
And to be an artist is to make sense of the journey.

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