Phil Cousineau - Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination

Stepping Stones, Kyoto Rock Garden.

Photograph by Phil Cousineau, 1986.

The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work 1990

Deadlines: A Rhapsody on a Theme of Famous Last Words 1991

The Soul of the World: A Modern Book of Hours (with Eric Lawton) 1993

Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors (John Densmore with Phil Cousineau) 1993

Soul: An Archaeology: Readings from Socrates to Ray Charles 1994

Prayers at 3 a.m.: Poems, Songs, Chants for the Middle of the Night 1995

UFOs: A Mythic Manual for the Millennium 1995

Design Outlaws: On the Frontier of the 21st Century (with Chris Zelov) 1996

Soul Moments: Marvelous Stories of Synchronicity 1997

The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred 1998

Riddle Me This: A World Treasury of Folk and Literary Puzzles 1999

The Soul Aflame: A Modern Book of Hours (with Eric Lawton) 2000

The Book of Roads: Travel Stories 2000

Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times 2001

The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life 2002

The Olympic Odyssey: Rekindling the Spirit of the Great Games 2003

The Blue Museum: Poems 2004

Angkor Wat: The Marvelous Enigma (Photographs) 2005

A Seat at the Table: Struggling for American Indian Religious Freedom 2005

The Jaguar People: An Amazon Chronicle (Photographs) 2006

Night Train: New Poems 2007

The Meaning of Tea (with Scott Hoyt) 2008

First published in 2008 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

500 Third Street, Suite 230

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Art permissions can be found on p. 222

Copyright 2008 by Phil Cousineau. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-299-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cousineau, Phil.

Stoking the creative fires : 9 ways to rekindle passion and imagination / Phil Cousineau.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-57324-299-8 (alk. paper)

1. Creative ability. 2. Imagination. I. Title.

BF408.C674 2008

153.3dc22

2007049625

Cover and text design by Brooke Johnson

Typeset in Sabon and Scala Sans

Cover art: Fire Dream, oil on linen, copyright 2002 by Gregg Chadwick

Printed in Canada

TCP

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

This book is dedicated to the memory of Gary Rhine, whose creative fire lives on in his films, his family, and his friends.

I want to express my gratitude to those who have read or discussed the ideas in this manuscript or provided inspiration during my research, including Gregg Chadwick, R. B. Morris, Karly Stribling, Gerry Nicosia, Fr. Gary Young, Joanne Warfield, Stuart Balcomb, Ty Gram, Robin Eschner, John O'Brien, Antler, Jeff Poniewaz, Laila Carlson, Keith Thompson, David Darling, Michael Guillen, John Nance, John Borton, P. J. Curtis, Gary Bolles, Anthony Lawlor, Fr. John Dear, Toni D'Anca, Jean Erdman, Alexander and Jane Eliot, and my friends at Eguna Basque caf in North Beach, San Francisco, and Elise Jajuga, whose father Mike Jajuga would have been very proud of her work in publishing. Thanks, too, to my colleagues at Red Wheel, especially Brenda Knight and Jan Johnson, whose faith in my creative fire made this book possible; creative director Donna Linden whose guidance made it graceful; designer Brooke Johnson and the rest of the Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari team, including Rachel Leach, Jordan Overby, Caroline Pincus and Jan Hughes who all made the journey enjoyable. I also wish to express my thanks to my agent Amy Rennert for her enthusiastic, stalwart help with this project. Most of all, loving thanks to Jo Beaton and Jack Cousineau for teaching me how to create a life together.

by Leonardo da Vinci (from Prophecies)

The stone, feeling itself struck by flint, was astonished and said in a stern voice, How can you be so presumptuous as to trouble me? Stop upsetting me. You have given me a blow as though in revenge, and yet I have never annoyed anyone.

To this the flint replied, If you will be patient, you will see a marvelous result. The stone calmed down and bore its sufferings with patience and fortitude, and saw itself give birth to a marvelous fire that was so powerful that it was useful for many things.

This is relevant to those who are fearful as they begin their studies, and then when they become able to control themselves and continue patiently with their studies, find that they achieve things that are marvelous to see.

Irish Knot of Eternity Tombstone. County Clare, Ireland, 1980.

Photograph by Phil Cousineau.

INTRODUCTION

O for a Muse of fire that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention.

William Shakespeare, prologue to Henry V

Traditional ways of learning can teach us a great deal, but what they can never provide is the serendipitous moment in a musty old bookstore when you stumble across the words that set your soul on fire.

Many years ago, on a blustery afternoon in Galway, Ireland, I was meandering through the labyrinthine rooms of Kenny's, the legendary bookstore, when an intriguing book title seized my attention. Down the spine of the book ran the words In the Chair. The book was a tantalizing collection of interviews with poets from the North of Ireland. I opened the book at random, in the spirit of the ancient practice of bibliomancy, hoping to find an auspicious line or two to inspire me.

My eyes fell on the words of the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, one of the writers who has most deeply influenced me. Speaking about his own rigorous standards, Heaney warned that a writer shouldn't waver into language or tame the strangeness of his work. The luminous turns in his poems, he says, are a matter of following on down that road of truth. He concluded the interview with what he called the famous Dublin triad: This is it. This is the thing. This is what you're up against.

Who knows why some words ignite the hearts of some readers while others are like wet matches that won't light? Who can say why some words seize the imagination of one reader and not others? Who can say why one person's epiphany is another's clich?

All I know is that, at that moment, those strangely commanding lines felt mythic, as if they had been written directly to me by an unknown hand. I really had no idea if they were verses from an epic riddle, chants from a battle cry, or some raffish advice Heaney overheard at McDaid's, Dublin's famous literary pub. I only know that they sent a shiver of recognition right through me.