Often while inside of a hurricane...which is my head, I'll sign up for a silent meditation retreat at some tolerably far away date and time. Well, this month, that time arrived ~ and I reluctantly, drove off into a snowy mountain to stare passionately at a carpet. 
And yes, the whole time I couldn't stop thinking (but trying not to think) thinking and thinking about (and again, not thinking) about the question:

What does meditation mean for artists??? 

You know, artists, who tend to let their thoughts rattle away about mayonnaise or mulch until eventually, BANG, suddenly the snag of a creative idea slaps them across the face so hard a tooth flies out and they take that tooth and make a handsome necklace out of it....?

This kind of mental indulgence, if I am understanding it right, is antithetical to meditative techniques which generally ask us to not believe our thoughts, only noticing them pass through like the rumble of motorcycle coming and going. 

But I want to hear the motorcycle passing and glom onto the heat of the engine, no hands no helmet.......almost losing a foot on a sharp turn.......and BANG! crash explode...into my next fascination. 

But how do we know when thoughts are worth it or just fueling an unproductive form of wreckage ? Should I stop at 8 torn up shirt sleeves, when I really want 10 ? What about those of us whose sick obsessions and painful distractions are our valuable poems and paintings? Must we suffer for our art? 

Yes, and...masterfully. 

“Even so, I must admire your skill.
You are so gracefully insane.”
― Anne Sexton

It is possible to see god in everything and also weep in the car ride home from Trader Joe's because we forgot to grab trail mix. And we can do it without imprisoning ourselves, with great awareness and joy for the unfolding of it all, for the way our mind interprets the suffering. 

"On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points."
-Virginia Woolf
  
Ack okay yes, I just quoted two women who wore heavy fur coats walking into carbon monoxide cars or treacherous oceans. A lot of us have an observant fellow who points at our agony with a knife. Like a surgeon on amphetamines ~ cutting away what's not perfect to the point of chronic worry and despair. How can we suffer and be kind to ourselves? Is there a way to point at our lives with a feather? A banana? 

My ego hates to admit it, but a lot of times the intellect is just noise. The real salient ideas come through when the channel is clear and open....receptive to...how do I say it, well...those moments of OUT OF THE BLUE. 

What is that thing, this "out of the blue" ??  out of the clear blue sky, comes a thunderbolt. Why would a thunderbolt come from a clear blue sky?
Why would a good thought come from a non-thought ?

"When you get over your panic about life, because you're not so stuck inside of it, you begin to delight in the way it works. " -Ram Dass

And so, what does meditation mean for artists?

Ivo Dominguez in his book Keys to Perception talks about how consciousness has a frame rate, just like a reel of film. Each frame being our awareness and the dark lines between the frames are our unconscious processing, our psychic and spiritual impressions that we don't see. And so, in order to break this film strip illusion and harness the horror/beauty of our unconscious wisdom, we need to..........slow down. 

And to no surprise, astrology would agree...
Like a garish street parade stepping oh so slightly into a steady crawl, our Sagittarian broad view begins to see the Capricorn details of the parade float vinyl, the gold buttons on the marching band vest. Our recent fire to earth shift is corralling our thoughts, our relationships, our money and ourselves into a focused, deliberate stillness ~ burning away the peripherals. 

We must be willing to feel safe within simplicity, of non-thought, of the black (or blue?) between the frames. Now, with Jupiter in Capricorn, along with Saturn/Pluto/South Node pile up for this upcoming eclipse season December 26 - Jan 10 ~ we must organize our vision into concise, clear goals ~ and not in hopes of controlling, but as a way to trust that when we choose what's less complicated, when we keep our channel deliberately clear, we are choosing the blue skies of creative liberation. With Cancer (the caretaker) opposite Capricorn, our powers of discernment must be balanced with the bananas of self care and nourishment, we gently (patiently) point at what's not necessary, using the ripples of eclipse season to break away from our past and crash explode into the opportunity of our future selves ~ curious, open and gracefully insane.