Last night, my fiance Tom and his band the Catfish Groove Farm launched their new CD, Requiem for a Dog. They played two shows at two different venues, and they were absolutely beautiful. I'm still riding the waves of energy that they created.
Like many creative people, Tom is hybrid. He's a jazz guitarist, he's a master communicator, a talented psychotherapist and educator. He is also one of the most kind and loving people that I know.
This afternoon, Tom found this quote by Joseph Campbell: "It is the function of art to carry us beyond speech to experience."
Reflecting, Tom notes, "I've had the perception that music is entertainment. I need to remember that music is a way of healing, a way of helping people have a transcendental experience."
To me, Tom is exploring the nature of being a Creative Hybrid: one who, in his own words is here to "heal people and to make music." I love that.
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One of Tom's work colleagues in attendance had never before seen Tom perform. When I talked with him, he just shook his head in amazement, as though he could not quite wrap his mind around the fact that the beautiful musician was also the person that he worked with everyday.
Granted, working with creative people can be confusing, particularly when their major creative outlet is expressed somewhere outside the environment that you are used to seeing them in. Most creative people are at home in (or at least tolerant of) ambiguity and uncertainty. The rest of us struggle anxiously against both fields of consciousness. To feel better, our brains organize people and experiences into simple categories ("good", "bad", "right", "wrong"). Basically, we make judgments about our experiences and eliminate much of the complexity that life offers. For example, when we label a person as "a musician" or "a teacher", we can experience an immediate (if fleeting) relief.
There is a danger in trying to categorize creative people: a single label cannot explain everything that the creative person is.
We risk cutting off the potential for creative people to be so much more than just that One Thing that we see them do at work. To support the creative ones (and to become more creative ourselves), we open our arms wide enough to embrace the truth that creative people are hybrids - "Both This And That, and Much, Much More."
Love + Happy + Musical thoughts
Robyn
