Article by David Ulrich
David Ulrich is the Program Coordinator for Pacific New Media, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. He is an active photographer and writer whose work has been published in numerous books and journals including Aperture, Parabola, MANOA, and Sierra Club publications. Ulrich’s photographs have been exhibited internationally in over seventy-five one-person and group exhibitions in museums, galleries, and universities. He is the former Chair of the Art Department at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Ulrich is the author of The Widening Stream: the Seven Stages of Creativity and the co-author of Through Our Eyes: A Photographic View of Hong Kong by its Youth. To learn more about David check out his website.
“Why?” — is the question we are asked frequently. Why creativity and yoga? Why would a yoga teacher and practitioner collaborate in a series of classes with an artist and author on creativity and perception? What is the connecting thread? The answer lies embedded in the larger dimensions of both yoga and creativity: both ask for a resonant search to the core of one’s being, to seek and cultivate a broader awareness, that opens in increments, and becomes, over time, capable of embracing the core of oneself and the energies of the outer world within our gaze. Cultivating awareness and seeing becomes the bridge between yoga and creativity.
Both ask of us to learn to see what is. And, we hear the question: Why learn to see? Don’t I already know how to do that; haven’t I been seeing since birth. The key lies in cultivating a broader form of seeing that opens to oneself and the world simultaneously. This form of awareness opens questions that encourage discovery:
Who am I?
What is the nature of my authentic being, my core strengths, capacities, and limitations?
What is my relationship to the outer world; where lies my deepest resonances?
What is my relationship to others; how can I see clearly without the veil of my opinions and desires?
What is my relationship to the world; where can I make a difference?
Where lies the region of my greatest contributions and personal fulfillment.
There are many questions and few answers. Please join Laura Dunn and myself in exploring these questions with enjoyable and inspirational tools and exercises in Pacific New Media’s upcoming Creative Navigation series and the classes this Sunday on Cultivating the Art of Seeing and The Art of Yoga.
http://www.outreach.hawaii.edu/pnm/Programs/HL2-FUND.asp
