RE: the 3.18.18 CBS Sunday Morning Show

I have been a regular viewer for many years and always enjoy the diversity of themes presented. The show of 3.18.18 touched a sensitive nerve in me, particularly the segment on Art & Madness and the term Bi-Polar raises my hackles.

Presenting only the prevailing medical/psychiatric model and it’s pigeon holes paints an incomplete picture for your viewers. The spiritual and mystical perspective on the creativity was missing from your presentation.

I’ve been a student of and involved in the creative process my entire life. In 2015, I retired from 45 years as a successful architect and have returned to my artwork, shown in NY, Denver, Santa Fe, Charlottesville, and Richmond. In January 2018, I published my first novel, Eyes In The Mirror, Everything Changed When He Met His Soul.

I experience the creative process as a spiritual journey, an actual communication with the Divine, not as a separate entity, but as being in a state of oneness with the Divine flowing through me. I experience these adventures as ecstatic moments of unity. The re-entry into physical reality, where everything is experienced as – separate – can be shocking to the psyche. To the observer, medical or family/friend, this process can appear disturbing. Self-doubt, listlessness, and depression can occur. These symptoms can bring on the judgments, fears and misunderstandings often lead to misdiagnoses of Bi-Polar Disorder or worse. Common-think solutions include anti-psychotic medication which often dumbs down the creative process. Institutionalization isolates the creative person. I’ve observed that these solutions lead to psychosis. It’s like denying the creative person their ability to feel, know and experience the Divine within them. That is maddening.

I was very fortunate to have been guided to study with great teachers who trained me in mental, emotional, and physical mastery. Yoga, meditation, holotropic breathwork, diet, grounding and daily spiritual practices helped me manage my transitions between union and separation. Now I can enter, communicate with, traverse, and create in a state of oneness with the Divine. This training allows me to re-enter physical reality without the previous trauma. I’ve learned to allow myself downtime to rest and recuperate after a creative frenzy. I no longer think there’s something wrong with me. Learning how to smoothly make the transition between these dimensional realities has been a great gift. I trust that most anyone with a pulse and some determination can learn this process.

Stanislav Groff’s, The Stormy Search for the Self: A Guide to Personal Growth through Transformational Crisis, Wassily Kandinsky’s, Concerning The Spiritual In Art, and Rollo May’s, The Courage to Create among others provide insights into the creative process and the transitions between realities of union and duality.

If ever you undertake another production on this theme, please open your hearts and minds to include other ways of thinking about the creative journey.