Russell was a painter who had never touched clay until he was 56 when, for various reasons, he found himself in a position where he needed to sculpt a bust of Thomas Edison.
He continues describing his drive from New York to Florida where he did his work:
“I spent the entire time absorbed in inspirational meditation with the Universal Source of all inspiration, in order to fully realize the omnipotence of the Self within me as a preparation for doing in a masterly way what I would otherwise be unable to do…
If I had followed the usual procedure of the superficially-minded man and played bridge all the way down to Florida, or otherwise enslaved my mind by sidetracking it from its creative purpose… I would have failed. In fact, I knew in advance, from long experience in trying to achieve the unachievable, that meditation and communion between my Self and the Universal Self was the only way to achieve that impossibility. ”
The resulting sculpture is stunning—one of the greatest achievements of his career.
There’s so much I love here. First, the fact that he took inspiration from his belief that he should do great work as a DEMONSTRATION of his belief in man’s unlimited power.
That’s just cool. And totally resonant with the Wallace Wattles adage I’m embracing these days: “The world needs demonstration more than it needs instruction.”
It’s so easy to *talk* about these great, noble truths. It’s an entirely different thing to not only embody them but do so as a demonstration of what humanity is capable of. Powerful.
Of course, I also dig the idea that he chose to insulate himself from the normal superficial distractions so that he could commune with the Universal Source of inspiration—without which he would have failed.
I think it’s simply impossible to create anything really interesting/meaningful if we’re *constantly* bombarding ourselves with this distraction and that distraction—whether it’s vegging out in front of the TV or drinking (another) glass of wine or beer or whatever. If we’re committed to expressing our genius with the world, we’ve gotta invest the one-on-one time with the Divine, eh?
(Soooo… how’re you doing with that? :)