1.I believe that spirituality is something different and different people has different pursuit of spirituality. Spirituality should be a kind of sensory experiences. It is something that we believe in and we are willing to spend time to find the real meaning of it. We all know that one of the reasons that people is more advanced than animals is that we human have intelligence. For every single thing around us, we can have different understanding of it. However, some people want to explore themselves deeply. They will get in touch in their soul with different ways like praying, yoga etc.

2.Maybe centuries ago, spirituality is religion and there are no differences between them. During that time, religion was very important for people’s life and there were a lot of worship ceremonies that existed. Many people went to church or temple to pray and wanted to get close to God. They spent time to understand the ideas of their religion. However, spirituality  still has close relations with religion nowadays. It doesn’t represent they are the same now. More and more people begin to focus on their own experience and psychological growth. They may have different understanding of something and they want to insist with their own faith or belief. Spirituality becomes something that they believe in.

3.For me, creativity is that you can turn your new ideas into act and create something that is unique or different. During our life, we are learning and understanding many things. The knowledge we get is the basis of creating. On this basis, we can expand them and find hidden patterns. Then we may have some new ideas. We will turn these ideas into reality and produce something that other people never see or don’t have. If we just have some ideas and do nothing, this is not creativity.

4.Different people has different environment, life experience. I believe creativity can come form these sources. When we read a novel, we can find that the character in the story has almost the same background with the writer. Or we all know that Beethoven was deaf in his ears, but he still created many outstanding compositions. These creations are related to his life experience. People’s environment and life experience has very important influence on them. These are the inspiration of creativity for them and then they have some new ideas depend on them. These ideas promote them to create something new.

 

 

Every time when I talk to my friend about my one day’s experience, “See” is the more frequent word that I use. I always like to say that I see something or I see someone.However, after reading “Deeply Seeing”, I begin to realize that most things I pass by every day cannot use “see” to express because I cannot remember them deeply. Just like the author says “ As we glance at life, we are often wrapped in a tangle of our own thoughts and judgement” (p 71).I believe that everyone has a isolated world which just belong to himself/herself. This world set boundaries with the world outside us and it has its own consciousness and thoughts. Most people like to judge something depends on this state of ego. If we want to see something deeply, we have to release ourselves from this state.

Seeing is very important to artist because it is related to their every aesthetic decision. About deeply seeing for artist, the author shares Saint Bonaventure’s three eyes of knowing and that is “ the eye of flesh sees the “outer” realm of material object; the eye of reason sees symbolically, drawing distinctions and making conceptual relationships; and the mystic eye of contemplation sees the luminous transcendental realms”(p 73). Therefore, when artist encounter a object which can inspire them to create, he firstly can distinguish this object from others and find its unique beauty. Then he will appreciate its formal pattern and content. After this, he “draws a boundary line around the form of the subject, separating it from the boundless backdrop of space and time” (p 74). Now I can understand why some arts of work are very sophisticated but appreciator believes that they have no values. The appreciator cannot feel the “soul” of their works because they don’t use “deeply seeing” to create.

As viewers, the real appreciation is that they must “ go through a real ego death by placing themselves in the inspired mind of the artists, who themselves are out of their minds and only acting as channels of creative spirit” (p 74).

Reference:

Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.