Lichtenbergian Precepts: Ritual, part 2

When last we left off in our discussion of the Lichtenbergian Precept of RITUAL, we had annotated the simplified graphic of the structure of RITUAL with the actual phases as I define them in Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy. Today let’s look at that first phase, INVOCATION.

First, as I detail in the book, the phases are derived from the sections of a blank book of quotes and sayings I created for my meditations in my back yard labyrinth. You can find other names for the phases of RITUAL, but the shape will always be the same: create a space, enter that (often dangerous space), encounter the unknown, leave the space.

You see this shape/structure everywhere: worship services, attending a performance, The Hero’s Journey, and — to our purpose — Making the Thing That Is Not.

The first step is INVOCATION. Johann Sebastian Bach scrawled JJ at the top of every new manuscript; that stood for Jesu Juva, i.e., Jesus, help me; and back in the days of The Iliad and The Odyssey, poets would open their works with a plea: “O Muse!” For those of us who are not J. S. Bach or Homer, it’s more a matter of calling on our own attention and energies. Art doesn’t happen just because. It happens because we will it to happen.

Recognizing that we have to enter that scary space where we work is the first step to overcoming our fear of failure. It can be as simple as turning on the lights in our studio, or you may — like Bach — have a specific invocation to use, but all that is necessary is that you develop a sense that you have a switch that you need to flip from OFF to ON to get to work.

For what it’s worth, here’s a snarky Invocation that I actually use when starting a large project, especially one that involves other people like a theatre production:

Invocation

O Ed Wood,
We beseech thee,
O Edward D. Wood, Jr.:

Look over us now as we begin our new masterpiece.
Blind us to the possibility of failure.
Hide from us the improbability of our success.
Free us from our capabilities,
and strew our paths with bad ideas,
so many that we cannot help but stumble
upon a good one every now and then.

Give us the clarity of vision
to see as far as the next step before us,
but not so clear that we fail to see our own genius
rushing forth like a river and covering all about us
with an ever-rising and brilliant flood of success.

Grant us this, O Ed Wood,
now and in the hour of our rebirth.

Selah.

Most days, of course, I just sit down and open up that blank page. Jesu Juva, indeed.

Next: DRAWING THE CIRCLE