Creative Energy in Life and Art

A Student's Tribute to Motomichi Anno Sensei

Creative Energy in Life and Art
By Peter Lennon*

Conductivity of the body is the creative process as in Aikido. One pointedness of Misogi-No-Jo can be seen as the bodily expression of conductivity, receptivity and mindlessness. The humanness that O'Sensei demonstrates while performing this ritual embodies whole body conductivity. He seems to me to be a conduit, a vehicle that receives this conscious energy.

True Art is inherently sacred. It changes the person in the process. It makes one deal with many elements of character and helps to develop oneself and understand different emotional elements of one's character. So that in order to be productive and creative and continue to grow you have to change and let go of any obstructions in your character that might inhibit the creative process of expression. This can require great work and demand openness to life. You might say that when you create you surrender to the process itself.

This is what inspired the creation of Misogi-No-Jo as a sculpture. As I get older, the realization of that, the value of expressing a creative form is important to a being. People find this in many forms in life. It is what keeps us young and alive at heart.

The feeling in the heart and the hands of an artist are the same as one, whose heart moves him or her on the mat through the Art of Aikido.