Have Your Mind Blown
So, yes...I had my mind blown (in a good way) last weekend at the "David Bowie Is" exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Experiencing the exhibit ~ a retrospective of Bowie's career ~ felt a bit like swimming through a magical underwater sea of sounds and sights...or perhaps better to say like floating through an intergalactic dream filled with curious, colorful creations while listening to some of my favorite songs of all time.
Actually, neither of those descriptions does the experience justice.
Perhaps I should just stick with I had my mind blow ~ in the best way imaginable ~ while walking through a multi-media time capsule overflowing with layer upon layer of the wildly imaginative and ground-breaking songs, videos, photographs, sketches, fashion, sculptures, hopes, films and dreams of David Bowie.
Yep...that sounds about right.
This was a deluxe "exposure" experience of the first degree. A chance to step away from my own creative passions, pursuits and dreams and let someone else's creativity wash over me and enjoy the inspiring high of simply soaking it all in.
The experience left me with an ultra-energized feeling of creative possibility...as if I could do, create, share anything I could dream up...as if I could envision, embrace and be anyone I wanted to be...no matter how crazy or out there that might seem to anyone else.
Which, of course, is always true to some degree...but I just needed to be reminded of it. Don't we all?
Since taking a trip to see a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit that will travel to fewer than a dozen cities around the world doesn't happen every day, how can we have our minds blown closer to home?
A few thoughts come to mind (along with some extremely random examples)...
#1 ~ Movies...a few personal favorites include Koyannisqatsi, Inception, Midnight in Paris, The Prestige (in which David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla), The Illusionist, What the Bleep Do We Know, The Zero Theorem, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Being John Malkovich and The Wizard of Oz. (Come on...admit it...the first time you saw the Emerald City you're mind was blown just a little, wasn't it?)
#2 ~ Books...Almost anything by Tom Robbins (including his recent memoir Tibetan Peach Pie) or Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood, Ishmael, Naked Lunch, A Wrinkle In Time and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (two of my childhood favorites, I still love!)
#3 ~ Music... Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Pink Floyd (pair Dark Side of the Moon with a viewing of The Wizard of Oz for an exceptionally mind blowing effect), the Beatles (Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album perhaps) ~ headphones and incense optional and, of course, David Bowie.
Add to this short list your choice of live music (you haven't lived until you've witnessed Sir Paul McCartney perform Live and Let Die complete with pyrotechnics), performance art (Cirque du Soleil anyone?), theater, museums, planetariums, arboretums...spectacular natural settings and manmade places (a village of Earthships just outside Taos, New Mexico), even a TV show (Cosmos comes to mind) and you start to feel the tremendous potential for having your mind pleasantly blown in a gazillion different ways.
Whether or not these experiences such as these blow your mind, hopefully they'll at least give you a fresh perspective and inspire you to release a few limiting beliefs about what you can and can't do...even if only 5% more than usual.
I'll leave you with a small question and creative challenge...what's one way you might enjoy an experience that will blow away preconceived notions and open your mind to new creative possibilities in the coming week?
