Maniacs Seeking the New Encounter

From the Introduction: How do you weave together in an interconnected way the strands of a spiritual life lived close to nature, a creative life, an erotic life, so that they all work together and somehow result in work of beauty? How does one live a thoughtful, balanced, meaningful life based on a spiritual core? For sixteen years that has been the territory of Heron Dance. It is mysterious territory, subject to illusion, to setback, as well as to joy and deep meaning. A really full life. Because of its ambiguous nature, Heron Dance itself has at times been ambiguous—a creative experiment that is constantly evolving. Constant change is Heron Dance’s greatest strength and greatest weakness. I’m on a search. This quarter—ninety daily journal entries by the semi-fictional wild artist Archibald Campbell—takes the evolution of Heron Dance to a new level. It is a compendium of the first three months of daily Reflections of a Wild Artist, the Heron Dance daily e-journal. In his semi-fictional journal Archibald explored his own creative process and that of dozens of other artists. He explored his romantic and erotic life, and his connection to nature. As the quarter evolved, my own struggles to be the kind of person I could be, to live the kind of life I envision for myself, came into clearer focus and shaped the work. Some of the artists quoted in Maniacs Seeking the New Encounter: Keith Richards, Mark Rothko, Isadora Duncan, Rodin, Ken Kesey, Patti Smith, Hunter Thompson, Joseph Conrad, Thoreau, Matisse, Andrew Wyeth and Walt Whitman.