Axl needs to "Embrace the River".....

[WiZard]

From White Feathers "Living in Joy"......

Embracing the River:

You know, writing is a directional thing. It is a flow. It is an interpretation of a flow of energy.? Let's look at it like it is a river since rivers are famous for flowing. You, the writer, are sitting on the riverbank at the very edge of the water. What you are going to do is embrace a snippet of the river as it flows by and in doing so you imprint your vibrations upon that snippet of river flowing by.

And then it's gone. That snippet of river is downriver and out of sight before you know it. So what you do is focus on another embracement and imprinting. Of course, it's gone pretty fast, too: being swept away by the river. But that river carries your imprinting far, far downstream and a lot of people sitting on the riverbanks downstream will see your embracement go by and they will feel the joy and love that was imprinted in it and it will help awaken the joy and love in their own hearts. Your embracement flowing by may influence a lot of other peoples' embracements. People may end up sitting by the river and waiting for one of your embracements to come floating by.

The important thing to remember is that everything that you write is an embracement of the life-giving energy that flows through you. But once you embrace something it is no longer yours! Once it is embraced and imprinted then it is floating away down the river. It is gone. It is a tendency for us to hold onto these embracements because they are "ours" and we don't want to see them float down the river away from us. This is both damming and damning. What are you doing when you don't let a river flow naturally; when you try to hold back the water? You're damming it. This, in turn, damns your creative efforts, so instead of having a constant flow of new river to embrace you have just got a pool of the same water. And stagnation sets in.

The above was word for word from White Feather's writings.? I'll now pick pieces of the rest of this piece that are relevant to the artist Axl Rose and his current state of "holding onto his creations"

Our writings are like creations but once created they are no longer ours.

So put yourself back at that riverbank. You are watching the river flow by. You have got pen and paper handy and you do an embracement and that embracement produces a poem (or song). Once the poem/song is fully embraced, throw it in the river. Now you are free to enjoy your next embracement.

You see the more appropriate ways of "owning" something is to feel it: to embrace it. But we tend to view "owning" something as holding it within our grasp. We can't own anything until we've felt and embraced it and released it.

When we hold onto something and do not throw it in the river, so to speak, because we are worried about what people downstream might think then we are damming the energy flow that we need to further "create". But this is why we won't let go of our stuff and throw it in the river because we have fear of that energy flow coming back towards us. It is a tough fear to walk through but it is also as easy as throwing a piece of paper into a river. The important thing to remember is that we cannot fully embrace our creations if we are judging them. That is not feeling. That is mental dam-building.

So relax and enjoy the river. Keep your focus on the river in front of you and do not let your mind wander to those downstream. The river is directly in front of you is the only place in the river where you can.........

.........embrace....release.....create

[Twisted Nerve 85]

Ummm..........k. 

[N.I.B]

i dont think it so much "embrace the river", its more like "get your ass into a recording studio, moron" 

[oneway23]

That was the most touching LSD induced rant I've ever read

[ccorn69]

hmmmmmm defennitly an interesting read.  But its true when you create something you have a sense of ownership and its hard to put out things that are so personal out there. Will Axl ever let go of his baby and let it out into the world for us to hear, who knows, but i fuckin hope so.

[DOASHK]

for some reason i was reading that as if Michael Jackson was the narrator

[ppbebe]

I bet the musicians like BH and Brain know this matter the best. They're the masters of embracing the river.
Maybe the alleged "current state" is quite mistaken.
Anyhow,  good read and
Great to find a thread hasn't been embarrassed by loonies yet.

[AxlFink]

wow there really is nothing goin on with gnr these days.  nothing to write on here about anyway.

[Felix da Housecat]

You know, writing is a directional thing. It is a flow. It is an interpretation of a flow of energy.

No. Writing is a process. It is a messy, circular process.
When we have words presented to us in a sequential, linear fashion, that is an artificial construct, not natural.

For the last 400 years or so the printed word dominated western communication and reading habits. The way we extracted information and meaning from the information presented to us was in a sequential, logical way. That is why we deal with presenting information in a streamlined, logical manner, or "flow" as you put it. But, there are other approaches available to us.

Think about daydreaming or when you are asleep and the way you can pose images in your mind. We don't think in scale or perspective or even lineraly. Sounds, images and smells become interwined and that is the way that we process information.

so instead of having a constant flow of new river to embrace you have just got a pool of the same water. And stagnation sets in.

More like a bowl of Jello. We are still in a transition period.

[MikeB]

To me, it's more like if you don't want to make a comeback, then just fucking retire. Axl is one of my favorite musicians , I respect his "Fuck You" attitude, but on the other hand he's an asshole.