Welcome to A Daniel's Eye View!

Just channeling Dan

The decision to start a newsletter/blog is big. It’s one of those pedal-to-the-medal moments where you have to decide just how committed you are to cultivating and connecting with your audience. It’s putting yourself out there in the hope that someone actually cares what you have to say and is willing to join you on your journey.

In my days as a personal/professional development coach, one of my guiding mantras was “Connection before content.” So, first, a few things to know about me.

‘Danelling’

This isn’t my first time at the newsletter/blog rodeo. A few who’ve been keeping tabs on me over the years may remember that I once blogged as “The Shower Channel,” a playfully named “wet-behind-the ears oracle” who shared very personal answers to very personal questions (mine) by channeling the “Me whose mind is clearer, whose heart is more open, whose eye is always on the wider horizon, and whose tongue is almost always firmly in cheek.”

A Daniel’s Eye View, in addition to sharing updates on my writing life and photography, will serve up its own sort of ‘Danelling’ or channeling Dan.

That may sound woo-woo but it’s really just what I do when I write, when I capture a compelling image, when I connect with someone in any uplifting or illuminating way, or just when I understand something with a clearer and sweeter than usual clarity. It really is just channeling my best Me, or tapping into whatever it is you the call wisdom or guidance or inspiration I believe is available to us all.

Poet/Bard. Storyteller. Photographer/Visual Artist. Mystic. Seeker. Researcher. Teacher.

I may as well admit it. I’m one of those creative spiritual types. Meditation room. Candles. Crystals. Oracle cards. I own my cliches. To me, creativity and spirituality issue from the same Source, illuminate and enliven our lives in the same way and are inevitable and inexorably and eternally linked to who we are and why we’re here.

After authoring two novels and four collections of poetry and sharing my images in art galleries and with patrons, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that I’m never better—or at least never happier—than when I allow my imagination to spill onto the page or fill the frame or when I’m exploring and discovering the connections between who are as creative makers of art and as spiritual beings all having this human experience.

My passions all revolve around exploring and sharing ideas, imagining and receiving and writing and capturing my best expressions of truth and beauty, and living—and inspiring--an illuminated life.

The Gospel of Creativity

I believe poetry can change the world. It changed mine. For me, it’s always been one of my most trusted routes back home—to me. As a somewhat lonely misfit adolescent, I discovered the power of words to express many of the things I kept to myself. In my early attempts at poetry and in the inspiring works of more gifted and accomplished poets, I discovered a refuge and a way of trying to understand, or at least a way of asking questions that haunted me. It didn’t bring down all the walls I’d built or blast me out of my shell, but it made the world behind those walls a more habitable place. It gave me a place to feel and to say what I felt without fear or shame. Writing and other writers—poets especially--became my best friends, my companions, my lover, my teachers—and above all, my hope.

As one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, said, “The poem was made not just to exist, but to speak—to be company. It was everything that was needed, when everything was needed.” (Upstream, Selected Essays)

“The poem becomes a map, a note left on a tree, a rock formation at a fork in the path, a cry in the distance saying “this way . . .” (Unknown author).

Even some very distinguished psychologists understand and agree with me about the intrepid and valuable explorations of the poet. Freud himself said, “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.”

Ways of Seeing

Poetry may have been a particular lifeline and way of looking inside myself, but my Muses have always been somewhat polyamorous, enticing me not only with the making of poems but also with telling stories, especially those with elements of magic and fantasy and romance as well as with finding and sharing and teaching of ideas and information that illuminate my own and others’ lives in some way.

Then lo and behold, well into middle adulthood, those nonmonogamous Muses led me to yet another way of seeing that would become another creative passion. I spent the better part of my life telling stories and making poems–creating images with words. For most of that time I never thought of myself as a particularly visual person even when I was visualizing the characters and settings in my books.

It’s ironic that the main character in my first novel, The Rest Of Our Lives: A Novel, was a photographer—and that only after that book was published did my own passion for pictures show itself. All it took was one trip to the dramatically beautiful Oregon coast, and a photographer was born.

Perhaps the connection and evolution were inevitable. Another favorite poet, Mark Nepo, says “The spilling of light into us and out of us is the function of art and poetry.” (Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression). American photographer Jerry Uelsmann said, “Photography is just light remembering itself.”

The stories I've been telling wander in and out

of books and photographs and souvenirs,

reflecting light or cooling in the shadows,

and I notice myself noticing,

wondering if the time has come to tell,

and who would like to hear . . .

Polyamorous Muses notwithstanding, I haven’t abandoned my first love of language. Rather, my aim as a photographer/photo artist is to bring this poet’s eye and this storyteller’s intuition to my photographs, always looking for and trying to convey the connection between image and response . . . dream and memory . . . longing and gratitude . . .

Creating. Curating. Connecting.

A Daniel’s Eye View will feature both original and curated content focusing on creativity both in broad strokes and in more specific ways, including:

• A means for increasing awareness and understanding of creativity

• A way of providing tools and resources,

• An opportunity for developing community around the concept and practice of creativity as a spiritual journey,

• A practical expression of self,

• A means for individual and collective healing,

• An utterly viable approach to both work and play.

So, the point of this long and winding first post is to say that you can expect more or less the following, alternating mix of content in future posts, shared at least once each week—sometimes more:

• Updates and Announcements including new book releases, photography showings or new works for sale, scheduled book readings, interviews, or public appearances, or other new content posted to this site.

• Ideas, information, and inspiration shared from writers and artists who inspire me as they explore the subjects nearest and dearest to me: creativity, art, spirituality, and the ways those interests and energies intersect to help us create our best lives.

• Images I create or share from other artists, often accompanied by my original poetry.

In essence, you’ll be joining me for ‘Danelled’ content that I hope will in some way connect us all to our shared heart (‘HeART’) and to the shared Source of what calls each of us to shine—and hopefully having a great time in the process!

Dan Stone is a novelist/author, poet, and fine art photographer who also blogs about his passions: art, creativity, and spirituality, and who believes poetry can save the world.

https://www.danielseye.com