I used to tell my loved ones "I have been saving smiles for them", But today, May I say to you all, that I have been given magic for you.

I think some higher mysterious force, or the universe or the Giver of all Dreams is up to something lately. Something that does not belong to me.

Something higher, something like superior intelligence, it's not in the physical realm like AI, I am thinking of SA; Superior Intelligence, the kind that is beyond the subconscious. I AM AVAILABLE

So, last Sunday I moderated the conversation after screening the documentary " Satan and Adam." It was about REBIRTH, about a comeback, about when every hope is gone, it was a film as Mr. Madison Coloney, Cultural Affairs Officer at the US Embassy said, " a well-chronicled documentary."

It is a creative chronicle, a cultural chronicle, a film set against racial bias and musical stereotypes. It was about a black American musician from Mississippi and an Ivy League Graduate, from New York, who played the blues or historically the reals ( if you know what I mean) on the streets of Harlem.

The documentary takes you through the transformative power of music, and the bonds that develop when artists collaborate and worlds collide.

The title of this documentary gave me some chills when we selected it under the 2021/2022 calendar list for American Film Showcase. So, last week, when we put out the poster, people called me, some sent comments back and I was also thinking we may not have a full Hall. But, you know what? we did.

I told those who made it, that they are brave but, that is not what it's all about.

This is about what is happening to me now! It is so magical, I know the realms are shifting, orders are changing, systems are being deconstructed and paradigms are shifting, we are entering a new consciousness...spiritual awakening, and so on.

Only seekers of deep consciousness will understand, isn't it written, that the deep calleth for the deep..."Paideia."

The next day, I picked a book, a book I didn't buy from the bookshop, a book I bought like most of my (SS3)secondary school textbooks. I had tears when I picked that book on a flea market on the floor last year December because it brought back memories.

Back then in my days in Owerri Imo state, my dad had just lost his job, he didn't have enough funds to get me new textbooks for my WAEC. Creativity has always been my salvation, I apprenticed with a sign-writer on the street after school, to be able to buy old books.

There was this old man, on Douglas road by the market in Owerri, back in the early 1990s, he seemed to have all the books I needed, so you know why now.

I knew her name as soon as I saw the book, isn't it Liz Gilbert for those of us who are fond of her work, Elizabeth Gilbert, I met her first at TED. She is a famous creativity evangelist.

Picked it up, dusted it, pushed it back to shape, to a book shape, opened the book, and it was unread and clean. I think I paid less than N200 for it, dropped it at home, and totally forgot about it. Not Until Monday, when I picked it up. " BIG MAGIC", opened it, Part one Says COURAGE (”Hidden Treasure”).

I promised myself that I would read at least one theme per day, so as of yesterday, I was at Enchantment, I was already doing full speed, I find it difficult to drop as the book is already enchanting me.

And today, I opened my email to read Steven Pressfield’s “Writing Wednesdays” and there she is again "LIZ Gilbert's deal with herself" was this Wednesday's topic.

I read through the promise she made to her writing "I will never ask you to support me, I will support you".

BOOM!

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat Pray Love and other bestsellers. She’s also a deep and honourable thinker on the subject of art and the artist’s soul. When Ms. Gilbert was starting out, she famously declared, she made a deal with her writing. What she meant by this declaration to herself and for herself was that, if she had to toil as a barista, drive as an Uber driver, if she had to take a job at hooter, she would do it, she would not compromise her writing. she would not sell out her work.

And just last week, at another gathering, where a question was raised, how do the artists find a balance? Do we know why we call our new ideas, "Our Brain Child"? How then do you expect your child to support you when it is a child? you need to work this thing out, grow the act, find a balance, and take a job. You don't want to be frustrated and depressed, we are part of a real system, we need to learn to live outside our head, survive the system".

DON'T GIVE IN

And then, I read another comment from another reader Brian Nelson: “If the artists do not stay true to themselves, then the world dies”... another BOOM!

"Those of us who are not artists are mostly dependent upon the artists for our world view". He continues.

He reminds me of Robert Schumann who said, "To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist".

Mr. Satan (Sterling Magee) from the documentary "Adam and Satan", said he adopted the name "Satan" because He can go into the darkness of his heart and bring out something amazing, and creative.

Brian went on to write; "When these views become subsumed by the culture, we get to be in places like today. Free thought is dangerous. Free expression of views is canceled and not tolerated. Truckers in Canada go from heroes to racists in a matter of weeks. Nurses are heralded until they question a shot, then they are tossed aside like trash.

Confirmation bias and numerous other cognitive restraints as well as our own capacity for evil make it impossible for us to change our minds through rational thought–the "Back Fire Effect." It is only via the Humanities, in which we willfully and momentarily open ourselves to fantasy, suspend our clingy nature to belief, that the truth of the human condition can be delivered–snuck in under the veil of fiction".

In closing Brain said, "I beg of you artists to humbly and courageously hold the line. DON'T GIVE IN. Our very survival is dependent upon it".

HERE LAYS THE MAGIC !

In the Book, "Big Magic" Liz talked about an idea that left her, not just that the idea left her, but that the idea went to her best friend Ann Patchett.

(Man, you should go find that book and read it).

Scientifically, it is called Multiply Discovery. When an idea comes to different people at the same time, who live in different part of the world and have never met before.

I love how Janos Bolyai the Hungarian Mathematician who invented non-Euclidean geometry, put it. "When the time is ripe for certain things, they appear at different places in the manner of violets, coming to light in early spring."

I love spring a lot, it is like Paideia of Nature, Spring is rebirth for me, it is like adding a lot of green to burnt sienna on my palette, it is violets trying to come to light, it is electrified magic.

But, why would Brain beg the artist to humbly and courageously hold the line? "Hold the Line.'' This phrase is used only as a last measure on a helpless and hopeful or even hopeless situation mostly in war fronts.

Are we at war? and with who or against who?

Like Cornel west would say, are we at war with spiritual malnutrition and moral constipation?

Or, as Socratic will say, "Man know thyself". May I say "Artist know thyself"?

If as an artist, you are yet to read the letter to the artist by Late Pope John Paul ll, Please go ahead and find that letter now, google it and read it. Then, you will understand the next line " Don’t give Up, Our very survival depends upon it".

Again, he used the word "it'' It means there is something in you the world is waiting for.

It is beyond you,

It belongs to the universe, you are just a vessel, let it through or, in time, it will go through you.

Mr. Sterling ( Satan) was raw, true, and real, and also do not forget that the true name for the blues was the "reals". He was real to the music that was given to him, he didn't do it for stardom, money, or fame, he did that for us.

Epicurus said, “If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich.”.

IS MAGIC FLEETING?

So, before my magic finds another vessel, may I say again, "I have been given magic for you".

And I will BIRTH my magic.

Do not forget, like all things of this great world, it doesn't belong to you.

BIRTH your MAGIC!

Nduwhite Ndubuisi A (c)2022

Artist, Curator and Co-Founder IICD-Center, Abuja

International Cultural Manager.