Is there such a thing as a special drink that can bring instantaneous creativity? According to what I witnessed in Emei Mountain, China, there certainly is!
Mount Emei is a picturesque Chinese misty mountain with an elevation of 10,600 ft. speckled with unworldly temples that watch over majestic landscapes of thick cloud forests and steep rocky terrain. The spiritual energy of this mountain is omni-present and timeless. Emei mountain has been known to attract ancient sages such as Lao Tzu (considered founder of Taoism) and Kongzi (Confucianism) for its spiritual and mystical energies. People travel from around the world to take a famous Buddhist pilgrimage, traveling from temple to temple to the very summit of the mountain, above the “Sea of Clouds” to what is called the “Stairway to Heaven” to unite with the essence of the heart of the human being. Ten years ago, I took this very pilgrimage and has carried with it the weight of being one of my most profound spiritual experiences that has brought my life in an intimate connection with “the unworldly” through the mundane.
This is where I met Wu Moh, a famous Chinese Calligraphy and Traditional Chinese Painter. We drove one rainy morning to his studio, within the layers of misty terrain on Mount Emei. As I walked in his studio, it was bright and open with a grand view of the layers of mountains. We sat and shared tea with one another at his long tea table. Like most of Chinese social interactions, we sipped various teas and carried on a conversation. We asked one another about our art process and what inspired us. I was curious what his personal practice was in transferring a moment of inspiration onto the rice paper. When I had inquired about the process, he shared another drink with us that wasn’t tea.
He showed me a mushroom that grew wild in the mountains, and was in pots throughout his studio (later I found out it was related to Reishi) and shaved off some of it into a little bottle of grain alcohol. He added in some honey and served each of us a tiny cup. I was hesitant to drink it because it was still fairly early in the morning, I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I wasn’t a liqueur drinker. But I trusted in this process and went along with the flow of the ‘tea’ ceremony. The first shot went down fast through my mouth, but heat radiated through my chest and arms. My conscious state lifted somewhat and I felt spacious around my head area. Wu Moh shared that “when you are conscious- teachers, shadows exist.. within this state, you are free from lineage.”
The artist then said, “three shots – empty the mind.” And sure enough, just after the third shot, he got up and headed directly to his table. His partner unrolled some large rice paper. Immediately he dipped his brush in some ink and started to paint. I then took my pen and wrote in my journal, “inspiration is a moment of consciousness.”
What he created was a large calligraphy piece that translated to be a form of capturing the essence of the morning. I could not read it myself, so Vedantin, my partner helped me to put it into words, “Spirit Water leads to or is a channel to the dream/cosmos” with additional poetry along the side “inspiration in the middle of rainy summer day in the dragon year.”
I was taken by the whole experience, as it really just happened right before my eyes.
Being involved intimately within the artists process of creation – the tea ceremony, spirit water sharing, and transforming this into a piece of art was a beautiful reminder that art is a capturing of the essence of life. This “inspiration drink” that consisted of grain alcohol (something that is used widely in China for social gatherings and expressing gratitude for loved ones- not associated with any negative associations like in the Western world), a medicinal mushroom that grew on the mountain he lived on, and local honey was synchronicity acting in its own mysterious ways.
So what about the Inspiration Elixir? Did it really bring about this urge to create? For him, it certainly did. I however did not feel moved to create, but to sit and take it all in, in a more reflective state. I believe there is great power in the “creativity elixir” and we have the ability to decide what this may be. For some, it is coffee, others maybe it is wine, for me, I like Cacao with Reishi. All of these beverages are in essence plants, a part of the natural world. We are also of the natural world, and when we consume a drink made of plants, we merge with the essence of the plant, it becomes a part of us and we can then co-create with that plant. This is the magic.
