SOPHIE LÉVY BURTON Soul Sister

So you could say MONK lolled around in my imagination, as though it were in a waiting room until I was ready, until I had the green light within. There is something in the idea of aligning with your true purpose … Suddenly something feels right. Inspired … Where does that come from? More questions.

This name MONK brings together all the threads I myself had witnessed through writing, painting, creating, being – and with God. The private, again almost MONK-ish lifestyle that artists need to adopt to produce anything at all. The interior life, their inner world. It involves privacy, seclusion – physical seclusion – retreating – in fact, the whole cult and culture of artists’ retreats reflect this – that’s what they are acknowledging.

So that’s my narrative, where I’m at. I swapped painting for writing, and found a deeper sense of myself, an inner calm, a connection with the divine and a little more happiness. Now I strongly feel that creativity must out somewhere. That’s the fulfilling of spirit. You’re asking me does that imply that there’s something within human beings, not simply realising what’s within, something beyond that actually travels through human consciousness – and yes, I’d say that, in plain speak, there’s a universal flow, a universal energy that you somehow tap into. And that if you’re not tapping into it, your life somehow feels unfulfilled. I’m not necessarily talking about high-end art here, I’m talking about the most simple creative acts. I remember Fay Weldon once said to me that as people dropped off going to church they took up creative writing courses. It is the same rule, sort of. And yes, creativity is inspired – by whom, by what, that’s the journey – but it is an ancient and common belief across cultures. That’s what MONK is being tapped into. That creativity comes into this from the beyond. Our creative consciousness … MONK I hope explores that. I hope so.