Mindful U Podcast 96. Barbara Bash: Heaven, Earth and Humanity: What Calligraphy Can Teach Us About Each Moment

Today’s episode of our podcast is available at Mindful U, AppleSpotify, and Stitcher now! We are happy to have calligraphic artist Barbara Bash join us to discuss her creative journey over the years—from the precision of Western calligraphy to the spontaneity of big brush stroke calligraphy and what unites them.

She also discusess the 3 primary principles of contemplative art: Heaven, Earth, and Humanity and how these become gateways that attune you to the aliveness of the moment.

Check out this episode to hear this rich conversation and discover writing as both a spiritual practice and state of mind.

To learn more about Barbara and her work you can visit these resources:

Barbara’s Website

Barbara on Facebook 

Barbara on Youtube

Photography by Sofia Drobinskaya  

Full Transcript Below:

Full Transcript

Barbara Bash

TRT 58:40



[MUSIC]

 

Hello, and welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I’m your host, David Devine. And it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions — Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement.

 

DAVID:

Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Mindful U podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us in the studio, Barbara Bash. Barbara was a calligraphy teacher at Naropa in the early years and studied with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She is a lover of the alphabet and practitioner of calligraphic art with brush pen and pencil. Her contact with Chogyam Trungpa guided her into a deeper play with the ancient principles of heaven, earth and human in the creative act. She has collaborated at Naropa and beyond with musicians, storytellers and dancers. So welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

 

Barbara Bash:

I’m doing well. I’m really glad to be here with you.

 

DAVID:

Awesome. You kind of just miss the snow too. We just literally had snow last night. It all went away. And you just showed up.

 

Barbara Bash:

Well, I actually experienced it all day yesterday. So I got a taste of it. 

 

DAVID:

Okay, and where do you come into town from?

 

Barbara Bash:

From the Hudson Valley, upstate New York, a couple hours north of New York City.

 

DAVID:

Okay, great. What’s awesome is the last time I met with you was that the 40th anniversary of Naropa. I think I was, my first year, as like a junior at the college. And I was working in the events crew. And I was working a camera and you were there. And I ended up filming a lot of your work. And I ended up collaborating with you on a video. And so it just feels really full circle for me, maybe that — what did they call the Zen circle?

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right, the enzo? Well, I just am so glad to know who created that video, because it’s still up there on my website. And it really caught something, you know, a quality of that time.

 

DAVID:

And it really did feel like going back home when I saw that video. I was like, wow, this is a very special little moment. And what’s awesome about you is the fact that you used to teach at Naropa in the early years. And I’m wondering, can you let our audience know, what did you teach? And also, what were you doing before you actually came to Naropa? And maybe some of the factors that made you want to come to Naropa and teach at a private Buddhist university? 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah.

 

DAVID:

At the time, it was called Naropa Institute. It wasn’t even University yet.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah. Well, I had been working for probably 10 years in the Bay Area as a Western calligraphic graphic designer. And it was a time in the Bay Area of a real — a flowering of book arts. And so there were a lot of bookbinders and — and letterpress printers and I came into that mix loving — loving the alphabet. And I found a wonderful teacher, Georgiana Greenwood, and I began to really drop into the multiplicity of alphabets from Rome to the Renaissance, all through the Middle Ages, reflecting all these different qualities of these centuries and those alphabets became my palette of colors to work as a contemporary calligrapher doing Bar Mitzvah invitations and wedding invitations and signage and wine labels and all sorts of stuff. 

 

DAVID:

When was this? 

 

Barbara Bash:

So it was in the 70s.

 

DAVID:

Okay.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, really, that whole decade. So it was in — and I connected with Naropa around ’76. I began to come in the summers. I was coming and I did dance. I was studying meditation. I did drawing, I did art history. I always felt like it was like my life and Buddhism kind of linked up at that point, you know? 

 

DAVID:

Yep, I feel you.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, yeah. And then I felt this calling, as I said, a lot of artists were being drawn to the atmosphere of that time.

 

DAVID:

It was like an artistic magnet.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, just like what — what’s going on here? So I decided to move from the Bay Area to Boulder, because there was this opportunity to teach at Naropa. Now, I was teaching Western pen calligraphy at a Buddhist College. Which there was one moment, I don’t remember how it happened because it wasn’t like I was asking for permission from Trungpa, but I remember saying, is this okay that I’m — this is a Buddhist school, there’s a lot of Asian interest, Tibetan, and I’m teaching medieval alphabets. And he said to me, you go into your own tradition, deeply, and it will lead you to everything. So it really did give me a certain permission to go deeply into my own, what I feel was the alphabet, it was the alphabet I was born into. And there’s something that you can do in the culture that you were born into, or the forms that you were born into that I think it allows, I believe, it allows you to leap as a calligrapher because you aren’t really having to even think about those letterforms. They are so deeply embedded in you. So I showed up here, and I think of myself during those years as the kind of precision that I had of those pen alphabets and lining, and the manuscripts and the, you know, I was — I was loosening up, but not that much, you know, and then I got into this scene and there were these jazz musicians like Jerry Granelli, who said — 

 

DAVID:

He’s a drummer.

 

Barbara Bash:

He’s a drummer. He said BB just come into my class and make some brushstrokes. And I’m like, I’ve never done that, you know? He said, oh, come on, you can do that. And then I started —

 

DAVID:

And he drums on the wall. 

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right.

 

DAVID:

Like just gets up and starts drumming on the wall, you’re like ok.

 

Barbara Bash:

You know, if he doesn’t have drums, he just can do it from pots and pans. I mean, he was — that was a big one. I connected deeply with this woman, Susan Edwards, who was in the poetics program. And she and I started performing together because she was a storyteller and kind of in a psychic intuitive, and she was telling these ancient Sumerian stories, and I began to map them in Hana, Gilgamesh and everything.

 

DAVID:

Yeah, serious — what is it serious A coming down? 

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right.

 

DAVID:

Yeah, I know the story.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yes. So it was a time of kind of pulling me out of the studio and onto the stage and taking chances that I hadn’t done before.

 

DAVID:

Becoming a performer.

 

Barbara Bash:

Becoming a performing.

 

DAVID:

Stretching your artistic abilities. I was also thinking too, how you go deep into your tradition — is appreciation doesn’t discriminate. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Appreciation, that’s nice. 

 

DAVID:

So if you can appreciate your craft, you can appreciate another craft because you know what it takes to do what it does.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right, you understand the principles.

 

DAVID:

I’m wondering, what is your astrological sign?

 

Barbara Bash:

I’m a Libra.

 

DAVID:

Ok, because I’m just curious, because I’m like, I like the way we can swing letters and how they look. Sometimes what they say and how they look are just as important. And when I hear calligraphy, I think of a design aspect to language and the alphabet.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. But I think you’re getting to something that also started to emerge for me that I — I talk about it as onomatopoeia words — the words like that look like what they mean. So I had these alphabets, and they were kind of the bones that I was working with. And they were reflecting the times in the Middle Ages of the fullness and the tensions and the clarity of the eye. And then the — the eligibility of the hand. And so I got to have a lot of variation of ways to express through the same alphabet. So I think the poetic atmosphere at Naropa pushed me into writing in a more expressive way. And then it took me into leaving off the alphabet and just having the alive line that was responding to music, or the calligraphic line. It’s like, you’re — it’s the alphabet of this moment — responding to dancer,  responding to stories, responding to a drummer. So it — it really was a stretching time and exciting because of that, crossing over.

 

DAVID:

Hmmm. What I think I’m hearing you say is if I go in that room over there, and I hit my drum set, if I hit my snare drum, it’s kind of going to create you to perform a certain line. If I hit my TomTom, it’s going to create you. So instead of having a specific language, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, you have dun, doo (singing notes). You know, you’re more responding to your atmosphere, and then seeing what line wants to be painted instead of like, assuming what wants to be painted. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. 

 

DAVID:

Am I — am I hearing that right? 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, no, that’s great. I feel like it’s this range that each of us has, like you’d say, a range of many different parts of us that come out. I have a range as a calligrapher of many different lines. And the other thing that happened during that time, was sitting in a Dharma art seminar, I think this was around 1978. So I hadn’t quite moved to Boulder yet. And Chogyam Trungpa was — who was a calligrapher himself, and had, was also working with the brush, he said, it’s possible to make a brushstroke that expresses your whole life. And I remember sitting in this big auditorium, it was probably Sacred Heart there. But what was so amazing to me was that I took in that statement, and thought to myself, I want to make a really big brushstroke. Now, I was not an outrageously, big sort of person at that point. I felt like there was a kind of a meek quality that I was moving into this world, this Naropa world. But I always say that it’s like, each of us has an inner teacher. And that inner teacher was saying to me, go big, because it’s going to give you range. You’re gonna, you’ve got the precision, and that’s good. And you want the range of working big and loose. And then you have so many different voices, so many different visual voices. So that combination of the performance stuff that began to happen, and then figuring out how to make big horsehair brushes out of bamboo, and twine and horsehair, and creating a process for people to experience making those strokes and using the body in doing it. It was not just a small, I mean, I love the intimacy of handwriting, of course. And again, it’s just range. So I was working bigger in these performative things. And then I was working on these large sheets of paper, and often in community, which is what I just did this morning. I did a big brushwork shop over at the main campus. It allows us all to be in our own space, our own creative space, but have others around us. And there’s a wonderful reflective quality, because there’s an ancient Chinese saying that calligraphy is a picture of the mind. So it’s one of those actions in life. I mean, it’s ancient, because really, we’ve been doing it with the line in the sand, or some pigment on the cave wall. It’s something of making a move and leaving a trace behind like I was there. So I’m just working with large — buckets of ink and larger brushes. And it’s giving me and anyone who joins me in these workshops information of where I am right now. And in these workshops, we fold all the pieces up and throw them away, put them in recycling. So it’s not even about the product. It’s just generating something so that we see ourselves and each other in that creative process. And it’s very enjoyable.

 

DAVID:

Yeah. Oh, my God, you’re — you’re just hitting all the things I wanted to talk to you about too. So I mean, let’s jump into it, calligraphy. Here we go. So what I’m curious is, so you’ve kind of touched base about it. So at this moment, you’re kind of talking about big brush, calligraphy. Can you describe that — what that means to the audience a bit more. And you know, you are talking about like bigger brushes, how big is the brush? You said, you make them. Is there like a special way to make them? And how large are these sheets of paper that you’re talking about? Because I’ve — you know, I’ve seen the photos and I’ve seen your work. And sometimes they can span a whole entire room. Sometimes they go even longer. Sometimes they could go around the room a couple times and be in community and it’s like a timeline almost because of the paper’s length looks like a timeline. So you got so much width and story to tell, and just the style that you have. And I’m just wondering, can you explain big brush to the audience a bit more?

 

Barbara Bash:

Hmm. Well, something about scale is interesting, in any form, to play with, to work in any discipline, very small and intimate. And then to take that same process and expand it. So, again, I love the intimacy of handwriting. I love the uniqueness of handwriting. And I found that for myself, I could broaden my aliveness in working larger and larger. And I think this is a tradition in Asia. There is a whole grass style of calligraphers in Japan. There’s an expressiveness that this tool kind of calls for at times. And it was some combination that Chogyam Trungpa had come from a broad edge pen tradition in Tibet. I had come from abroad edged pen tradition, so that’s flat edged, thick and thin. Mine were read or metal, his were wood. And you know that I had been drawn to him. And he had been drawn to Japanese brushes, and he was doing Tibetan calligraphy with the brush. And I began to do Western calligraphy with a brush. But there was something about scale that was what I needed right then. And I think that the working larger, brought — it became a community art experience, because you need other people around, you need people to help set up. It’s not only meeting them, it’s that the whole thing becomes — it becomes something about the collective all of us together, expressing something. And I think art has been maybe perceived, there’s so many different ways to perceive art, but that sense of the solo artist, and something that happened for me at Naropa was that I became part of a bigger offering. And my karma, I could say, its Asian word was that throughout history, and throughout the world, calligraphers have often aligned themselves with different religious traditions. So it made sense in some way to be drawn to a Buddhist. I could have been drawn to a Christian, Muslim calligraphers, Tibetan calligraphers. There’s something about the synchronized act that calligraphy creates. And what I love about this is that we have this idea that it should be good to be synchronized, that would be a good thing to do. But then when you find an action, that just does it, in the doing of it, it’s not like it’s coming from a more whole embodied place. It’s just to make a calligraphic stroke, you have to collect yourself. It’s something that humans have always known, that it’s some way that what’s inside us, and in our thoughts, and in the space, we bring out into form, and its magic. It’s a magical thing that happens. 

 

DAVID:

When you say collect yourself, what does that actually mean? What is it that we are collecting? Is it our thoughts? Is it our feelings? Is it our — are we like, trying to promote something? Or are we trying to push our daily thoughts away of, I need gas, I need to get eggs. And you’re just trying to be clear of — are you trying to be clear of mind? Or you trying to like fill it with something?

 

Barbara Bash:

Oh God, you’ve just said so many different things. 

 

DAVID:

I did, I’m sorry.

 

Barbara Bash:

Well, just coming from doing this workshop, and, you know, we went around and talked about what the experience was for each person. And a lot of people just said, this brought me into some kind of slowness with myself. There’s a steadying, that’s like brings us to the place that we really want to live from. And it’s not, oh, I have to be very mindful, I can be very careful, no, it’s very dynamic, what’s happening, but the way it naturally happens is that you get centered when you do it. It’s what the body instinctively knows. You’re about ready to make a stroke and you’re gonna leave something behind and you got to be centered. So just to have an act that supports that in yourself is a good thing to be doing, you know?

 

DAVID:

And being centered is very beneficial for everyone.

 

Barbara Bash:

It’s beneficial, right.

 

DAVID:

All right, great. So I find this very amazing because it — I love that story about you and Trungpa having this yielding pens, and then when you came together, a collaboration of discovering more brushes, and so one thing that I’m wondering if there’s many different types of ways of doing calligraphy. We can do it with a brush, you can do it with a pen, you can do it with paint, you can do it with a huge brush. You can do it standing over your paper and be like running down a hallway and just stroking this like huge piece of paper. Or you could be using charcoal, you know, and I’m wondering do certain types of calligraphy — like you’ve never use charcoal in Roman calligraphy? Is there like taboos? Or is everything just allowed to do whatever you want or like Japanese needs the ink, the black ink with the white scroll paper, very specific ways to do things.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right, I think the inherent quality of a calligraphic mark is that it’s immediate, it’s direct. And you don’t go back and touch it up.

 

DAVID:

There’s no eraser.

 

Barbara Bash:

There’s — you could, you know, but you know, when you’re doing too much of it.

 

DAVID:

It’s like a tattoo cover up. You can’t really get rid of it, you just kind of like re-go over it.

 

Barbara Bash:

It’s like, you commit, you know, and it’s not only the committing, but it’s that it’s fresh. I think that’s what we all — when we say oh, that’s a calligraphic painting, say, it’s that there’s some kind of freshness to it. So I came from — calligraphy can have that worked over quality and pen calligraphy has an edge to it. But still, it’s fresh. Because you know, for a long time in history, it was forgotten how these letters were made way back in the Middle Ages. You know, we have amnesia, and it was sort of thought — or even Roman capitals, maybe they were outlined and filled in, like drawn letters. But then there was a — there’s a man named Edward Kaddish who was — had been a sign writer in Chicago, and he became a priest in Rome. This is like in the 20s. And he’s wandering around Rome, this young student of Catholicism. And he began to look at the Roman inscriptions that had been carved, that were still there all around in Rome, and he said, there is a chisel edged brush inside those letters. And it had been forgotten. They thought that this was something that was like being drawn, outlined and filled in. So he — he wrote a book called, The Origin of the Serif, which is the word for the foot. Because that gives a certain character to it. And he said, there is the life of the hand with this brush inside these letters. And it sort of brought back this awareness of how they had originally been made. So it’s understanding that direct steady, you got to be centered. You can’t — like I have things where I don’t have enough energy, I’ll say, I don’t have enough Chi in me to do calligraphy today. Like, I’ve got to feel collected. If I’m tired, I can’t do it. So it builds one’s strength in that way, right? Or, it requires one strength, and you don’t try to do something when you’re worn out or off balance, you go, oh, I think I need to rest, instead of push myself. So it has an aligning quality.

 

DAVID:

Okay. And you said something about commitment. And I was thinking, it’s probably easier to commit when you’re present. Then if you’re not, if you’re like, ah, I’m just thinking about my day, and I can’t, you want me to make a perfect line? Like, oh, geez, like, I don’t know if I could do this.

 

Barbara Bash:

Too much pressure. Yeah.

 

DAVID:

But if you’re just mindful, you’re like that’s the line, there we go.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah. And you know, that’s beautiful the way you just said it, because I speak about it in this brush practice that you approach the paper with a sense of trembling, and Trungpa, I would even say positive panic, or positive bewilderment, like, I don’t know how this is going to work out. And rather than that be a problem, I should be confident, I should commit, you don’t know. You just don’t know. But you’re going ahead, certain kind of, I’m going to do this. Holding that sort of little vulnerability, then you’re in contact, you’re — you’re moving on the page, something has happened. And then you step back and you go, that’s how that turned out. Huh. Okay. Or you could go, oh, you know, that didn’t — isn’t so good. You know, you could have some kind of comparison. Or you could let that all go. Trungpa has said it’s the deepest practices, no regrets. That’s how that turned out. There’s another stroke that’s possible. So I think it’s — it’s building some way of living. One of those practices that, you know, as they say, you can’t be a good calligrapher if you haven’t worked on yourself. So it’s — it’s exposing — it’s a very exposing art. Maybe all art is exposing, but it’s the one that I’m working with.

 

DAVID:

I think that’s why we’re all bashful about art, we’re just like, don’t look at it. No. Please don’t judging me. What do you think? You like it? Look.

 

Barbara Bash:

Exactly.

 

DAVID:

What I’m hearing is when you’re present and you’re making these lines and you’re doing calligraphy, it’s such an expression in the moment that you can’t — you can’t redo that. It’s never gonna look the same.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. 

 

DAVID:

But it is a timepiece.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. And another thing that just think of when you said that is these performance pieces that are on exhibit at the Cube Gallery in the campus this month of April, I’m working in a way where I can’t see what I’m doing. There’s no time to step back and say, how’s it looking? How am I doing here? I just have to stay in the moment responding. So, I think that’s a good thing to, you know, we want to be mindful, but we don’t want to be always like, checking to see if I’m okay. You know, there’s some way that it’s — it’s, um, it’s — I’m swimming, I’m — I’m in the water —

 

DAVID:

It’s like Jane Carpenter —

 

Barbara Bash:

Whoosha, is that what she said? 

 

DAVID:

Throw it out there. All right, I feel that too. I do feel like, especially with artists and creativity and showing and performing and creating it, there’s a sense of, you’re only as good as you physically and mentally are able to be good at. But your mind has this ability to see yourself better than what you are. And I always think that’s what you’re doing, is you’re constantly judging yourself. So you have your actuality. And then you have your, what I can think I’m better as. I think of it is like headlights and fog. And so as your car moves forward, so does — so does your like ability to think you’re better. And so the better you get, the better you think you can be too. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah.

 

DAVID:

But the commitment is loving something enough to where it doesn’t make you feel good that day, but you still do it anyways. And the next day, you’re just like, I really do love this. Wow.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. It’s loving, and it’s some aspiration to keep moving that car along in the dark. And you can just see that far. And I want to keep going on this journey. That’s beautiful. And it’s kind of fueled by curiosity and love. And it’s a true path. You — we all are looking for what those true paths are, there are many forms of it. But —

 

DAVID:

Yeah, and the paths could be, how you said earlier, they can be the heritage. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yes. 

 

DAVID:

And then our appreciation is as artists, if you — if you see like a jazz guitarist, and you’re just like, oh, my God, you’re amazing. You know, they spent a lot of time on that and their commitment is loving an instrument — it’s not like, oh, I’m just naturally talented, look at this, or whatever. It’s like, your talent is loving something enough to where you practice that enough to do that.

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right. It’s like those 10,000 hours things. Yeah, I have a story where I was working during those years at Naropa. I was hosting Ed Young, who’s wonderful, is still wonderful. Chinese, Tai Chi teacher, calligrapher, had been teaching at Naropa. And I brought him in to teach something called the grounding brush, that was a very ancient, making a straight line with clear water, I just felt it was a tap root to Western and Eastern thought. The making of a single line. And then we were doing drawing workshops. And it was — it was a rich time with Ed. And I thought I need to have Ed meet Chogyam Trungpa. Here are these two teachers and they’re both calligraphers. And they’ll have so much to talk about. And so I arranged this meeting, which was tricky to do during those times, because Trungpa had a very complex constellation of people around him and schedules and Ed was kind of a Daoist. He was very, he didn’t have much extra trappings on him. And Rinpoche was working with richness of — it was — it was two different views. 

 

DAVID:

Everything was shiny.

 

Barbara Bash:

It was shiny —

 

DAVID:

Any direction. 

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right. Yeah. But we managed to get in, got an appointment, we’re waiting to come in to meet him in his suite there on Pearl Street. And the three of us got into the room and Rinpoche was in there and Ed and I came in and I thought all I needed to do was put these two together and they’ll just be chattering away, but it was totally silent. There was nothing happening. And they were both just sitting there and I was — my panic, you know, in trying to get something going.

 

DAVID:

Like nudging someone, like come on man.

 

Barbara Bash:

I said, Rufus, you — we’ve been studying Chinese pictograms with Ed, and I’m leaning forwards, you know, kind of in my awkwardness, and Rinpoche said, oh, yes, I’m studying a little bit of kanji here and Ed very slowly said, oh, yes, I’ve done a little bit of kanji. I am familiar with that. And then another long pause and, ah, and then Rinpoche turns to Ed and he says, I’m not a very good calligrapher. And Ed turns to him and says, neither am I. And we all three just started laughing because it was sort of the — the fundamental vulnerability of the art is that you don’t say, I’m a really good calligrapher because it’s just how exposed you can be to yourself. And that that’s something that’s alive and always moving ahead on the road there.

 

DAVID:

It’s funny how that happens, though. You — you have two people, they’re different, but they have a passion in the same expression of art and creativity and it just like, doesn’t — constellation, sun is in the way.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, well, they — I was clearly the nervous one, they were fine. But they’d come from Asian cultures. I just had some idea that, you know, I think it was my Libra nature was like overstretched right then.

 

DAVID:

You’re so democratic, you just want everybody to be happy.

 

Barbara Bash:

And talk to each other.

 

DAVID:

Come on, come on, guys get it together.

 

Barbara Bash:

Some of that vulnerability was our — was our connecting piece. And then I don’t remember what else was said. But I know we — a lot of other things were talked about, at that point, it sort of broke — broke through something just acknowledging that. 

 

DAVID:

Okay. All right. So you sort of mentioned it before, when you were talking about Trungpa, about, there’s this phrase called heaven, earth and man or human. And it’s like an Asian principle that Chogyam Trumper was teaching you and he taught this at Naropa, as well. And I’m wondering, how has that affected you and your art? And how has it, you know, maybe shifted over time. And the reason I asked you this, too, is because I did a Chinese martial art called Xingyi. And they did heaven, earth and man as well. And what I’ve noticed is like, heaven’s gravity pulled you up, earth’s gravity pulled you down. And then the dawn Tian, that’s where heaven and earth meet. So that’s where man is created, or person. And so I’ve always felt really connected to that principle. And I’m curious with a calligraphy lens over it, how do you see that and define it? 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah. Well — 

 

DAVID:

That was a big one. I’m sorry.

 

Barbara Bash:

No, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Yeah, Trungpa brought these principles. He was a translator. And so he was expressing them, describing them to a western audience, in an ancient but a fresh way. And he applied it to so many different situations. I mean, he was doing flower arranging and working with environments. And it was — it gave me some holding, some — I guess, I could say conceptual, but it really wasn’t conceptual. It was like, this is life on this planet. And it’s not that the human is the center of things, because we just have our own perspective. But that’s the only perspective we — each of us has our own perspective. So, to look at it from, how do you begin an act? We just talked about the creative process. Using these principles, how do you begin with a sense of space, uncertainty, kind of wonder what’s going to happen? How do you connect through tools, through grounding, through expression? And then how do you appreciate what you’ve done? So I took those and when I was asked to create a calligraphic experience for this Authentic Leadership in action conferences, up in Halifax, they said, okay, Barbara, you will have 45 minutes. And we’d like you to create some experience for people who’ve never picked up a brush before. And like distill something down. And I knew I couldn’t do the alphabet or Chinese characters, it wasn’t going to be that path of calligraphy. That’s the slow, imitative, deep, good calligraphic path. I was going to do something different, but I still needed bones to work with.

 

DAVID:

You can’t go the long path, 45 minutes, right?

 

Barbara Bash:

You can’t. I had to do the fast path. And yet it didn’t feel that I was diluting it, I — but I had to have some structure that like the alphabet and characters give structure to calligraphy. So I realized that these principles could be the structure that could hold us, like that, the constraint, you could say, that could then allow for all this expression to happen within that. And so I had people go into these, making a big brushstrokes, with that sense of uncertainty, sense of connection, sense of appreciation, just as a starting point. Then what’s the beginning? Then what counters that? Then what completes it? So it’s like we’re doing it in a brushstroke, but you could say any project has the same things of what’s the big view here? And how do we get into it? Then how do we resolve? And it just kept opening for me that my natural history drawing that was also happening at the same time, here in Boulder. I was connecting with naturalists and doing botanical drawing and illustrating for books. I began to take people outdoors, and say, here’s a sketchbook page, let’s start with something that’s in the sky, draw that. Something that’s on the ground, draw that, and then a detail somewhere. So three things on the page. Three — a conversation was happening, where you’d have three brushstrokes. And then this interest in combining words with images. I’d say, now describe each one of these elements. Soft, wispy clouds. Dense, mossy rocks. One bright berry. And something about the adding words, to the three part experience of taking in the environment, gave me information of oh, there’s something about the brightness of that berry, or even the brilliant brightness of that berry, that is bringing me into connection with the moment. So I began to use it with illustrated journaling, and then use it with three part poetic haiku type things, kind of my own version of it. But first line is, what’s an expression of the space. Second line is, what’s an expression of the ground. And third line is, what’s happening in the heart. So it became a visual practice that became like a personal contemplation or inquiry or insight, became an insight practice.

 

DAVID:

I’m hearing a lot of threes. 

 

Barbara Bash:

There’s a lot of threes.

 

DAVID:

There’s a lot of threes. And I’m also thinking of the I Ching. The I Ching is like, highly devoted to three, six and just —

 

Barbara Bash:

Yes. Multiples of three. 

 

DAVID:

Yeah, eights. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yes.

 

DAVID:

And I’m loving how the Chinese principles tend to like have these principles or hierarchy, not hierarchies, but —

 

Barbara Bash:

But it is the kind of — yeah, like a natural hierarchies is what we say?

 

DAVID:

Yeah, like the — they have like pillars of foundational roots — heaven, earth, and man.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right.

 

DAVID:

You know, heaven needs man and earth. Earth needs man and heaven, you know?

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. 

 

DAVID:

And one thing I was really loving, so — so you mentioned illustrations, and so you also do like books and illustrations and stories. And a lot of your illustrations, I noticed the principle of three again, where you would have, I would consider it like the heaven. So you just have a very washed out, more watered down, not so bold color ink, it just holds the space and then you have your like, deep, dark brushstroke, and that feels like Earth. It’s like, here’s what you stand on. And then you have the red thing, the little red, you know, words or letters —

 

Barbara Bash:

Little signatures — 

 

DAVID:

Or something — just something pop out, and it’s really small. And that feels like the person. It’s like this bright, colorful, dynamic piece on the page. And I notice it, it always comes in three, and it’s very beautiful. And I was wondering, can you also explain a little bit more about your illustrations and how that may be different from the big stroke? And how do you approach the illustrations of a book compared to the workshop a big brushstroke or calligraphy oriented art?

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, I think the illustration was touching back in on that precise part of myself that I spoke of originally with the pen calligraphy. That it was a very loving — it was my curiosity about the natural world and lovingly creating a creature with each little hair on its body. And so I — you know, here in Boulder, I became interested in the interrelationships out there and I had this woman Audrey Benedict was really taking me out and showing me those interrelationships. And then I wanted to make children’s books that would express the interrelationships around a tree. So it’s — you’ve got information about the tree, and you’ve got information about birds and insects and creatures. But I got to put together, starting with the saguaro cactus. What is the constellation around this tree? I never use the word sacred. But the tree is kind of holding a space for all those interrelationships. And what I said, when I, you know, thought about what I was doing was children’s books, non-fiction children’s books, it’s going down to what’s essential in the story. I’m not simplifying anything. I always was checking with biologists to make sure that I really had it correct. So its children see something essential. And so I got to have a good run of doing books about trees in different parts of the world, the African baobab tree, the Indian banyan tree, did a book about bats. Did a book about urban birds, you know, so it was kind of journalistic. I moved from one place to another. But eventually, that precise form was not what I needed any more. And so my book, True Nature, which was an illustrated journal was more sketchbook. It became that kind of — I was coming to that looser calligraphic place. So still book, still within the constraint of the book form, but I don’t need to work in a real detailed way, I’m more catchy the stuff in the moment. 

 

DAVID:

Okay.

 

Barbara Bash:

Liking that.

 

DAVID:

One of the pieces art that I was really digging is the way you do botanical art, because you’re drawing the plant, and it’s just really detailed, but it’s also very whimsical, and fun, and it has the color where it needs the color, it’s very identifiable. And then you have the words or the —

 

Barbara Bash:

The name.

 

DAVID:

Or the correct way to say it. And it’s a botanical way. I just love that, the way it looks. It’s like a wizard’s book that you would read a spell from or something.

 

Barbara Bash:

Oh, it is a spell.

 

DAVID:

A conjugation, and it’s just so cool.

 

Barbara Bash:

I love that. You know, it started out because of this love of word and image together, I think that was way back for me that I would draw something as a child, and then I would put the name of it on it. Something about humans naming things. You could say, well, that’s — that’s like putting a label on something. It’s not experiencing it. But I feel it’s taking the magic of the alphabet, the sequencing of things, the way humans make a relationship with things by naming it. And then of course, you have the Latin names that give other information. So that was the thing of, start with the image, then when you write, maybe just label the name, but then it really became what’s going on with me right now, why did I choose these things? See, the world is always speaking to us and reflecting something so that it’s touching parts of myself that I chose to draw that particular thing in the sky, activates something in me, and that I chose to draw something on the ground. And I chose to draw this detail. And I’ve gone in and done this, with large groups of people, even with kids in elementary school gymnasiums.

 

DAVID:

I want to do it! That sounds fun. Like let’s go outside, grab some paper, and be like, okay, let’s look at the sky and find what we want to see. Barbara Bash:

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah.

 

DAVID:

It’s really cool, because when you do art like that, it seems as there’s different points of focal points. So as like a videographer, you know, say I’m shooting an interview with somebody, they’re my focus, but I want the bokeh in the background. I want everything to be faded and wishy washy, and not in focus. So I want my focal length to be shorter. And what I’m noticing is some of your art has that focal depth to it. You’re letting the paper have more depth to it, even though it’s like a 2D piece of art.

 

Barbara Bash:

Mm hmm. I got to go back and look at it again. That’s a really interesting way to see it.

 

DAVID:

That’s what I’m seeing, I don’t know. What do you see? But that’s how I see it, it’s the heavens, it’s more of an experience. It’s a thought, then it is like something you can see and touch. I guess it’s arguable too.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, because when I do this — when I do these kinds of spontaneous three line poems, which I do with groups, I say, I want someone to give me a heaven line? And I’m gonna write it out in a way that looks like what it is. Or I could say, a skyline. And I said, I don’t want it to be — I’m requesting that it’s not like world peace, or aspiration, it’s like no — it’s like —

 

DAVID:

It’s like a 1990’s work poster, like admiration!

 

Barbara Bash:

No, we’re not doing that.

 

DAVID:

The eagle. 

 

Barbara Bash:

We’re like choosing an actual thing that’s there. And there’s some reason why we want to bring that into the space. It’s concrete, you could say, even though it’s sky, which has like a lot of space there, but it could be a hawk flying, or it could be trees touching, or it’s something about relating to our world and letting it move us. And that experience of drawing is an ancient practice of connecting. That in way, way back in our psyches, that’s what humans did. They would draw something, in order to share its power. They would draw the bison, they would draw the moon, they would draw, you know, it gets — it gets a humming, magical exchange going on. And that’s why drawing is a Dharma practice. That’s why calligraphy, which is your drawing letters, it’s something of, again, bringing what’s inside, out, and then having it communicate so that we’re sharing our experience, you know, it’s like not so alone.

 

DAVID:

I’m having this thought, as you’re talking about it, of people in a cave back in the day drawing for the first time. And what I’m thinking is, the first drawing was probably more of an it, than an act, you know, they draw the animal, they draw the person, they draw the spear they use. And then once they learned how to draw that, then they have the components to tell a story, then they draw the act of the hunt. They draw all the people, they draw all the symbols together. So it’s almost like calligraphy is the it, and then the expression of calligraphy is the act,

 

Barbara Bash:

Right, it gets sequenced, and it starts to tell a story, or it starts to have a beginning, middle and end. Yeah, that’s beautiful.

 

DAVID:

There’s another three right there. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Right.

 

DAVID:

This is awesome. So my other question is, so you — you’re a storyteller, you’re a poet, you write books, you do many forms of calligraphy, many forms of painting with whether it be with ink, with pen, with charcoal, with all these different things. But you also collaborate with a lot of people. You collaborate with dancers, musicians, other storytellers, performers. And my question to you is, how do you approach the different ways to collab with different types of artists? Are you doing the same thing? Or you’re just like, you’re more of a big brush paint performance? And then, you know, a musician’s more of a, I don’t know, like, just how do you perform — collaborate and perform differently with different artists?

 

Barbara Bash:

Hmm. Well, this all really started at Naropa. This collaboration.

 

DAVID:

Started with Jerry trying to bring you in class. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. It started with Jerry Granelli, right. So it’s about friendships, artistic friendships, so you sort of know each other. And there’s a trust that you’re gonna support each other. You know, it’s the — you’re not out to leave someone hanging out there. No? So there’s — there’s —

 

DAVID:

Not collaborating.

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s not collaborating, right? We’re talking about collaboration. So — but I also remember Jerry saying to me once, this is a couple years before he died, and we were teaching a workshop together, and it was all about getting people collaborating with brushstrokes and different things and, and I said, well, it’s a conversation. He said, no, BB is not a conversation. I said, what do you mean? He said, you’re in service to the third thing. It’s not just, you know, conversing. It’s something that you’re loyal to that is what? Is that the space? I don’t know that he even gave it a word. But I loved the idea that there was some — some loyalty to something bigger, or in between the two of us, and it became something more. So I just have always held that out as maybe it’s just the intuition that’s working. I don’t know, it’s a deep question. But it’s made me feel not as alone in my process, and it’s taken me into places of taking a chance, and I think it’s, you know, I remember once coming off of a performance and someone said, you look 20 years younger right now, you know, it was just like it had a youthful quality to it. It’s enlivening. And I — what I really do love —

 

DAVID:

It’s that art, baby.

 

Barbara Bash:

It is, and I want everyone to feel that they can do it, too. It’s not like, oh, there’s certain artists that are up there that can do it. I think at the end of these authentic leadership performances, we just put on great music, and everybody would just get up and dance, you know, just that life of the body, and interacting. So, I don’t know, did I answer your question? But there’s some — something about coming out of the solitude and finding ways to dance together. And that’s a great, lucky thing to have happen.

 

DAVID:

What’s interesting too, what I was hearing, when you were talking to Jerry, and he’s telling you that you’re not having the conversation of art, you’re channeling the conversation of art. And so instead of saying what your art is, and when in collaboration, you’re listening to the other artist, you’re listening to the vibe of the room, and then you perform upon that with your skill. So it’s like you’re translating the message? 

 

Barbara Bash:

Somehow.

 

DAVID:

It is kind of what I’m hearing him saying?

 

Barbara Bash:

It’s mysterious. Yeah.

 

DAVID:

Instead of showing up like, oh, I’m gonna do line art.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. 

 

DAVID:

It’s like, you show up and you’re like, man, this feels like a more curvy arc type of room. I don’t know.

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. And maybe that it’s not quite as simple as just call and response. He was saying, it’s not that simple. There’s something more that we’re allowing in here. And we don’t know what it is, but keeps us kind of on our toes and keeps us not knowing. And it’s what makes it open, you know, for everybody.

 

DAVID:

Okay, beautiful. So you’re in town this week, because you’re visiting Naropa to be the Lenz Foundation distinguished guest speaker. So congratulations for being the speaker on that. Which means you are the honored guest and you’ll be giving a lecture to the community tomorrow. And I saw that your talk was labeled, “Mapping the Moment: The Calligraphic Voice. And I’m wondering, can you maybe not like, do your speech, but can you just tell us some of the aspects in which you’re going to be talking about?

 

Barbara Bash:

So there’s an ancient tradition of storytellers going around with maybe a scroll under their arm, and they come to a village, and they hang it up on a tree. And its pictures, maybe the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. And they tell the story, and they point to the pictures. As the people are listening to the story, they’re seeing the story, too. So it’s — it’s activating kind of two parts of their brain. What I’m going to do —

 

Barbara Bash:

It’s like a way to remember it. 

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, that’s right.

 

DAVID:

You can always go back and see the polarization of photos.

 

Barbara Bash:

That’s right! It’s — it is — it’s imprinting in —

 

DAVID:

They do that in churches where they see —

 

Barbara Bash:

Right. 

 

DAVID:

Writing on the cross, all the —

 

Barbara Bash:

They surround you, right. So what’s going to happen tomorrow night is that I’m going to be telling the story of my creative process. And I’m going to be drawing it at the same time. So it won’t exist until it happens tomorrow night.

 

DAVID:

Okay. This sounds like a very wireless mic sort of situation.

 

Barbara Bash:

I will be mic’d. But I don’t think the pen will be mic’d, but you will be seeing something coming from nothing. And I’ve got an idea of where I’m going, and we’ll see if the ink flows. And I — I’ll be feeling my way along. It’ll be my story. But what I hope is that it will activate everyone’s story, like what is your creative path? How is it unfolding? How has it unfolded? So I’m just telling my story, but I’m also wanting it to be kind of a universal one.

 

DAVID:

There is a — a sense of improvisation with this thing that you’re going to do. But there also is a outline. So it’s like how many pictures, pictorials do you have of your story? Are you doing your entire life story? Are you just doing like, your time with Naropa story? Are you doing like, you’re in the moment like — you know, because there’s certain different time frames —

 

Barbara Bash:

Yes. Yes.

 

DAVID:

We can pick from. So obviously, you’re gonna pick from one. And you’re also — I’m not going to make like 50 pictures, but I’ll probably make like six, I don’t know, three, like threes.

 

Barbara Bash:

So just to give you a sense, I’m going to have two lengths of paper, one on top of the other that are 30 feet long. 

 

DAVID:

Okay.

 

Barbara Bash:

So, that’s what I got to work with.

 

DAVID:

That’s kind of long.

 

Barbara Bash:

It’s kind of long and I got two of them. So one is going to be rolled up halfway through, haven’t started another one. And I’m going to tell my calligraphic story. It’s like where that started for me as a child. How that moved through my younger years and then how I showed up at Naropa and how Naropa worked on me, and then we’re going to do some — there’ll be some improvisation within that, a big brushstroke at the end and it’ll be —

 

DAVID:

That sounds fun. I want a big bucket of paint.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, everybody wants a big bucket — 

 

DAVID:

I actually bought very expensive paint like a month ago. I bought the second blackest black paint you can get that isn’t toxic because the number one blackest paint in the world is like super highly toxic, apparently. But I bought the second darkest black paint and it’s matte and I’ve been thinking like, what am I going to paint? I want to paint everything. I’m trying to think of like what the paint — and doing some calligraphy might be like, where it’s at.

 

Barbara Bash:

I think it might be, I think, see what that paint has to say through some forms. Yeah, see what the — what the medium tells you. Yeah, beautiful.

 

DAVID:

I was thinking about getting one of those little kitty cats that do the — the arm that goes down, the good look…but getting on the stationery and painting that all black. Well, this was a very beautiful conversation. I really love your — your devotion to your art, your devotion to your craft, because calligraphy isn’t just an artistic view. It’s history. It’s historic. And there’s traditions and there’s honoring lineages. And I love the pursuit that you have and just your, you know, the ways that you do it. And you’ve been expressing it throughout your life. And I just love hearing all — all your perspectives on how you do art. It’s very beautiful.

 

Barbara Bash:

I love that, that it’s — it’s a history. It’s a lineage. And then it’s right in the moment. You don’t know. You commit — something. 

 

DAVID:

There’s no erasers.

 

Barbara Bash:

There’s no erasers.

 

DAVID:

You can’t erase paint.

 

Barbara Bash:

You can’t erase yourself. You have to just go on to the next moment. 

 

DAVID:

That’s true. I mean, even in the Buddhist world, you can’t be erased, you just — back to the bardo. You’ll figure it out, talk to your — your angels and then go get rebirth somewhere.

 

Barbara Bash:

Yeah, you pull on all the support out there in the world, which I believe is there and many energies and I’ll be drawing on them tomorrow night, for sure.

 

DAVID:

Very beautiful. All right. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. And it’s just such a pleasure to have you back at Naropa. And before you go, do you want to like maybe shout out your website or social medias or anything that you’d want to share to our community?

 

Barbara Bash:

Oh, wonderful. Yeah, I do have a very engaging website with a lot of writings and calligraphy and it’s just barbarabash.com. And then I have a visual blog called, True Nature. It’s a slow blog. I post occasionally, but it’s little intimate moments of being in the world. And I’d love to have people visit me, contact me, be in dialogue.

 

DAVID:

Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today.

 

Barbara Bash:

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. 

 

DAVID:

Bye, bye.

 

[MUSIC]

 

On behalf of the Naropa community, thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates.