Mary Beth Felts

 LOST AND FOUND

                                                                ( Winter 2015)

When your heart has been on a journey- with crashing waves, fiery heat, drenching rain, and shaking of the earth- and you survive- do you find the days following to move in slow motion- to carry with them a meaning not felt before? Do you find each moment to last an hour, a day, a year in which you feel everything more deeply, more clearly, with deeper clarity, and less urgency? I do.” Via Wild and Wise Woman

There comes a time, typically after great loss, or after having traversed a lifetime of crooked trails, when one asks the question, “Who am I? and Who is the I that is asking? “ And I don’t suppose, at least I don’t suppose yet, that the answer to the question leads me to sublime awakening. But, rather, it is in the asking itself.

And where does that question lead me?

It leads me down more crooked paths. More rivers fraught with rapids and sharp turns. It leads me back to me.

Perhaps I will still be sitting with the same question if I live to be 100. I may be no closer to the definitive answer. As at the age of 54, I find that it is not the arriving that is as important as the journey itself. It is the ease with which I travel and what I choose to carry that any solace arrives.

I have learned that there is very little to be certain of. And the longer I live, even less certainty. Everything, anything, and any person can be taken away at any given moment. For a person who loves deeply, feels deeply, gives generously, and finds it difficult to pre-tend, losses, hurts, neglect, and rejection become wounds that become battle scars. And I have seen that we are all the walking wounded.  

It’s not to play victim. It’s not to place blame on anyone save myself for the scars seared on my soul. I, too, play the greatest role in my suffering. But it is my mission, for myself, to recognize how I have invited this story to play out. And how, since my story is not yet finished, I will play the next act.

Much of what I have known until now, in fact, most all I have known, has become a closed chapter. Which might mean that I know nothing. What I thought I knew might have at one time been the truth I held for myself, but as the river flows, I find that there are oceans beyond my limited view and so much more to see, and live, and love, and even unlearn.

What I was once so certain of has certainly proved to be of no certainty at all.

                                                (winter 2015)

Nothing worth having
Ever comes with a fight
Gotta kick at the darkness
Til it bleeds daylight
Bruce Cockburn

Sitting in the darkness might not be the most comfortable place to take residence. Yet, it has become a place I have become all too familiar with. It took being frightened to death that gave me the strength to kick my way out. And it is only now that I begin to see the gift.

In my garden I have unraveled many tangled threads. On days when I prayed to die, I often found myself outside digging in the dirt. When I first moved to my little six acre farm, there was nothing but open fields. Twenty years later, there are fruit trees, herb gardens, flower beds, a kitchen garden and green house, and several beds lined with boxwoods that supply me with all the bounty and beauty I need. I realize now, after years of trial and error, how things grow, and how desperately they want to live. And it all begins in the deep dark womb of the earth. Every seed gestates in the dark. And every seed struggles to find the light, where it blooms.

It is only now that I feel myself reach out from that dark womb into the light. And as I do, I find many other fellow travelers.

While I was painting, these other figures appeared. I felt the guardian and followed where the brush lead. I sensed in me the call to rise both up and out from the darkness and begin the journey toward my destiny, into the light, which was still strange and unfamiliar. When I finished the painting, I knew that not only was I guarded, but I was not alone. I also knew that the darkness was only the gestation and not the end itself. It was the place that allowed me to gather all I needed so that when I walked toward the light, I walked with certainty and strength.

“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive.
And life is pain,
And life is suffering,
And life is horror,
But my god you’re alive
And it’s spectacular.”
Joseph Campbell

Painter, Alice Neel, says “All experience is great, providing you live through it. If it kills you, you’ve gone too far.” You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you have, the better it is…unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far.
Only the bravest warriors dare take the journey. The higher the hill, the further the fall, and fall we will. Fall we must. What goes up must come down, and again. Thank you, Newton. Or as with the Law of Relativity, everything happens FOR you, not TO you.
What I’ve learned is that in order to rise above, I must commune with every vice, every sorrow, every pain, every horror, in order to realize how much stronger I am than anything that works so diligently to have me believe otherwise than the holy purpose I came here for. It’s their JOB to do that. And they perform it brilliantly. They are the fire that forges the iron.
Well, bravo, you tricksters. Well done. Watch me rise.
Every pain strengthens me. Every suffering makes me more compassionate. Every horror has me realize that the choice to love harder always trumps indifference.
Divine alchemy is at play and I know who I am. And it’s spectacular.

Photo by: Anthony Scarlati

Anthony Scarlati walked out to the tree I call Grandmother to grab some photos of her broken, beautiful body .He asked me to sit with her so I could have an image to cherish once I’ve moved from this farm. She’s a grand tree who refuses to relinquish an ounce of her splendor despite what appears to be an impossible feat. She rests on the ground completely, haven fallen many years ago. Her branches gracefully invite communion, as they stretch out horizontally. I marvel at her tenacity, her strength, her welcoming, and her blossoms in the springtime. Broken, bent, and hollow, yet she thrives. She inspires me to be stronger than I feel, to persevere, to dare to bloom against all odds, and to welcome and recognize other souls who seek refuge.
It’s a kinship I sought with my own mother, but never realized. It was a painful experience, but one I’ve made peace with. Grandmother was a great part of that healing.
I wrote this poem on Mother’s Day. I waited many years to dare write about us because the truth is not pretty. The truth is uncomfortable. And the picture that was painted for everyone else to see was false. I played along because that’s what we do, isn’t it? But, I know now, the truth, however unsavory it may be, will set you free. And there is no reason to pretend otherwise.
I was thinking of the final weeks of her life, just after Christmas, while she was in hospice care. Sitting with her every day, hoping for some words from her that might heal. But those words never came. She felt how she felt and she could not pretend to feel differently, even at death.
My sisters and I sang hymns by her bedside in her final hours. Singing her home.
The closure I wished for never came. But, I loved her anyway, all the way to heaven.

Touch My Mother
April 7, 2016

After such a cold hard winter
Suffocating in the gray
Walking out to touch my mother
beg to hear what she might say

I reached down into her darkness
Felt my fingers on her skin
Cross my heart and curse the heavens
She would never let me in

Weeds will choke out all the wonder
Where the pretty flowers grow
‘neath the window at my back door
secrets no one needs to know

tiny hearts who dance to mirrors
writing words up in the sky
honeysuckle in the springtime
dreams of learning how to fly

yank my hair and place a bow in
shine my shoes and press my dress
quiet lest someone should notice
there’s a mark upon my chest

years of hell and heart of hunger
that’s the gift she left at death
hymns of praise and prayers to Jesus
as she drew her final breath

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
RUMI

Living as a woman in this magnificent physical expression, unique to me, yet universally symbolic of nurturance, sensuality, and sexuality, is made even more mysterious as I grow older and curiously, only now, do I begin to comprehend the nuances.
In the deeper truth, at least for me, I find it no coincidence that breasts are near the heart, the heart being wholly symbolic of love, compassion, and wisdom, relationships. people close to our heart. And that if that heart space is not nourished, the female spiritual symbolism of it, the breasts, will let you know. Our bodies are such brilliant receptors.
There is something of the divine in the design of a woman’s breasts, lest there would not exist masterpieces, poems, and songs, depicting their mystery. They are sacred symbolism.
What if, as women, we owned our magnificence, as is? And what is shown to us when we don’t?
On the metaphysical plane, breast cancer has been described thusly: Belief that how one treats self and others is nurturing, when it is not. Nursing grudges (resentment). Feeling unloved or unlovable. Needing to mother or be mothered. Living with the constant threat of someone’s emotional abuse, feeling responsible for when it happens, and feeling unable to stand up for oneself. Appreciating oneself for saying, “No” to an abuser, yet still wanting the abuser to somehow magically change into a good person. Longing to be loved, accepted and appreciated.
It’s anyone’s guess what any actual and ultimate truth is. I only know that I seek what is true for me and allow others that same freedom. And, at least for me, I feel like a child on this journey, full of wonder. I’m long past my youthful days and only now awakening to things I wish I’d seen many years ago, as a woman. I’ll not beat myself up over reasons why it took so long to see. And this is what I see:
A beautiful woman, worthy of respect. A sensual, sexual woman who accepts her body and nourishes her heart. A woman who owns all parts of her story and the role she played, good and bad, and is unafraid to slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of her robe.

Sky Within Us

Oh, not to be separated,
Shut off from the starry dimensions
By so thin a wall.
What is within us
If not intensified sky
Traversed with birds
And deep
With winds of homecoming?
– Rilke

Night magic is real for me. It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’ll drop everything to glimpse the hallelujah of any setting sun, to feel the colors and the majesty of the Creator’s hand. And then, THEN, the slow unfolding of inky blue and black that draws me further still, serenely, into this vast and incomprehensible space where my heart stills, crickets commence their cricketing, stars appear, and everything is magic. Life is magic. I am small, so very small, yet, part of something that is also the sky.
There is something un explainable about the night, the stillness of the colors, that allow me access to truth, creativity, love, and mysteriously give rise to inner vision clearer than in the light of day. It is the time of the waking dream where I realize that all of life is a dream, dreaming me. That, all is well. All is love. And should I ever wonder, I only need walk outside and gaze into the night sky.

August 13 ,2015

I was fervently urged to stop painting. With this one…to add no other stroke. I listened, then sat with it. Sometimes, there is no more to say. Then, it became provocative. Personal. Nima said it reminded her of this poem, The Return, and when I read it, I had nothing more to add. In words, it had already been said- and to paint it only brought it deeper in. I only ask when I paint what needs to be known and the prayer is made visible. What is shown is as curious to me as to anyone.

THE RETURN
Geneen Marie Haugen

Some day, if you are lucky,
you’ll return from a thunderous journey
trailing snake scales, wing fragments
and the musk of Earth and moon.
Eyes will examine you for signs
of damage, or change
and you, too, will wonder
if your skin shows traces
of fur, or leaves,
if thrushes have built a nest
of your hair, if Andromeda
burns from your eyes.
Do not be surprised by prickly questions
from those who barely inhabit
their own fleeting lives, who barely taste
their own possibility, who barely dream.
If your hands are empty, treasureless,
if your toes have not grown claws,
if your obedient voice has not
become a wild cry, a howl
you will reassure them. We warned you,
they might declare, there is nothing else,
no point, no meaning, no mystery at all,
just this frantic waiting to die.
And yet, they tremble, mute,
afraid you’ve returned without sweet
elixir for unspeakable thirst, without
a fluent dance or holy language
to teach them, without a compass
bearing to a forgotten border where
no one crosses without weeping
for the terrible beauty of galaxies
and granite and bone. They tremble,
hoping your lips hold a secret,
that the song your body now sings
will redeem them, yet they fear
your secret is dangerous, shattering,
and once it flies from your astonished
mouth, they–like you–must disintegrate
before unfolding tremulous wings.

August 13, 2015

The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it. –Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the
other in the abyss. Paulo Coelho

Emerging and Abyss were painted in tandem. I often paint two canvases simultaneously as they have a dialogue between them. It was an odd evening at the studio. It wasn’t the studio or anyone else present who was odd. It
was me.

I was in between worlds, feeling emotionally fatigued. The journey through decades of abuse and darkness becomes a sleep walk through thickets of disbelief and confusion. How did I get here? Is there a way out? The answer to the way out might mean that the framework of your belief system of yourself and your place in it must be rebuilt after such
destruction. And the rebuilding is disorienting.

Even if you’re fortunate enough, brave enough, strong enough to destroy the previous nightmare you found yourself living, the aftermath finds you mentally confused. It¹s akin to another sort of dream. The sort of dream
where you wake up from a deep sleep and wonder if what you dreamed was real or imaginary. The ‘Wait. What just happened?’ sort of dream. It’s the point at which you realize that you sit precisely in between worlds. Leaving behind one, and not yet realizing the one you are soon to enter. A purgatory before the prize. No more to say. It was simply odd. And the painting’s message was clear.

Art and Soul Open House, September 2015, Nashville, Tennessee

I beg you,
To have patience with everything
Unresolved in your heart
And try to love the questions themselves
As if they were locked rooms
Or books written in a very foreign language.
Don’t search for the answers,
Which could not be given to you now,
Because you would not be able to live them.
– Unknown

I have a fondness for dialogue that feels like a dance. It matters not, actually, what dance, if the syncopation is poetic. Even the mashed potato has the capacity to be ecstatic. The magic of the tango, a ballet, or waltz, requires no explanation. And that’s how it feels to paint when I surrender and allow some higher power take the lead.
This night in the studio was contrary. It was akin to beginning at the beginning and learning position one, and then taking a pause, and then holding. Not that there is anything lost entirely from performing only the first position. It’s an important pose. Sink fully into the position and hold it there until it becomes completely ingrained and serves as a fortitude and courage to inform each step that supersedes. It can both stand on its own, which in itself is immeasurably magnificent in its simplicity, and bring stability and grace to whatever steps follow.
No other dialogue surfaced beyond the first position on this painting.
It felt to me like a dialogue that began and was never revisited. It simply stood there staring back at me and begged to be seen for what it was.

Life is like that. A conversation begins, a lovely exchange, but for whatever reason, is never finished. There is more to be said, but we must allow for some acceptance that what else we believed we needed to know wasn’t meant to be known. What was more important was to allow the thing we might believe was incomplete to be exactly as is.
This painting sat in my studio for months as is. It’s not that there was anything inherently wrong with it. And to be honest, I quite enjoyed the feeling of the simplicity of the first position. Something about the colors and the gentle movement felt mysteriously soothing. It’s just that no matter how many times I placed it back on the easel, no direction ever arrived.

But, one night a friend came to dinner and he asked if he could buy this painting. He said that he had been looking at it each time he visited and was drawn to it. I explained that it wasn’t finished. And he replied that he really loved it just as it is. And further more, he already had a place in mind to hang it.
I find life to be filled with nonsensical magic. What lives as a question to me is a complete answer to someone else. I’ll dance to that. As is.