There is no greater power than to just be ok. No matter what happens.
– Mary Beth Felts
Admittedly, I dispel demons daily. The ones that have me question everything. The ones that bring doubt and then indecision to whatever I struggle to overcome. I find myself living in a place that feels surreal at times. I wonder how I arrived here and how sound my ability is to bring me out of where I am to a place my heart longs to be.
If I were a boat, it would be as if I garnered trust in the navigation system only to find myself in the midst of a violent storm with no alternative other than to trust that somehow, someway, and only by the Grace of God, would I weather through.
Storms just happen. They are not entirely avoidable, although we might wish they were.
To be of sound mind in the midst of the storm is the only way. To allow whatever happens to happen.
The storm lives within me, and so does the ability to accept what exists. Fighting is futile. The truth is, storms pass. Eventually.
The law of impermanence says that all things come and go, that you cannot cling to anything, not even pleasure, without also creating suffering.
Therefore, my quest…my eternal quest…that no matter what happens, I will be OK.
And so it is. And so I am. OK.
How shall I hold back my soul, so that it does not touch yours? How shall I lift it over you toward other things? Ah I would like to hold it safe with what is lost in the darkness at an unknown silent place, which does not keep swaying when your depths stir. Yet everything that touches us, you and me, brings us together like the stroke of a bow that draws one voice from two strings. On what instrument are we made taut? And what fiddler has us in his hand? Oh sweet song.
–Rilke
What of the mystery of merging with another, the holy union? Seeing another and accepting them, inviting them, fully unto you? Within this cosmic inferno, it is possible to know and feel the unconditional love of one heart connecting to another.
It is perhaps the ultimate holy mystery, the search for the holy grail.
If we dare surrender, befriend vulnerability and open to love, this gift from the Creator has the capacity to allow heaven on earth to be known.
In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said unto them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside, and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, then you will enter the kingdom. “
I’ll take the kingdom above all else. Given the choice, why would I seek otherwise?
She was waiting but she didn’t know for what. She was aware only of her solitude, and of the penetrating cold, And of a greater weight in the region of her heart. – Albert Camus
“Waiting Room” February 6, 2015
It took a long time to find the courage to leave. And then, after leaving, finding the strength to face an uncertain future. When an entire lifetime is unraveled, there is a long period that marks that ending and the beginning of what is to come. That period of time is the waiting room. I have named it “the perpetual waiting room“ because it seems that I have waited forever for things to show up. Or for what was, to come to its ultimate conclusion. Waiting for the divorce and all that it entails, waiting for my property to sell, waiting for the time it takes to begin a new career, waiting for whatever love to enter, waiting to move on to my new life, waiting, waiting, waiting. As of this writing, I am still waiting. The divorce is final, but the property has not sold. So, I’m still here, we are all still here, waiting. Waiting for my heart to heal so that love has the space to enter. It all takes time. And faith. Most of all…blind faith that divine timing is at play and that all is perfectly well.
It was the dead of winter when I painted Waiting Room. So very cold, and dark, and gray and it felt as if spring might never come. I found the only way to cope with the stillness was to surrender. To find reverence for the space I happen to reside in.
It began with deep blues and blacks to fit my mood and then the eye appeared. It affirmed for me that I was precisely where I needed to be. I only needed to remain still, and wait. To become friends with the dark and wait. My crisis of faith.
“ I used to extinguish under the weight of living, But one day, I reached into my chest, Dusted off my courage, And asked myself, Where’s your fire?” D. Antoinette
What matters most is how you walk through the fire.Charles Bukowski
I drove to the studio that day in the dead of winter. It was cold and dark, just like my heart. I had spent so many winter days, overcast and gray, frustrated at where I found myself. It was cold and all seemed utterly hopeless, but a fire burned in me. It felt as if I had been baptized by fire- every muscle of my former self burned from my bones. Beneath the ashes was a determination to rise and live, to find light and purpose. I sat in front of the canvas and prayed. I smelled the smoke and stench of any truth I’d ever allowed to take ownership of my soul. They were never really mine. I painted smoky strokes of bitterness and bid farewell to every thing that was not love. I rose. I watched it burn. I felt it wash over me. I was stronger than anything that was not love. I was more powerful than evil intentions. I am made of sunlight and truth.I am
‘We seek not rest but transformation. We are dancing through each other as doorways.’ Marge Piercy (ph. Helen Lyon)
You might as well open the door, my child, The truth is furiously knocking – Lucile Clifton
I painted this quickly at the end of a long weekend session, after completing eight paintings. I asked if there was anything more I needed to know, and this collection of images came swiftly from my hands onto the canvas. I knew immediately what the message was for me. I saw windows, doorways, openings…holy openings to all possibilities. And guides to accompany me… into the mystery.
“ There is nothing more dangerous than a woman Who makes you stop and think, why? That usually happens when your soul is talking to hers Despite what both bodies might have decided To communicate between themselves, Such resemblance of souls is something magnetic, More powerful than any other connectivity, And usually drives to and sustains In a higher level than common chemistry”
–F Wolff
There are a great many years of childhood that I cannot remember. Large chunks of time that I certainly lived but absolutely cannot recall. It appears that this is not normal as my friends are amazed that I cannot remember my youth. I have learned that this is actually quite normal for someone who suffered abuse. Dissociation is a defense mechanism that protects one from reliving events, and in some instances, entire blocks of time. So, in one sense, my inability to recall is normal, in the psychoanalytical version. Perfectly normal.
Except I’ve always known that I was far from normal and in fact lived mostly in an imaginary and isolated world where I retreated to art and music or anything that removed me from where I was to where I was safe. And soon enough, the imaginary place that was safe became real and the real became unknown and forgotten. It became so thoroughly forgotten that if I ever wanted to recall any of it I would have to resort to hypnosis.
There was an encounter with a friend one year ago, in 2014, where he said something to me that triggered flashbacks, much to my amazement. This was a series of events going back to age 11.
What followed was a tsunami of buried life events come front and center to see and experience again. Except this time, I had the strength to face each one with mercy and forgiveness and the power to set them free.
An encounter with a friend, divinely timed, was what catapulted me to the depths to face my fears, and ride the waves to shore.
All the while, I was painting this canvas. There were many layers, layers upon layers. Dark clouds, light clouds, and in the beginning, even a forest. There are layers of emotion and truth buried there.
I find it difficult to look at, still. I, of course, know what is there. And I have been amazed at the emotion it elicits in others. For each person, it will speak words written solely for them. But, whatever it might say, it does speak.
I made the choice at 52 to walk away from the life I’d known and where I might land was entirely unknown territory. My heart was my only compass, but in order to hear it clearly, I first had to crack open the impenetrable shell. Grace led me to Art and Soul, where I began the work of excavating all that was authentically me, and removing all that wasn’t.
The beauty of Art and Soul is that it gave me the vocabulary to express the essence of my true soul, devoid of pretense and conjecture. Art is so much more than something you see. It is something you feel. And in making it, it is something you allow.
On the second night of class, we were instructed to prepare our tools to paint and to place on the wall a sheet of paper as wide as the expanse of our arms. What we weren’t told was that after all the preparation, we would be blindfolded.
That moment is the voice that speaks to me still, most every day. And that voice says, “Let go. Trust. Allow. Whatever plans you had, whatever colors you chose, whatever tools you anticipated using….Let go. Trust the process. Allow yourself to be surprised. Allow yourself to feel what it feels. Just be with it. Just be.”
Having a plan, a trajectory to reach for, has, at least to this point, been the navigation system I’ve utilized. And it ultimately didn’t work out so well for me. Yet in my stubbornness, it was what I knew and where I was comfortable, even if it led me ultimately to suffering, and circled back to suffering. The hamster wheel of suffering.
And so, to let go of what I may have planned my painting to be, and to know I had the tools at hand to create a picture but had no control of the “pretty” picture I might wish to paint, I allowed. I let it be whatever it was, even if it felt uncomfortable. Even if it was painful. Even if what I created was difficult for me to view with my eyes. It was mine. I created it.
And most of all, the tenant of everything at Art and Soul…above all else, I must not judge.
There is no good or bad, right or wrong, it simply is what it is. And whatever it is, it has something to say to me.
So, after that life altering moment, I brought my strange and very large painting home, hung it as instructed, and lived with it. I willed myself not to judge it. It took all of me, every single molecule of my being arguing with me not to find fault, not to judge. Just to bear witness.
Now, this process spills into my life, my ultimate work of art…and urges me not to judge. But rather, to trust. To paint blind and dare I even say, joyfully, with all the colors, with whatever tools. Just paint. Allow. Feel. Let go of what I think anything should be and let it be what it is.
Forget control. It hasn’t served me all that well anyway, to be honest.
I have found that when I allow myself to dare, and to trust the unfolding of the work of art that is life, I am sometimes astounded at the beauty of all I allow myself to see.
I have found that the only way through is through. The only way out for me is to dive all the way in as deep as I dare before swimming to the surface. And, that there are always deeper depths.
I have learned that everything was necessary. Every pain was necessary as well as every joy. That life is nothing without the full excruciating and vulnerable willingness to welcome life to me.
What I value about Art and Soul is that it saved my life. It helped me find a place for all the broken pieces that had become my life to spill out onto canvas. Then, to find peace, once and for all.
“Just when we think we’ve found our footing,
the universe sends a soulnami our way,
reminding us that we are always lost at sea.
Love is both our life preserver,
And our sinking ship.
It is an oceanic mystery,
One that gives up its secrets
One drop at a time.”
From Jeff Brown’s An Uncommon Bond
To dare open your heart is an invitation for a soulnami. So for love, the elusive, the ever present, the thing we run to and away from, the thing we both cling to and shove away. The thing that makes the world go ’round and upside-down, to be lost at sea with all its secrets. It can no more be understood than the sea itself. It can only be experienced. We can ride the wave or be swallowed up by it. Swim the deep or remain snuggled safely on board our little boat. Or so we think.
But one thing is certain amidst all the uncertainty, and that is – Without love, everything ceases to exist. The great quest is to know it, yet just when you think you know it, you realize how very little you know. The soulnami ensues. Perhaps experiencing love’s full measure all at once would be too immense
for our human bodies to hold, not to mention our hearts. It may well be one of the Creator¹s mightiest gifts of benevolence that its lessons are offered one drop at a time.
For in order to know it fully, you must also experience its’ opposite. Curiously, its opposite feels somehow safer. Because to love is to feel and feeling love is both exhilarating and excruciating. It contains within it the essence of all that is. All that is both true and not true. It’s as if the ocean itself really is the un-shed tears of humanity, a liquid body of life force holding all that we are. Pain and pleasure. Bliss and despair. Turbulence and calm. Our resistance does not result in resilience.
It is only in surrendering to its force that we invite more of the very thing we are made of to live and breathe inside our very souls. So then, one drop at a time. And then another. I surrender all.