identity is no longer in crisis

  I love to write (and paint) myself in and out of identity,
  In doing so, I move ever closer to the true nature of the artist,
  of the Feminine Herself.

memo - what is crone time

one thing that is suddenly apparent to me, at 60, is that the definition of who I am is no longer fixed.
 I am none of the definitions I have collected to name and confirm myself. 

I am much freer in truth than any of those names - mother, sister, beloved, writer, friend and even artist. Most particularly artist is falling by the way side. 

I was not prepared for this. And now that I sense what has been happening is a loosening of identity,  I can relax a bit more. I have been really physically stressed, and not knowing why.

Writing serves me to communicate. 
Painting serves me to express what words cannot touch. 
Everything is working out just fine.

What prompted me to see this change just now, was seeing the paintings of the winner of an "important" art thing I applied for. I had felt sure my paintings could hold the space of this show, and I was rejected. 

This is not the kind of rejection that really hurts me, it is more of an 'ok, thank you for guiding me' kind of thing.  The rejections that do hurt say the same thing...go this way, Barbara, it just sometimes takes me longer to say thank you!

When I looked at the work of the young (born 1980) winner, I saw what the art world I was asking to be in, says is a viable and interesting artist. 

And I paused, and said, thank goddess.
I am being lead to want the life I live.

The impulse in me to share takes many forms.

Life is finding how to share itself through me with the world. 
The internet is the mother supporting so many connections.
We find one another.

And I could not have found my way here without being able to express myself in words. 
everything is coming together,
this is the co creative crone time.

written in 2013, still pondering the wonder of croning in 2015

Happy Mother's Day - Whose child are you?

Do we dare to be a child of the Mystery?
Do we dare to take our hand and hold it to the end of the chatter, even beyond a daily meditation practice?

I am daring something new today.
To ask these questions knowing they are my own.

I have started to notice how people sometimes introduce themselves through the identity of someone else.
Or through the ideas of someone else.
Or through a thing, a job, or a place.
We introduce ourselves so often as anything other than this Mystery we live so intimately with.

Two mysteries meeting. Wow. What could be more exciting!

I notice this because for so long I used to think I wasn't enough just as I am, and I proved it too, in some wild ways.

I had to be identified with someone or something bigger and better than just me, or of course anything more interesting than me, a place or an experience. 

I remember when my identity as a painter began to disappear, the experience had become an invitation to something so mysterious, I couldn't take credit for the paintings.

And my identity as a mother. 
And my identity as a wife.
And as a lover.
And as a friend.

A journey sister calls the cause of this experience "the benevolent thief."


 Fear, of course, is to be avoided at all costs. And the cost is a great one. Our mind works overtime to help us steer clear of the abyss of no self.

I noticed today how this makes me feel nervous to meet someone through the identity of another. 
I understand this from my long impersonal quest to be someone else.

I become a little seasick, unmoored as I am in the other's sea...they become my own medicine to find my feet, be this changeling that I am. To feel this intimacy with the unknown, the unspeakable, and the joy of this freedom inherent in being so related to the Mystery. 

The Mystery is our Mother.
The well spring of Creativity.



It is a kind of insanity, to have so many other voices speaking as me. Or so many other people that I would present myself through.

One teacher of mine could feel this need in me so strongly before I myself was even aware of it, and told me, "Barbara, be yourself."