getting it right

we all begin at the beginning

open

true

and good.
and there is no end to that

But, very early on we become aware of a subtle shift, a space appears to take form between ourselves and the other. Conditioning sets roots into that space and survival begins to run the show. In spite of even the most well intentionally loving conditions, this will happen to all of us.

As we feel the separation occurring,
as our awareness of our separate self in and as our own body occurs,
we feel the pull, the tension, not to be separated.
We begin to do all we can to belong, to fit in
to stay with the other, to close the gap.
We avoid feeling this separation.

Ultimately and thankfully, because there is finally no place to go, 
we can meet the truth in our bodies.

That we can feel the separation and grow in trust to allow ourselves the experience, is the essential ground of awakening.
And individualizing, mysteriously, also brings us into the wholeness that we long for.
It is a conscious returning to the beginning of who we are.
And, lo and behold we can't make it happen.
Nor, can we keep it from happening.

I started writing what I used to call a poem prompted by my inquiry on getting it right. The inquiry and the condition arose from the fabric of my life.
Today I have more to say about separation.
I have more to say about individualizing.
I have more to say about this process of awakening and the process of reconnecting ourselves to what is always and already awake.
It is through separation, that most dreaded but illusory condition, that we become conscious of our wholeness.

We may have to lose ourselves many times and even watch ourselves do so,
to make the connection that reconnects us to the whole, consciously.


I began my conditioned life buoyed by the need to do it right. Later, of course, it grew into also needing to be right, but at such a young age as 7, being right really was not in my survival bag.

Dear Virgo ruling my first house, I no longer resist your gifts or your perfect lessons.
Dear Lilith in my first house made sure I did not succumb to someone else's pattern.
 
It took a long time for me to see this conditioning and this need among many other needs, clearly and with compassion. It took time for space to soften the edges of me to not flee from what I felt.
Conditioning still lives in me and this morning I wonder, does it live as thought or is it something else?
I could google it but it is so much more satisfying to ask myself these days.
I wonder about the form of conditioning, does it have form? No. I cannot see it or sense it.
Is it something passed down, that is not meant to be kept but to grow through, like good soil but in a backward way? Yes, poetically speaking, maybe.
Or is it like an ancient letter that keeps checking to see if I'm the right mailbox?
oh, more poetic license, yes!

When I feel the need to "get it right", it's serious.
My body responds in contraction, even panic sometimes.
Thankfully, that which is "only aware" as Adyashanti points to it, that which is kinder than thought, can hold that thought.

(hold that thought, suddenly has new meaning)

and from this moment of spacious holding,
what is not true is clearly felt and seen 
with the eyes of the heart.
The heart is the seat of our creativity.
And creativity is the seat of our wholeness.
It is how we come home to ourselves.
Whatever form creativity takes in our lives,
it will take us home.


This inquiry opened me up this morning to compassion for my limitations.
My limitations as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a friend can come home now, no longer needing to do it right. I am sorry for not being able to do it better. But I am relieved to see the truth. Perfectionism creates separation in me and my world and it hurts.


The drawing above is from my first week of first grade, in 1959.
My first life lesson was given form (and kept lovingly by my mother all these years). Something in my body did not forget the contraction in response to the teacher asking us to draw "what people do in the fall."

I really had no idea how to draw an answer. My mind went blank. 
And I caved in, trying to disappear in my front row seat.
I was scared not to know the right answer.
I found the solution by copying my neighbor.
Skillful, you might say! 
But the feeling inside was never addressed because I couldn't tell the truth about it. I couldn't give it a voice that I could hear.
It simply wasn't RIGHT! And I can be stubborn as hell.

My teacher gave me jobs to do that year to boost my confidence, so she surely saw what I wished to hide from.

 
That drawing revealed my life's path of learning to listen to my true self. 
My true self is the one who supports me like a best friend. 
I have painted all my adult life, but it has not been until I began to engage myself with process painting that I have been able to address those feelings which were leftover from my childhood. I'm setting those birds free.


Our living is a process of hearing our own voice, our intuition, our body, our heart and following through.


And that’s how one gets it right.


That’s how we will become the world, righted and whole.
The impulse is in each of us to follow through.
Can you feel it?

he's still here........

this is a detail of a process painting I began of myself last month,
I wondered if my mother would arrive again,
but this time my ex showed up.

this painting took me on quite a journey.
first, it brought many good feelings and much care
for him and our marriage and for the family we created together.

secondly, it brought my mind into a fit or two.......like if I feel this way, why am I divorced from him? What's my problem? What's going on here? Am I supposed to remarry him now?

It touched a lot of places in me.
We hadn't had that kind of time together, just the two of us, for a long time.

It was uncanny how it ended up taking form.

Like each painting, life and relationship is a journey, and it is a conversation.
My feelings changed a lot during the course of this conversation.

My mind worked hard to hold some meaning. Or to avoid the meaning it created. And I kept painting.

Later in the process, I began to feel a discomfort with the painting, with him being there....I didn't like it.
Again, it's messy......all these feelings.
And yes, I also had to add another piece of paper to the bottom to hold it all!

But when I addressed this block that I was feeling, to him being in my painting, in my life, even in my feeling life.......this is what i found.

I asked myself, what would I paint if I was not afraid ...... of love.
Of loving him.
Of feeling his love for me.
In spite of the way our lives have changed, what could I dare to face if I was not afraid?

so, my stomach turned.
and I knew I had to feel this and discover if it was going to hurt or bind me or what.

so, it moved, from him into me,  this love took the form of a red band of color. from his heart to my heart
this love moved.
then more and more
and it danced.

my whole being was being penetrated by love
it no longer was his love,
it was no longer my love.
there was no protection
the process lead me to feel the truth of love, of my connection to him, just as it is.

and if - as in a dream - each aspect of the painting is myself,
then love met me through my willingness to know love.

beyond the idea of beauty

i'm continually floored by process painting
it gives me a direct way of feeling engaged
of feeling in relationship to life
to see what veils of belief I am ready to walk through.

words cannot describe the beauty
beyond the idea of beauty.
of course,
I try to put it into words

i'm just amazed.…


process
life
is shivashakti
is consciousness and everything else.

They meet in me
and leave their mark
in color
on paper.

snakes in the ground of my being

Full screen
Just me and this white rectangle
And a keyboard supported by computer technology.

Process
That is my key word
That is the word that alerts me to life
Not what I want life to be
But what it is.
The heart of the matter is change held in something that never changes.
Process is development, life and death.
Process painting is undoing in the guise of doing.
Life is slippery for the mind to grasp.
That is its power and gift.


So, I already corrected something
And I am now stumped.
Brought into a thinking place, to get it right.
The word "process" alerts me again and again
To the flow of life,
To my place in relation to life
And to the joy that comes in letting go to its course, to its wisdom course.

No room here for blame
Let it go.
Process is kind and loving and fierce.
Like reality.

During one of my first process paintings
I was letting the color flow.
Letting images take form,
I had no plan.
It felt like pure response.
I was feeling something new: joy.
I could feel the snake wanting to appear,
and there was a familiar mistrust.
I hesitated,
fearful that a snake would bring something into being
that I did not ask for and was not wanting to feel or face.
The evil dark…. the threat of evil, the past.

But curiosity had its way with me and I chose a color for the snake
My brush touched the paper,
Gliding green,
a snake took form.

A past memory was touched,
of the green garter snake
in my father’s hand.

The neighborhood boys had been chasing me with a snake
and I was scared.
I ran to my father who was kneeling in the garden,
And as luck would have it
there, too, was a snake,
a thin, green, garter snake.
He showed it to me, wanting to allay my fears of the snake.
Maybe it helped.
Being with him helped.
By the age of seven I was already well challenged by the dance of boys in the natural world.
Whether I was ready to fully trust it or not,
I received what my father could give to me.
The teaching settled into my body through the love I felt for and from my father.

So, bringing my attention back to the painting,
this green snake appeared with such a surprising quality
Joyfully slender.
Playful.
Emerald green.
And more snakes took form.
They wrapped themselves up along the stems of the wild flowers that bloomed in this new garden before my eyes.
I was filled from the inside with a new found joy for life, space had been made for this joy to be felt.


This was one of the first times I experienced letting the process lead me from within.
My teacher speaks of process painting as a conversation.
Experience has lead me to understand that to have a conversation one has to feel one’s ground and be the openness of listening. To be willing to trust what is unknown and beyond my control sets the stage for a good conversation.

Intuitively, I have spent my life developing trust in the ground of my own being.
Painting and meditation came together to meet me as I began my path of higher education. They are the sails of my boat.
Life tests me to develop skillful means to see clearly and to feel fully.
Drenched in intuition and obeying my depth, I am following the direction of true north.

not another sheet of paper!

ok,
I get it
I'm going to write from here, from my experience, because that's what I've got to work with.

I'm in process.
and loving it.
and hating it!

like this:
I began to paint myself about three weeks ago.
I needed to add another sheet of paper to give myself room to be a full standing figure.
Imagine that, life needs more space to show up!
22x40 just isn't enough, right now.


So, I began another.
and try as I might, to fit the painting onto a full sheet,
I needed more space, again.

I hate to have to keep adding paper to my paintings to give them the room they need!
I don't like folding them up to lay on the growing pile of finished paintings.
I'd rather have this all neat and tidy.

so, that's process painting.
and that's life.
I'm not in control.
I may not always like it, that's no longer the point.

In fact, I am beginning to develop an awareness that holds the whole, as the painting holds the whole; the doubt, the discomfort, the pleasure, the interest, the fascination, the judgement all have room to come, be felt and pass...

And did I mention I am learning kindness through this process?

spilling yourself deeper into life

Process Painting, what is it?

for me it has been a spontaneous experience in paint,

zen-like in its flow,

dream-like in the way forms arise and change,

life-like as my interpretations take hold of a form, give it meaning and the river of color and water carries them along beyond my story.

it is fun, challenging, exciting to witness, a fascinating practice.

it is meditation in action.
It is a listening and a letting go, in paint.

What can it be for you?

smooth white paper   

smooth color

smooth brushes

letting the brush lead

your eye sees where it wants to go

to blue?    

to red?

to yellow?

to green?

to purple?

to that luscious magenta?

a dip in the water makes the brush ready to hold the color

the dance has begun before the brush touches the paper.

where will it touch first?

and how?

how thrilling

to allow yourself such freedom,

such courage to stand before the void!

creativity awakens and stretches,

thrilled to be called forth in such an open way, 

into such a safe space as you.

there is no right or wrong way to paint spontaneously

no goal is held.

as judgements arise, they too are seen 

and in giving space to what is, 

they let go of us.

this playful experience has a way of spilling us deeper into life.