March 17, 2015 – Renewing my appreciation for work

I have been work-ing on my painting. Almost done!

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Families have cultures. My family’s culture surrounds two things:  food/cooking and work/being productive.  My dad was a high school teacher, and before my mom went to work full time when I was about junior high age, we had both of them around all summer.  My memories of those summers are filled with all the stuff that got done – projects, lots of projects:  the vegetable garden and fruit trees and fences and putting up fruit and painting walls. My brothers made a tree fort in the oak tree on the side yard.  Mom did macramé sculptures. Dad threw pots in the ceramics studio in our garage.  Mom taught me to sew and I made clothes for my dolls and later for myself.

In 1973 we had a bigger house built – more projects!  It was a very 70’s style house – sided with rough cedar – it had big open beam ceilings and a partial shed roof.  My dad and mom made all the interior doors, by hand, out in the woodshop.  And they built the stone paths in the garden – with the blue-green serpentine rocks we all had to gather from the property, and scrub clean of dirt in a wheelbarrow full of water.  My dad and brothers poured exposed aggregate concrete patios and built stairs and decks.  Mom tiled floors, counters and an entire sunken-tub bathroom. We never ate store-bought desserts of any kind. They were made from scratch – along with breads, jams, egg pasta noodles, pickles.

There is a word in Croatian – my mom is full blooded – that she uses: “vrijedan”– it has a complicated meaning, it translates in English to:  active, agile, busy, deserving, diligent, hardworking, industrious, rich, studious, valuable, worthy.  To be called vrijedan in my family is a good thing, a really good thing. I intuitively know what it means, having heard it so much all my life, but it was interesting to look it up and see the range of words needed to translate it! This absolutely reinforces my sense of the word and how it was used. It was instilled in us that being worthy means being capable and working hard, which would (hopefully) lead to being rich!

And someone who was the opposite my dad described as having their “hands painted on.” It was relatively recently when I realized what this actually meant!  It meant being like a wooden toy that didn’t have actual hands, just the illustrated shapes of hands painted on its body. (I always thought it meant someone with wet paint on their hands and thus couldn’t use them!) If your hands were painted on, you are unskilled, clumsy, inept.  And this is a not a good thing to be called.

In my quest to know what being feminine is like, to know how to really find ease in life, I wish that I knew more how to rest and to play.  This has me bemoaning how deep this working-hard culture is in me.  The vacations we take most often – to Kauai and Tahoe – I paint a whole lot. I love to paint – but it’s not rest. It can be really hard!  I’m amazed at how infrequently Joe and I think to go do something “recreational” like head to the beach or even go to the movies!  Some of this is a lack of energy (from working so hard!), but some of it is that we just don’t think of it!    And yet, I wouldn’t give up knowing how to work, and even work hard, for anything.

Making art is hard.  Growing a business is hard.  Learning to speak a new language is hard.  Mastering a musical instrument is hard. Sometimes marriage is hard.  I see my family and dear friends with kids and think being a parent has to be the hardest job there is.  All of these things require of us to apply ourselves and work, yes, often work very, very hard.

The alternative – if someone does not know how to work hard and/or does not know the value of working hard – is far worse.  We live in a manifest world, where stuff has to get done to support our physical lives.  Someone has to grow our food, and build our roads and houses and cars and make our clothes and devices – and on and on.  To dis-honor work is to disconnect with the web that supports our existence.  And it disconnects us with our own power, our own capacity to have impact in a real way. I think that all humans want, along with love and belonging, to know that they spend their life in a way that matters to others – to make and thus be a contribution.

Making work real is so in me. I look back at my own progression – I was totally inspired to be a life coach, it was/is in my bones, but, after taking all the courses, when it came down to actually building a practice I was stymied.  Something was missing.  Now I know.  What happens in my watercolor groups, though it’s not as focused and consciously oriented, is life coaching of a sort. Lives are transforming, while they are doing something that is real – learning to paint.  And there are real outcomes – paintings and practical skills that have been gained.

A couple weeks ago I heard an interview of UC Berkeley sociologist Christine Carter who has recently written a book “The Sweet Spot – How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work.”  The sweet spot she talks about is doing work that gives us energy, instead of taking it away.  It’s an ideal and not all people on earth have the privilege to do this, but it’s a place to look – especially for those who either are used up by what they do or those who for various reasons and life circumstances are disconnected with their own capacity to work and how it’s good for them.

Also if we don’t appreciate work, we don’t fully appreciate the hard work of others.  Work – even in the “sweet spot” – requires fuel.  The most important – and effective – way we can help restore others who work on our behalf is to offer them our appreciation.  Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying “thank you” is a prayer; I say it is also the cheapest and most renewable form of energy on the planet!

Thank you for fueling me to keep writing each week.  If I didn’t have you there, knowing you are reading, I would not have it in me to do this!

Love,

Cara

March 3, 2015 – Putting down the sword

Bo, up near the top of the hill on our morning walk today.  The San Francisco skyline is barely visible in the center at the horizon.

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As any of you who have been reading these posts for a while knows, most weekday mornings I take our dog Bo up the hill that is on the other side of our neighborhood.  There’s a fire road and some side trails that go all the way to the top where you can see across to the surrounding ridges and valleys and even to the bay and downtown San Francisco.  Lately we’ve not been hiking all the way to the top – still the views are beautiful and it’s our place.  Bo seems to sniff extra intently if we’ve been away for a few days.  He must be checking to see who’s been there recently.

A couple of weeks ago we were on the street, on our way home when someone drove up going what seemed to me to be pretty fast.  I called out “Slow down!” in an emphatic voice.  It wasn’t until he was right upon us, that I realized that it was our neighbor-friend, someone we know and love – he’s a lab guy and always has a vigorous greeting for Bo (and who also has my art on his walls!).  I felt awful. I had the impulse to say I was sorry for my tone. I am known to call out to the drivers of cars on our streets who are going too fast, but I mostly say “please” at the beginning, and try to say it from my heart – a plea instead of a command.  But this came out as a command and it felt awful.  The next time we saw each other on the street, we each apologized to each other – he for his haste – he’d forgotten something at home and was already late – which I so relate to. And me for my preachy tone.  I said I really wanted to remember that it isn’t just those I already know and love who I want to offer that, but to anyone. It’s always best to offer people their humanity in how we deal with them.

Then last week, Bo and I were just coming down from our turnaround spot when we encountered another guy and his dog on the fire road. Bo was about 10 feet ahead of me with his ball in his mouth – yes, most dogs are off leash up on this hill –  when the dog went after Bo.  I heard that terrible dog-fight sound.  I get so freaked out by the low-throat growling of big dogs entangled. Even if they aren’t biting each other, it sounds like they are and I get so frightened. The owner of the dog, someone I know, but not well – he grew up in Marin and my brothers know him – started yelling repeatedly “what are you doing?” at his dog.  After I got Bo back on the leash and said we’d go back up and around via the trail to be out of their way, I called after him “your dog is just doing what is natural, Jim, he is intact.”  His dog is not neutered and I had a judgment about it.  As soon as it left my mouth, it felt over the line.  I was being a know-it-all.  The fact is, he was totally responsible; he was right there in control of his dog and the situation, and all was well.

The same impulse came to me to contact him and apologize.  It stayed with me the rest of the day. I kept thinking about what I’ve heard Alison say:  “a man can’t protect you if he needs to protect himself from you.”  This man is a really masculine, big guy.  He sometimes wears camouflage on his hikes, I think he might be a former Marine.  He’s someone I’d really want on my side, if Bo or I were in need of protection on the hill!  After dinner I found a contact page for him online and sent him a note.  I apologized for what I said and how I said it and appreciated him for making sure we were all safe.  He replied the next morning, thanking me for reaching out. He accepted my apology and told me to rest assured that he’d have his dog on leash when they hit the fire road.  Ah, relief. We are all good.

In my note to him, what came out of my fingers was “I get all scold-y and righteous when I’m scared.”  I realized this is also what happened to me with our neighbor who was driving too fast.  Wow, how useful is it to know that this is where I go instinctively?  There’s a lot about vulnerability that is talked about these days – largely thanks to Brene Brown.  It’s the key to a whole lot of what we want (at least what I want) in life.  And it’s not where I go when I’m scared. I’m not sure how it would have gone if I’d been able to realize my fear and speak out of it, if I’d made a request instead of a proclamation about his “misbehaving.”

But I didn’t – I’m a work in progress too!  Cleaning it up later is then the best I can do.  And in some way it might have been the more impactful outcome.  For me to have gotten up on my high horse and then come back down to apologize and appreciate his efforts has connected me to him as a person in a way that I’m not sure I would have if I’d been vulnerable from the start. This way, I had the perspective of how it felt to have made him “other” first.  At least this time, to gain this insight.

In 2009, in Alison’s Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women workshop I took a vow to give up the right to emasculate men forever.  It has created the world anew for me. And it brings me to a beautifully vulnerable and feminine place.  It’s a place that has me know that I’m inside a physical body that is biologically prey.  Female bodies are factory-installed with bigger amygdalae in our brains – so we more easily fear.  This keeps us from risking too much – especially when we are pregnant – for better survival of our species.  Now, with the knowledge that men, (at least the vast majority – the healthy ones), will absolutely protect me, I can allow them their power and strength. I don’t need to diminish it because I feel I have to protect myself.

This vow does not mean that I won’t ever emasculate again, I’m human. It means that I’ve given away my sense that I’m justified in doing so, that “he had/has it coming.”  Though maybe not terribly egregious, what I said to both men was emasculating.  It was dis-empowering.  And it registered as so – immediately – in my body and heart.  I am grateful to what I’ve learned that has transformed me, giving me this impulse – to put them and our relationship back together.

And knowing that when I’m scared, I go to judgment and righteousness and get preachy is also helpful.  Not only so I can watch for it in myself, but also to realize that others who might be preachy to me could be in fear and wanting to protect – even protect me.

All we can do is the best we can in any given moment.  I’m committed to living this life in a well-examined way (or at least and examined-enough way – last week’s post comes to mind!), so that the next given moment my best might be a bit further up the path towards compassion, peace and forgiveness – for myself as well as for others.

With my love,

Cara

February 10, 2015 – Celebrating union

Niz and Jim – Mom and Dad – in the summer of 1959

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A week ago Friday, my mom and dad were married 55 years.  They met in 1959, when my mom did a summer school session at Cal Berkeley. Sissy, one of her sorority sisters from Long Beach State had married one of my dad’s buddies, Bob. My mom came over to stay with Sissy and Bob and they thought she and my dad might make a nice pair.  They met in a bar – Gene’s Bit of Bohemia in downtown San Anselmo.  My mom, working on a double major in chemistry and math, had grand plans for a career and travel in Europe.  Dad was glad for a date for the summer with a beautiful woman who wasn’t going to try to tie him down.  Almost all of his friends were married by then and he was (still is!) handsome and sweet – quite a catch.  But by the end of the summer, Mom’s plans were out the window – they were head over heels and making entirely other plans.

Dad was 28 and Mom was 21 when they married on January 30, 1960. In those days he was quite old to be starting a family, so they went right to work on making theirs as quickly as possible – my brother Joe was born before the end of the year. I’m second and was born just 11 months after Joe.  The four of us lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Daly City with cribs on either side of their bed.  My mom was working while Dad was finishing a degree in Biology/Botany and getting a teaching credential at SF State.  When she was pregnant with their third, my brother Matt, Dad started teaching at Drake High in San Anselmo. We then moved to Woodacre where they still live. Thirteen months after Matt, came Mike.  Joe was just 3 years, 8 months when Mike was born.  Three in (cloth) diapers at a time, she was a busy mom.  It’s great for all of us that she’s been blessed with the most abundant energy of any human I know!

The years have included some bumps for them (and us), some of them considerable. But their bond has weathered them all.  They are in a new “spring” in their relationship. They wake in the morning and see who can jump in first with “good morning, I love you.”  As in many marriages, the two of them are such different people – sometimes these differences make marriage seem impossible, but now it makes them fit like puzzle pieces, each the perfect match for the other. When asked the secret of their long marriage, Mom says that what she does is focus her energy on what my dad is, not on what he is not.

Sometime recently, I had this thought drift over me – about how remarkable marriage is.  In most families, the married people are the only two who don’t share any of the same genetics.  Parent-children and siblings almost always share DNA, which can have a powerful way of keeping us in relationship. We say blood is thicker than water – clichés are clichés because there is truth to them. And the two people (of any gender) in a marriage share no blood connection.  Sustaining that connection is an enormous challenge when our egos so easily make our mate into the “other” when pushed into the corner.  When I think in these terms, I’m not astonished at the number of marriages that end in divorce, I’m inspired by all those that don’t!

Not all of us have one life-long marriage as my parents have – and as have Joe’s parents – they’ve been married more than 60 years!  But for those of us who have been in marriages that have ended, being in another, as Joe and I have, can bring its own kind of blessing.  We know what it’s like to be with someone with whom coming back around became no longer possible. Breaking the promise I made to my first husband was the hardest choice I’ve had to make in my life, even as it was the life-affirming direction to take.  When it gets really hard – as I believe it does in all marriages – at least those that are fully alive – part of me has thought of leaving.  But then I remind myself that whatever this pain has to teach me will remain until it’s healed within me.  This is hard work – and so worth it.  The ripening, deepening of this relationship with this incredible man I’m married to, is the reward.

This week, I’m finally going to finish the painting I’ve been working on since November. Here it is – two persimmons after an early fall rain.  I’ve been lamenting how I started it in the autumn and it was meant to be painted then. We are now in winter, headed into spring, making it no longer “in season.”   But now, it seems the perfect painting to be working on just before Valentine’s Day.  Valentine’s Day is a mixed bag – it can be a hard day for anyone who isn’t in a situation to snuggle with a sweetheart.  For those who do though – to me – it’s a day to appreciate the miraculous bond that brings two people together to share in one life, and the sweetness that is there amidst the challenges.

It’s all here in this painting:  two, cheek to cheek, still sprinkled with the tears of rain (which you will see when it’s finished!). The name for this painting had not popped out until I was working on it last night.  Continuing with my intention to find one-word – if it’s the title of a song, even better – I poked around on iTunes looking up words that were coming to me:  “promise,” “embrace,” “vow.”  They all have songs written about them, but none were it. Then I landed on “Always.”  There are several songs with that title – Bon Jovi has one, and Atlantic Starr, but the one that fit was written by Irving Berlin in 1925 as a gift to his bride-to-be, Ellin.  Here’s Sinatra’s version. It strikes the right note for me. All-ways, in all ways.  The real always of being together and loving each other, one day at a time.  Congratulations on 55 years, Mom and Dad. I love you so very much.

Love,

Cara

February 3, 2015 – My love affair with food

Lunch on the Terrace – a wonderful home-made lunch I had with my mom and dad in France years ago:  salade nicoise, baguette, wine we bought the day before at the winery and my favorite comté cheese – yum!

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This morning is day 21 of a 30 day program eating only whole foods (it’s called Whole30).  I discovered it last fall and decided to give it a go after my hubby’s birthday in January.  I’m eating anything I want except: grains of any sort, legumes, dairy, sweeteners of any kind (natural or not) and alcohol. I’m eating lots of vegetables (including starchy root veggies), animal protein, fruits and nuts and seeds.  I’m not measuring or portioning, not worrying about how much fat – I’m just not eating those 5 kinds of food.  My motivation is to see if it will help my sleep and energy.  I’m in a woman’s mid-life transition and both have been challenging.  As I work on growing my work in the world, more energy would make life a lot easier and more fun. I’m awfully tired of being tired.

So far, the results have not been spectacular, though I do notice that my late-afternoon grogginess is gone.  But the “tiger blood” they describe in the program has not yet started coursing through my veins.  It may be that what I was eating was already healthful enough that there isn’t such a contrast. And I’m noticing that I’m finding it hard to not be grumpy these past few days. I think that’s partly because I made a promise to myself that by doing this, I’ve broken.

As have many females in our culture, I’ve internalized a lot of un-loving ideas about my body’s appearance and how it needs to be fed – ideas I’ve spent a long time working to undo.  When I was a teenager – though I was not overweight, I started to go on diets.  It was then when I heard that my grandma, who was in her 70’s and was overweight, was going on yet another diet.  I had the dreadful realization that I could spend my entire life this way, one diet after another.

My path took me to a book called “Thin Within” in my 20’s.  Judy Wardell wrote about “naturally thin people” who eat what they want, only when they are hungry, and stop when they are satisfied.  It was at this point that I got rid of the bathroom scale and have not owned one since.  My clothes tell me all I need to know about my size!  I’ve read a whole lot of Janine Roth’s books and did one of her retreats.  In 2006, through a program called Beyond Hunger, I took a vow – that I’d never go on a diet prescribed by anyone else again.  I have known all along that my body intuitively knows what it wants and needs to be fed, when and how much.

Alongside this struggle for peace with my body and food is a deep appreciation for the place that food has in our lives.  Growing and preparing food was important starting from very early on.  When I was a year and a half old, my parents moved our family – which then was just my brother Joe (who is 11 months older) and me – from a one-bedroom apartment in Daly City to a new house sitting on a bare half-acre out in Woodacre.  That first summer, my dad terraced the large side yard and planted a vegetable garden.  Soon after came my two younger brothers, Matt and Mike, a dozen or so fruit trees and a larger and larger garden.  Every summer since, my dad has planted his garden and fed us with the produce.  Growing up, sometimes our entire dinner came from the garden in the summertime.

My brother Matt lived with me in my little house in San Anselmo – the one I moved into in my mid-30’s, after my divorce.  He planted a little vegetable garden in our backyard.  I remember sitting in the sun one day, looking at the tomatoes when this thought came to me:  “it’s an absolute miracle that we can put a little seed in the soil, add water and sunlight and up comes a plant that grows these red fruits that I’ll put in my salad tonight.  And when I eat them, their cells will become my cells – linking my body to the dirt in our backyard.”

I wrote in November about how I love to cook and how central it is in my life. When I look at how central cooking is and how I so appreciate the beauty and blessing that food is, it just does not make sense that I’ve struggled so much with how to love and feed my body.  But then relationships – of all kinds – can be complex and even paradoxical.  Thus is mine with food!

Though I’m not doing this Whole30 plan for the same reasons I’ve dieted in the past – to lose weight – it’s still someone else’s idea about how my body ought to be fed.  I’m so missing oatmeal in the morning and a little bit of real milk in my tea. The Greek salad I had for lunch yesterday was crunchy and wholesome, but it would have been amazing with just a little feta cheese and a few of those multi-grain pita chips from Trader Joes that I love.

This all leads me to a theme that has been arising in these posts – my coming back to caring for myself.  The truth is what is really needed adjusting in my eating is not the what but the how.  I’ve been eating too much on the run, grabbing something to eat in the car on my way to lead a watercolor group, lunch at my desk while working.  Joe and I have even gotten away from eating dinner at the table together. I’ve been eating at the kitchen counter, reading or being on my iPad, while he’s in front of the TV. I’m missing savoring, and being aware of how it’s actually sacred to put tasty and wholesome food in my body.

I’m not sorry I’ve done 20 days of a Whole30. I’ve gotten a lot more conscious about what I’m eating. I’ve been creative in my cooking, finding ways to make food tasty without all the stuff I’ve been avoiding.  I learned I can make homemade mayonnaise in five minutes with an immersion blender. It’s gotten me away from mindless snacking on crunchy carbs and eating a lot more vegetables – deliciously prepared vegetables are my actually my favorite things to eat!  But I’m also finding myself eating more meat than is natural for me and my tummy isn’t happy about it.  I made a commitment to do this Whole30 thing and there is a voice that is protesting my thoughts of quitting on it. But, I’m paying attention to another voice, the one reminding me I took a vow to myself – this promise is what I’m committed to.

As I write this, it’s still early and my stomach is telling me it’s time for food.  I’m going to get ready for my day and make myself what I want to eat – a warm bowl of oatmeal with berries and milk – from a cow (not an almond).  As I do this, I’m doing something essential – I’m trusting myself, my body and its intuitive wisdom. We’ll see what it tells me in response!

Love,

Cara

January 27, 2015 – Roses in Winter

The “harvest” from our rosebushes a few springs ago.

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I love roses, I love to grow roses. When they are in bloom, I love to have cut roses all around the house – you know I love to paint them. I. Just. Love. Roses! I don’t care that they are thorny and need to be tended to.  What they bring to my life – their color, shape and scent are so worth it!  Every house I’ve lived in since I was 25, I’ve planted rosebushes – as many as I possibly could.  Scented are best, I love every shade of pink, orange, apricot, yellow and soft peach – those are my favorites.  The house that Joe and I lived in in Petaluma I planted more than 40 – and it didn’t have a huge yard!  I had roses everywhere! When we sold that house, I was bemoaning how hard it is to plant them and care for them and then have to keep leaving them behind – to which Joe said, “that’s what you do – you plant the world with roses.” He says the most insightful things to me!  The house we are in now has a garden that gets somewhat limited sun because of a big hill right behind us.  This has meant the roses don’t thrive like they would in a better growing situation, but I don’t care, I must have roses!

I know I’m not alone in my adoration of them.  They are probably the most beloved flower in the western world, if not everywhere. (I’m guessing the lotus and lily rival the rose in other parts of the world.) They touch us in a way that other flowers don’t. They are so elegant and complex, mostly not symmetrical which makes them so interesting to look into. And their symbolism is rich and deeply rooted in our psyche.

Like most plants they have their season – theirs is a long and generous one in Northern California.  Around here they start blooming in April, though last year, I went outside and was surprised to find one Peace rose and a bit of purple lavender in bloom right about Easter Sunday, in March – quite early, especially for our sun-challenged yard.  Here’s a  picture of them, which one day may become a painting.  They bloom on and off through October, maybe into November.  With the shift in our weather this year there were some (in other’s yards) that bloomed to Christmas!

In the middle of last week I was really restless. I had lots of things to do as well as telling myself that I really needed to be getting to that painting of the persimmons that I was hoping to have finished weeks ago, but all I wanted to do was go prune the rosebushes.  They hadn’t yet been given their winter trim and were all straggly and leggy.  We’re having a dry, mild January, so they’ve begun to send out their new shoots already.  They needed to be pruned and were so calling to me.

So, I put aside the computer, my paints and painting and spent not quite two hours in the softly warm sunshine pruning the roses.  It was the perfect thing for me to do.  At about the sixth plant, it hit me that pruning roses in the winter has a message for me.  Heading them back and trimming off the extraneous branches from last growing season, puts the plant into a dormancy, a rest. Then when it’s time, the new growth comes from strategically chosen branches, giving it room to flourish. Otherwise, there are too many small shoots out at the ends of too many small branches. It’s cleaner, clearer. The plant gets smaller at first, but in the end, it allows for more vigorous, “organized” growth, resulting in more full and beautiful blooms.

What occurred to me is that pruning can be an integral part of not just the cycle of the rosebush’s life, but of mine too.  I want to give myself the permission to prune my life in the winter – to give myself the time to see which branches of my life are the strongest, carrying the most vigorous life-force, and eliminate those that cross over, competing for resources.  Then, allow myself to be still a bit and store energy for sending new growth in just those directions.

I reflected back to the first several years of showing and selling my artwork, before I was teaching – leading others on their art journey.  I ended up not painting at all for two, three, even five months in the winter!  I imagine not painting again for five months and I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach! Could I really still do that?  What does being dormant for a time mean? Is a months-long break part of the rhythm I still need, or if have I grown my capacities for creating?

Nature is the quintessential example of the cycle of life, and since the insight landed on me as it did, I’m paying attention.  In my experience insight isn’t always clear and complete all at once – likely there’s more to be revealed.   What occurs to me most clearly today is that pruning means clearing space.  Today we had the carpets cleaned and everything is up off the floors in my studio.  A perfect opportunity to not put it all back!

With appreciation for you in my world –

Cara

January 20, 2015 – Creative habitat, safety, and freedom

Mickey, in our Friday group, working on her painting of waterbirds at a special day last fall at Pam’s house.

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Over the weekend I had a conversation with a watercolor student who had emailed me. She wanted to participate in a weekend workshop and was concerned that she was skilled enough to benefit from it.  She shared with me that she had an art teacher when she was young and in school who questioned what she was doing in such a way that she felt criticized – which shut down her art making for decades.

I shared with her a similar experience with a summer school class I took early in high school.  I’ve blocked out the specifics of what happened, but what I know I is that I was left with the sense that making art was not safe, that I was not an artist and would avoid any attempt at all costs.  There was a Fine Art requirement at my high school and I took Photography, which seemed to me the least art-like of any class I could take.  I now know, of course, I always have been an artist.  When I was a pre-teen, I loved colored felt pens – I made these elaborate, colorful flower montages with them.  But after that summer school experience, it wasn’t until I was in my early 30’s before I ventured back into making any kind of visual art.  Whatever that art teacher said to me, or whatever creative environment he created, I had the clear sense that I was not safe.

When I started leading groups of people in watercolor, I had the intuitive sense that my first priority was to have the environment be as safe as possible.  The part of us that wants to make art can be a very tender sprout when it first emerges – and continues to be if we keep growing in our work.  Every attempt we make seems like it is us and when it is judged, we are judged.

And, in order to learn something new, we have to open ourselves to allow it in.  In order to explore new terrain, we have to leave our familiar one.  Both of these things are inherently risky.  If we don’t have some sense of safety, we often stop ourselves.  I’m really talking about more than just making art.  It’s expressing ourselves, our truth, especially in any way that makes us vulnerable. Thinking back on to what I shared two weeks ago, about my evolution to live more in the feminine, and the image of resting in a hammock, this is not possible unless the environment is safe.  Being feminine requires safety as well.

I’ve not seen the movie “Selma” yet, but reading Mick Lasalle’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle of the movie has me thinking also about how Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement related to freedom and safety too.  In the review he wrote:  “It’s a testament to Martin Luther King’s vision and to the courage it took to pursue that vision. But it does something else, too. It shows the awfulness of being in possession of that vision, the terrible responsibility of it.”  Great figures in human history and evolution have had the courage to act, risking everything in the name of freedom.  Maybe such people have a kind of spiritual safety they act out of?

I believe that to be alive is to have the impetus to create – not just art, but anything.  And having the capacity to express it, to me, is freedom.  The Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris show another clear connection between freedom of expression and safety.   In some ways safety and freedom are in a direct relationship and in others, they are at odds.  Huh.

Much of what matters – maybe everything that really matters – that we create  and do in our lives requires us to risk in some way.  We can seek out safety and supportive environments, but in actuality, living our life is a solo journey.  Last week I was talking to an artist who was struggling with much larger scale painting than she’d ever done before.  I told her that I could offer guidance and encouragement, but it us each of us who must pick up the brush and paint our paintings.  If I were to paint it for her, it wouldn’t be her work, growing her capacities and giving her the satisfaction of having done it.

It is each of us who has to get behind the wheel of the car for the first time, ask that lovely lady to coffee, raise our hand to answer the question.  There are ways we can set life up to reduce the risk, but not eliminate it.  There still remains the possibility we will fail – which in a way is a kind of death.  In my life as a spiritual seeker, I’ve read many times, that to really live we must let ourselves die. I’m getting that this is what all the teachers I’ve read are talking about.  Hellen Keller comes to mind.  She famously said: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature… Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Yet, what would her life have been if it were not for Anne Sullivan?  She’d probably have lived her life locked up,  shut away.  We do need each other in order to foster the environment where we can flourish.   Yes, ultimately we must choose to act, but we don’t have to do it alone.

To the adventure that is your life!

Love,

Cara

January 13, 2015 – The field we live in

Listen to this post:

In response to last week’s post, my dear friend Dr. Victoria Bentley send me a beautiful reflection which included this:

The end of your blog made me think about how the inherent tension in things– between yin and yang, positive and negative poles, night and day, light and dark–is absolutely necessary for creation, may be the field on which our lives are played out…that your love of pink would not stand out so prominently in your life if it were not for the outward pull of the opposite pole.

And then Paris was attacked.  And I got all stirred up. Paris is a special place, that holds a special magic – for a lot of people on the planet – and I am one of them.  I went there for the first time when I was 22. I arrived at the Gare du Nord, off the train from Calais, having taken the ferry over from England.  Walking out into the streets, though I’d never been there before and did not actually know my way around, it was a familiar place. If we have past lives – and I believe we do – I have certainly lived there at some point.  I’ve been all over Europe and traveled some in the US and I have not been any place that felt like this.  I then spent a half a year there right after my divorce in my mid 30’s and it changed me.  A part of me I did not know existed was revealed to me there – ancient, lovely, refined, and very feminine.

When I told my dear Sister Mary that I’m planning on leading a small group of artists on a “pilgrimage” to Paris later this year, she exclaimed “Oh, Paris is the feminine heart of the world!”  I’d never heard anyone say this before, but it rings true to me.  This attack has inspired an enormous outpouring of solidarity and a move for unity.  I wonder if this isn’t related to what Paris – the City of Light – represents to the world – in addition to the obvious direct attack on freedom of expression.  We are inspired to rally around and protect that which we cherish.  I read this morning that 10,000 French troops have been mobilized to protect schools and other Jewish places all over France. A little girl was quoted as saying that she wanted to learn in peace.  The masculine protecting the feminine. And I don’t mean just male protecting female, the masculine and feminine live in all of us, in varying degrees.

The truth is, as much as my soul is so deeply feminine and my journey has been one to express it and live more from there, my life is my life because of what the masculine makes possible – how it provides for me.  I would not be an artist and a teacher if it were not for my husband providing for us as he has, while the business side of what I do grows.  And my incredible make-it-happen mom – besides being a creator of incredible beauty herself in her paintings – she makes so much possible for me: helping me with festivals, doing road-trips with me and making her real estate office available for our painting groups and workshops – all as a gift to me.  I cannot imagine how my life would have evolved as it has were it not for them.  Beauty and safe environments in which to create, to express our souls, are precious and give our lives a certain kind of meaning. But we exist in a physical universe, where we have physical needs.

There’s the masculine and the feminine, safety and freedom, that tension that Vicki wrote about.  Our universe has an inherent dual nature and the tension is where our lives are lived.   We need the feminine to inspire us, to move our hearts, to give meaning to our efforts – the “why” in what we do. And without the masculine we have no existence.  I’m just so inspired by what I’ve learned from Alison (Armstrong) – how the dance between the masculine and the feminine becomes an upward spiral by seeing how beautifully our differences fit together.  We can feed on each other instead of pulling one another down. We have largely moved beyond the “battle of the sexes” of the 70’s (a necessary step in our evolution).  Yet, it is still so easy to see the world from only our unique world view and diminish the other for not doing or being the way we are.   For me, it’s a constant balance between having the courage to express my truth and allowing myself to be contributed to by another whose voice is so not mine.

There’s so much more to say about this – I’d  love to hear what this stirs in you.

One piece that feels in me like it warrants more exploration is the whole idea of safety. That’ll be next week…

Until then, I send my love to you all –

Cara