October 28, 2014 – On the way to hallelujah

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Walking through our neighborhood for the past 13 years with our black Labradors, I’ve gotten to know many of our neighbors – especially the other doggy people.  It’s lovely how our pups connect us. 

The other morning, as Bo and I were bounding back down Marinda Dr to our street, we saw a neighbor out in his driveway.  He’s a tall, slender guy with a playful humor who loves Labs – we’ve heard his stories about his Labs growing up – the one who played catch with herself on their sloped driveway, and the one whose tail was broken when his brothers and he used him as a tugboat in the lake! Yikes!  He called us over and said “hey, I’m so sorry about the other day –  I had grandkids around and lots going on and I couldn’t really say hi.”  His apology was so heart-felt – as if he’d been thinking about it and was glad to repair things with me.  I had a only a wisp of a memory of the time he was talking about – but without any sense of any slight on his part.  I had no idea what he was apologizing for!

His apology left me with a feeling of appreciation for his concern for Bo and me – he really cares to give us his time of day.   And it had me recall so many times I’d felt badly because of things a voice inside told me I’d done to wrong others. One time was this past summer.  I twisted myself up in the terrible feeling that my choice of words in an email to a friend had been insensitive.  When I didn’t hear back from her, I was convinced that was why.  I wasn’t able to release myself until I heard from her that she hadn’t given it a second thought. She hadn’t gotten back to me right  away because she was busy!

As much as I find this feeling incredibly uncomfortable, I have come to honor this part of our inner critic.  We are beings who need to belong within our circles of humans in order to survive, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually.  If we aren’t checking ourselves at all, we can erode the natural instinct in others to care for us.  I lived with someone who never said “I’m sorry” in fourteen years.  I am not with him anymore for good reason!  This capacity carries with it a kind of sweetness which holds us together.

Of course our inner critics can go too far. There is so much written and spoken about dealing with our inner critics for a good reason.  Being too hard on ourselves is crippling.  That said, I have this penchant for looking for the light in the dark – there is good reason healthy people have a functioning critic.

It certainly seems to be well-installed for the art-making process!  I’ve not met anyone who has worked their way out of it.  I see it in myself and, in varying degrees, in every painter who joins our groups or comes to my workshops.  There are a few who paint for the pure joy of it, where it seems their critic is not at play as much. Even these people have doubts about their work at times.

I’ve come to see the critical voice not as something that we overcome in order to live the lives we yearn for, but rather to work with and around.  In the creative process, it often goes by the name “resistance.” In physical exercise, we are strengthened by resistance – our muscles grow if we ask them to lift more weight.  It seems it functions similarly when we create.  I cannot imagine how I could have painted “Hallelujah” until I’d grown my capacities by painting and painting, working around the voice that told me I couldn’t paint that big and bold.

Then there’s the outer critic!  I listened to an interesting interview of Tara Sophia Mohr in which she says that feedback is 100% about the giver of it and not about our work. Huh.  She says she now writes for herself and considers feedback as information about her audience.  The problem is that many of our creator muscles have been weakened or even paralized by negative feedback/criticism.  She says we look for praise in places where we doubt ourselves and/or in line with what we want to be true about us. Of course!  Any form of genuine expression is inherently vulnerable – making it risky, especially at first. This makes it incredibly important to have a safe environment in which to create. If the desire to create is strong enough, it will overcome the voices of resistance.  But we can set it up to help it along.  My experience is that safety allows us to risk and praise is amazingly encouraging, fueling the desire to continue to create.

At our best, we are relational beings who need each other to feed and support our efforts – our lives.  I love the idea that we can develop the capacity to see feedback as all about “them,” watching the parts in us that respond to it – in all the various ways they do – revealing ourselves to us.  After all, we don’t choose the art we make, it chooses us, and we paint/write/create with the skill level we have in this moment. If we could do better, we would!   It follows then, that there’s nothing “wrong” with anything we create. Feedback is just information and the invitation to respond to that information.  For me that’s a formula for creative freedom. Hallelujah!

October 21, 2014 – Firsts, beginnings, starting out

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The first “Life in Full Color” retreat was just this past weekend. I’m still so filled with it that I’m not sure all there is to share of it. I’m still like a fish in the ocean – not conscious of the fact that there’s anything besides water to live in. Eight of us gathered at Vinegrove, a private vineyard in the west part of Healdsburg. It is just what I imagine as “the wine country” – acres of vines, a huge persimmon tree – full of orange fruit, chickens, a lovely flower garden – (there were still roses!) with fun bright-colored furniture and gravel paths. Plus a freshly and beautifully remodeled barn-loft looking out onto it all, which was our studio for the weekend. All this wrapped in only the sound of the birds and a very occasional airplane.

There were seven participants-painters-artists, two of which are regular painters in our weekly groups, two had had taken a Saturday class with me – relatively new painters, but have painted some. And three who had never before taken watercolor brush to paper. I watched them swish the brush in color and take away the whiteness of the paper. It’s a thrilling experience – to make your mark, to transform something in this way. It’s a curious thing for me – what is it in us that has us want, desire, even long to do this? It’s not watercolor, or even painting, for everyone, but it seems that we have factory-installed an impetus to effect change on our world – especially to create something where there wasn’t before.

When I’m out showing my work I often hear people say that they could never do what I do because they have no talent. I have written about talent a bit in the web-page about my weekly groups, but after watching people see their first work this weekend, with varying combinations of delight and judgment, I wanted to explore this idea of talent further. I looked it up online and discovered some interesting meanings. The original ancient Greek meaning was “a weight, especially of gold, or a unit of money.” Hmmm… a way to parcel out value. Much later, in Old French it meant “will, inclination or desire.” Double hmmm.

We do value talent like gold. The meaning of the word now is a “marked natural ability or skill.” It’s as if we are either blessed with it from birth or not. The thing for me is how do we know we have talent, if we’ve never even tried something? What do you think this painting here would say about the innate talent of the artist who painted it?

I painted it about 20 years ago. If I judged my “talent” upon this piece, I might be still slogging myself to the city working in Information Architecture in corporate IT! But there was and is something in me – in us that has us keep at it. I kept painting and evolving as a painter – gaining skills and confidence and coming upon this thing I call “Life in Full Color” that I express with my artwork.

There are skills to be gained, there is a craft to what we do. There’s so much to learn in working with the paint, paper and especially water. Then there is color – and composition. The stuff of art-making. Beginning work is always beginning work and worth celebrating, like a child’s first steps. But it’s never the work of an experienced hand and eye. The more we do it, the more refined our capacity becomes to work with the materials and our vision – what we want to “say” with what we create – clarifies.

It’s more sticking with it than it is anything God-given. And what keeps us doing that comes back to the Old French meaning of “talent.” (Being a huge Francophile, I love that it was Old French!) It’s the desire, the will, and the inclination to paint! It also is linked to what we love. I LOVE watercolor. I love how it moves, I love the purity of paper and color/pigment. I have no choice, it has me. And I love what I paint – flowers, fruit, colorful, artful food, sweet doggy faces. We don’t choose what we love, it chooses us. I cannot will myself to respond to slate grey the way I do magenta-pink!

Here’s what I have come to believe – those of us who make art have been blessed not by “marked natural abilities or skills” so much as we have hearts filled with such desire to make art and such love for color and shape, or for our subjects that we stick to it. It follows that what it is we are here to say comes into form. If this love and desire is in you, follow it! If there’s something stopping you, I’m here to give you permission. Make your mark!

October 14, 2014 – The little junco’s last moments

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Yesterday morning, as Bo and I took off for our hike up the hill, I saw a little darkish ball of something on the sidewalk in front of the house.  I got closer – not letting Bo get to it – and saw that it was a little bird (I looked it up online and think it was a junco) with its beak tucked under a wing, all curled up.  I was concerned about it, but decided to let it be. When we came back it was in the same position, about a foot away from where it was.   I went in to call Wild Care to find out if I should pick it up and move it to a place where it wouldn’t be so vulnerable. When I came back out it had uncurled and was lying on its side on the sidewalk, eyes open and not responding when I nudged it with a leaf.  The sweet little bird had died.

Being there on either side of this little bird’s death told me what to write about today – because I’ve been watching something in my consciousness and have been resisting writing about it.  You see, I’ve been noticing myself ponder “the last time” of a lot of things.  It occurs to me that there will be a last time for everything.   As I’m painting, I think, one day, there will be a last painting I ever make. There will be a last time Bo and I hike up that hill, a last kiss that Joseph and I share, the last time we will sleep in this house, or go to Kauai, or….  I even go to the point of thinking of the day the last human is alive on the planet and the last bit of energy emanates from our sun.  It’s a star and stars burn out.

Some of these “last times” are not so momentous. We will probably not live in this house for the rest of our lives, so the last night we sleep here we will know that it is and can be present to it, grateful for all the rest and shelter this house has provided to us. But will I know which is the last painting I make? Or that this is the last kiss?

There is another version – that this is never to be repeated. Often it’s in the kitchen.  I make a soup with the bones and juices from a leftover chicken that had rosemary and a bit of lemon in it. To the broth I throw in the cauliflower/leek gratin leftovers, and some cold mashed potatoes, puree it up with a bit of milk and grated parmesan and it’s soup we start meals with over a few days.  I know I will never make that same soup again, the ingredients are never the same.

Eee-gads!  What am I doing, thinking this way?!  It all seems quite morbid!  But it’s true, it’s real.  Nothing in our manifest world is forever.  Everything dies, ends, runs out or cannot be repeated.  And we want it that way.  If I think about, even feel into, being immortal, my physical body living on and on and on into forever, it’s dreadful.  The endlessness is heavy. There is a blandness, even a torturous-ness to it.  But more importantly, I think that if things don’t end, then nothing is precious. Taken to a finer point, the moments of my life – our lives – are each distinct and different and are never to be again. For me thinking this way is a huge call to mindfulness – to be awake and present as much as I can.

I absolutely do live in the trust that the sun will come up in the morning, warming our planet for billions of years yet and that Joe will come home and give me a “hello, Honey” kiss this evening. But, paying attention to the “someday” keeps me awake for this morning’s “have a good day” kiss (which we just shared!).

I was lying in bed this morning thinking about all of this and wondering if I think about these “last times” all the time, how do I not get despondent, what keeps me inspired?  And I felt the skin on my body, warm and alive, I felt my body being breathed, without my having to think about it. I felt the eternal. The life force, the Source – for me it’s God. It animates it all, us all.  My faith is that God is never-ending.  It’s the “why” in my life – it gets me out of bed, connects me with Joe, Bo, you all – it gives me the energy to write this journal entry.

Ok, so there voice in me is saying I can’t believe that I’m writing about this. It’s quite trippy and I’m quite sure this is so not all there is to say about it. I’d love to know what it brings up in you, and what your experience is.

On another note – I finished a painting and will update later today.  Bright fall color – different than anything I’ve done before. I’m looking forward to what you think of it.

Wishing you color and light today.

October 7, 2014 – The last bit of night

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I’ve been waking these days somewhere between 3 and 4am.  It seems that all this menopausal body can sleep right now is about 5 or 6 hours.  I stay in bed and rest – not one for getting up to read.  I figure that if I’m at least resting my body and enjoying breathing, it’s better than nothing.  Thankfully, I don’t toss around, stressing about it anymore.

This morning I was wondering what to share with you today.  The stream that floated by contained all these stories of loss  – including my own.  It was Sunday morning and I was painting and listening to my music and Audrey Assad’s exquisite “I Shall Not Want” came into my ears.  I learned about her from a post written by David Brooks, where he noted that she’s often told by women that they listen to her music while in labor.  A wave crashed ashore:  grief that I’ll never have that experience, not just childbirth, but holding my own baby/ies in my arms.  It’s always there.  I no longer am a shivering ball on the floor, sobbing with the grief.  I can talk about it without the catch in my throat.  Yet, it bubbles up sometimes.

And then the paradox comes to me. I know in my knower, as my friend Joanne Cormier says, that I’d not be doing what I’m doing with my life if the in-vitro fertilization had worked. We’d have a 10-year-old now and I’d be Mom before anything else. I know me. I’d be focused there – and I’d want to be. I’d not worked so hard to become a mother at 40-something to then park my child in daycare to pursue my dream!  But I would not be painting, at least not with much regularity –and I’d for sure not be showing my art or teaching.  It’s hard enough for me to get myself to sit and paint sometimes now, without a child needing of me!

At the end of the fertility treatment road, it was 2004 and I had just left my contract position with Schwab in the city (San Francisco).  I jumped into real estate with my mom to do something – but the gnawing wouldn’t leave me.  In August I took myself to Rancho la Puerta in Tecate, Mexico for a spa week.  I spent the week doing only what I wanted to do – no sweat-‘til-you-bleed workouts, just dance classes, morning hikes, and looking at the sun through my eyelids.  I painted “Full Circle.”

It came to me that I needed to ask for help.  I prayed for the energy and inspiration to adopt (a whole odyssey in itself)  or to be given something else that would give my life meaning and purpose.  I got the “something else” – painting these watercolors – and now leading others in their painting journeys.

This is just my story. I think if we look, we all have a story of loss – of grief.  What lifts me back up is seeing what comes of it.   Saturday I was hauling the wood chips from the tree trimmings (it’s amazing now that the tree has been lightened up!) and randomly the thought came to me “what if Bill Wilson had not suffered from alcoholism?”  Millions of addicted people of all kinds would not have been helped with the 12 steps. Pain can be great fuel for transformation, for fostering connection – for bringing forth humanity. They say we are at our best when things are at their worst.  It’s a pisser that it’s that way, but it is that way!

I’m pretty certain that none of us escapes it.  It’s part of the deal of incarnation. We live a human life, we experience beauty, joy, pleasure, ecstasy even – and we have pain, loss and suffering. The light and the shadow – it’s all part of the bargain.  What I want for me, for you, for the world is to be able to see the light in the darkness.  I went out this morning with Bo to get the morning paper. It was still dark and I was ambushed by the beauty of the moon, nearly full, a shred of clouds over it, framed by the neighbor’s redwood trees. We can’t order up this kind of experience. We can just tune ourselves to notice and receive these moments when they happen.  My iPhone camera couldn’t capture it, but I wanted to share it anyway. I added a bit of color – because, well, that’s what I do.

Wishing you a lovely, lovely day,

Cara