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 24, 2015 – A season for everything

Wild irises from my hike up the hill with Bo this morning after writing – a bit early this year.

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When I was in my very early 20’s my brother Matt and I did the EST training. Our parents had gotten involved with EST and wanted for – I assume all four of us – to benefit from the value they gained from it.  It’s remarkable for me now to think that a couple of college students (Matt may have still been a teenager) would be willing to spend two weekends, in a meeting room in downtown San Diego with a bunch of mostly middle-aged people seeking transformation.  We were not forced to pee on ourselves and neither did anyone yell at us and tell us we were assholes, as I’ve been asked!  I do remember the exercise where we had to say emphatically “don’t you ever, ever, ever let me catch you brushing that dog’s teeth with my toothbrush again!!!”  Maybe because I was so young and maybe because we were raised in a house that was pretty well expressed, I don’t remember EST having an immediate impact.  But it was the start of what has ended up being a life-long process (so far) of learning about myself, growing my awareness and capacities.

After college, I did the EST Six-Day and then, when I was 23, I was Course Administrator for a subsequent Six-Day – my first real leadership experience. Several years later, I read the “Celestine Prophecy” which opened the door to there being another dimension to our existence.  I learned about the Enneagram and saw right away that I’m a type-two, Giver/Helper. That explained SO much!  I’ve taken the Myers Briggs – I went from an INTJ to years later an ENFJ – who knew you could change so much?!  I found out my top 5 strengths in Strengthsfinder (Connectedness, Developer, Individualization, Empathy and Input).  The last one, Input, explains my compulsion to looking stuff up online!  I read Dan Millman on numerology to find out I’m a 30/3 living a path of emotional expression. Speaking Circles healed my stage fright. I took The Coaches Training Institute’s coach training and their incredible 10-month leadership program that has brought me out of my shell for good!  As part of this, we learned how our essence might be described in our “I Am Type” – mine is: Beauty (think Audrey Hepburn or Jaqueline Onassis) with Charm, Fresh, Natural, and, get this, Smoldering!  (It was fun to realize that last one about myself!)   I uncovered my queenly Noble Qualities through my work with PAX and Alison Armstrong (Freedom, Connection, Illumination, Trust, Joy and Loveliness).  I had my Soul Map done (based on astrology) with Lissa Boles to learn that I’m here to teach that sensitivity is a really a superpower – which rings so true for me.

Add to all of this literally decades of one-on-one spiritual counseling and direction – I’m absolutely compelled to grow my consciousness and understanding of myself and how “it” works – and I’m a junkie for psycho-spiritual systems!  I have been hell-bent, or shall I say heaven-bent, to free myself from my limitations!

In the first part of my life, I could be extremely shy, I blushed painfully readily, and had unbearable stage fright.  I studied Computer Science in college and worked in the tech industry.  I was married to someone who struggled with addiction and could not truly meet me in any meaningful way.  Looking back, it seems I’ve had a complete life-transplant. Except for my beloved family, hardly anything is the same.   I’m so very grateful for the grace that has kept me on this path of transformation.

And then just a couple of days ago, I found myself saying to myself out loud “I’m so coached out” when looking at the emails in my inbox.  It was filled with personal growth teachers’ newsletters, about this telesummit and that program.  I’ve reached my limit, or at least a limit on how much looking at myself I can do.   My spiritual director Sister Mary Neill says that personal growth can actually be violent.   Sounds intense and extreme, but it rings true.  Last week I was talking to my friend Vicki and what came out of my mouth was something like “it seems there is a sweet spot, a balance, between having our heads in the sand, unaware of what else there is and being so focused on growing and changing who we are that we make ourselves wrong for not being “there” yet, which doesn’t honor the fact that evolution is the nature of the universe – where every stage is good and right. Even pain and suffering have their place. Words I’ve heard from Deepak Chopra guide me:  “everyone is doing the best they can at their level of awareness.” Including me.

Laying in bed early this morning, I was thinking about what to write and the word I’d spoken: “balance,” came to my mind.  And then something else right behind it:  “cycle.”  I questioned whether balance is really what we want, or even if it’s possible.  Cycle, or season feels more the nature of our lives.  When I’ve been painting intensely for a while, I need a break.  If that break goes on for too long, I feel the pull back to my work.  I love teaching – leading artists in their process with watercolor, it is what I’m made for.  And after four days in a row this past week, yesterday I was ready to enter receipts and reconcile checking accounts in Quickbooks!

When we were little kids in the 60’s, our parents listened to the folk music that was popular then – Peter Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, the Mama’s and the Papa’s.  Pete Seeger’s song, made popular by The Byrds comes to mind:

• To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
• A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
• A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
• A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
• A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
• A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
• A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
• A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
• A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

From a passage, said to be written by King Solomon, in Ecclesiastes – it is ancient wisdom that rings true to me today.  I read it’s the popular song with the oldest lyrics, though Pete Seeger said he did write the six words at the end: “I swear it’s not too late.”  This song was meant to be a call for peace in the Vietnam War era.  That it has come to mind, I’m taking it as a call for peace within me, which is where peace in the world is spawned – from the peace that resides in each of our hearts.

Love,

Cara

February 17, 2015 – Make art, change your life

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In November 2009, my mom and I flew to New York to see an exhibition of Joseph Raffael’s paintings at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in Chelsea.  Joseph and his family used to live in the San Geronimo Valley where I grew up and where my mom and dad still live.  When we were all kids, my older brother, Joe was friends with his son Matthew. They used to ride bikes and go fishing in the creeks together.  Joseph had a studio separate from their house up in the trees in San Geronimo.  I remember being inside it when he had one of his huge oil paintings of the rounded rocks from the bottom of a stream bed up on the wall.  His later watercolors of flowers were, more than anything else, what inspired my mom and I to learn to paint.

The Nancy Hoffman Gallery is in a modern, metal, concrete and glass building.  When we walked up to it, there was a sliver of a view inside where I saw the bright color of this painting. The bright yellow of the dahlia made my heart leap!  Walking in and being surrounded by this artwork was incredible.  His paintings are enormous – about 5 feet by 7 feet – and filled with color and aliveness. Astonishing to experience in person.    After about 45 minutes with them, though, I had this almost sick feeling. I had to leave.  It was so odd.  What I make of this feeling is that I knew that there was some version of these large paintings in me, my huge paintings. And the thought of that completely freaked me out.  I was terrified.

When I was first learning, I painted on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper (11”x15”).  It’s a good size to start with.  But more than fearing I’d be possibly “wasting” a large piece of paper, I was afraid of the larger impact I’d make with bigger paintings. What’s remarkable is that alongside that fear is – and has been – something in me that is called to do just that. I have this strong desire to make beautiful paintings – some of them very big.

In 2008 I went to see the glass artist, Dale Chihuly’s exhibition at the De Young in San Francisco. At the end there was a video about him and his work.  The video showed a whole team of people in silver heat suits handling huge pieces of molten glass.  I was struck by the incredible resources it takes for his work to become manifest – work from just one human being’s vision.  I had the thought that if he can allow himself to be a channel for such inspiration, that it takes so much more than just him to bring it into being, then that capacity is potentially in any of us – including me!  This insight lived in me when I experienced Joseph Raffael’s work in New York.

A few months after the trip to New York, I was in Perry’s Art Supplies and saw heavy sheets of Arches watercolor paper that were 60” by 40.”  I had no idea sheet paper even came that big! (Joseph paints on rolls of lighter-weight paper.)  My heart literally started pounding!  I bought all 5 sheets they had in stock.  It took until the year after that for my biggest painting (to-date!) to come through – Hallelujah.  Here I am standing next to it, so you can get an idea of its scale.

These experiences are part of my unfolding, not just in my creative life, but as a being alive on this planet. Learning the skills of working with our materials – learning our craft – is an integral part of what we do. Painting watercolor is our particular means to an end beyond the artwork it allows us to make.  What resides in our hearts, what we respond to in the world and the messages we receive as we witness creativity in others helps us discover our voice.  There is no one else who is ever going to make the art that is in each of us – not the way we paint when we first start out, not when we’ve been painting for many years.  Every time we put our brush into a pool of paint and touch it to our paper, it’s us.  It carries our mark, like the tone of our voice and the way we sign our name.  Learning to paint gives us a way to show the world who we are.  And the more we do it, the more refined our expression becomes, the more vivid is the illumination of our essence onto watercolor paper.  The consciousness and the spirit of each of us lives in the work we make.

(For the record, watercolor is just one of the uncountable forms this can take. It’s just the one that has chosen me!  Our voice can come through not just other ways of making art, but any act of creation.)

Since I’ve begun to paint and have heeded the call to evolve as a painter, a teacher/guide and as a person – I see and hold myself altogether differently. I experience a level of freedom that I couldn’t imagine was possible for me.  I am more myself than ever.  I have grown through my paintings.  The desire in me to paint carries a wisdom for my life.  Early on it led me out of the grief and disappointment at not having children. Now it is the “why” of my life.  There is an instrument in the center of my chest that registers inspiring beauty – it’s a particular kind of energy.  That energy must be translated into paintings representing how I see it and feel it.  It’s what I’m here for.  It’s why I’m alive.  And it’s made who I am today.

I believe it is the same for all of us.  While we are painting, learning, exploring, operating in the face of our own fears and resistance, we are being transformed. There’s nothing we need to say or do for this to be, it just happens!  Eventually the desire in us to make art that astonishes us, fuels us to do just that. We are changed by revealing ourselves in this way.  And by doing this, we bless others with this view into us.

I invite you to join in.

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

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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

January 6, 2015 – Living “pink” – as I see it

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When I first started to write these posts three months ago, fearing I’d need ideas to write each week, I hunted around in my computer for things I’d already written and I ran across this in an email I’d sent to my friend Vicki about a year ago:

My success and happiness and capacity for creativity and inventiveness and all that I want, including health and fitness and a fulfilling and fulfilled life are linked to my being a girl, allowing myself to be supported and provided for – and to take sweet, loving care of my body, to make it a priority and feel precious and beautiful and lovely and grace-filled.

There is a sensory field that this statement creates that I’m yearning to live in – that of trusting and allowing and a quiet celebration of my femininity.

For the past several new years, I’ve come back to this as my intention – to re-orient myself at the start of the year.  In my upbringing climbing trees with lots of boys, there wasn’t much example of what it meant to be feminine.  I would not change my early life in any way.  It’s served me to know how to really work and get stuff done.  But, it has seemed to initiate this quest for living in another way – even when I didn’t know what that way was, or at first, even that there was one.

I see the sign posts along my way:  I’m drawn to movies like “My Fair Lady” and “Dangerous Beauty” where the masculine/feminine dynamic is the central theme, when life set it up so that I’d have a “room of my own” I made it pink and soft and flowery (but not too), I was immediately drawn to Alison Armstrong and her work when I heard her talk about what it meant to run a business and still be feminine. She has become a treasured teacher and has contributed to this evolution in me more than anyone or anything else.

There has been a lot of talk about “feminine” or “feminine power” in the personal growth world in recent years.  And, as much as there is a part of me that celebrates this, much of it has missed the mark for me – it’s female-oriented, but it’s still largely masculine! This has led me to define for myself what “feminine” means.  It’s so much more than girly-ness, frilliness, and pink.  It’s a powerful way to be alive.  The image that comes to me – and it’s a felt image, rather than a visual image – is one of resting in a hammock.  I’m supported by the earth and gravity, at rest and at peace, trusting that all is well.  It’s a receptive space.  I feel myself looking out from behind my own eyes without any need to change what I see, I just take it in. It’s appreciative, warm and gracious.

It’s also responding to what comes my way, and allowing what is being created to come to life, like a pregnant woman does with her baby.  I first started showing my art because I was invited by my friend Eleanor Harvey to do Open Studios together at our church.  And I discovered I was a teacher because of the painters who kept asking, finally dragging me out from under my fears, to share what I know about painting watercolor. What was born of this is now my life and livelihood, without my intending to.

Through Alison’s work I identified my “noble qualities:” Freedom, Connection, Illumination, Trust and Loveliness. This is who I can be when I care for myself.  I felt I needed some kind of “permission” to become feminine – I had no connection between feminine and important.   I first needed to know that what I bring to the world from here does not just matter, but is actually what the world thirsts for.  Because the feminine is motivated externally, I keep reminding myself that self-care is not selfishly done just for me, but for who I can be for Joe, my family and friends, the painters in my groups – for my paintings, for you.

And it’s really hard to stay here – the feminine is overshadowed in our world by the masculine – taking action, being productive, accountable – making stuff happen. I often find myself charging into my day, my life, to-do list in hand, forgetting it entirely. And now that I know of what it feels like to be feminine in this way, it’s increasingly painful to do this. The sensitivity I shared last week is being revealed to me.

Here we are at the start of a shiny, new year and I sit again with this intention. I feel tender in my desire to live feminine; I am humbled by the strength of my deep-rooted habits that keep me running right over taking care of my body and need for rest and quiet time.  I look at my year-after-year desire to live more this way and say to myself, I’m still “here.” If I look back just a little, it’s hard to see progress. But if I head back 10 or even 20 years in my life, it’s clear I’ve come incredibly far.

This brings me back to my post about our old oak tree and its example of the long, season-after-season maturation needed to bear fruit.  What has just been revealed to me in this very moment, is that the feminine way of becoming feminine is to just allow it, in its own time.  It’s the ingrained “make it happen” in me that is having a problem with how long it’s taking!  That urgency – kept in balance – is good too, it keeps life moving along.  We need both parts.

While writing this post, I happened to glance out the window of my studio and saw the full moon just before going out of view for the day, in the pink sky of dawn. Lovely.

Wishing you a lovely day,

Cara

 

 

December 30, 2014 – My edge – exquisite softness for myself

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In 1998, when the movie “Saving Private Ryan” came out, Joe and I went to see it in the theater.  It was getting rave reviews, it was Spielberg, a great cast – everyone was seeing it, so we did too.  About ten minutes into the beach-landing scene I found myself sitting in my seat barely able to breathe.  I was so overwhelmed with the horror of what those men had experienced, it impacted my physical body. I had to leave the theater, remind myself where I was and that I was ok.  I waited a while, until the loud explosions coming from the theater died down and went back in to join Joe.  When it was over, walking out, driving home, we didn’t speak to each other. Not until the next morning were we able to talk about it.  Even though it’s an incredible story and film, I was sorry that I put myself through watching it.  I vowed to myself to never go see a violent  movie – especially a war movie – again.

I know that war is part of life on earth.  Humans are terribly violent and destructive to one another and there must be some value in telling these stories. (Though doing so hasn’t seemed to stop it from happening.)  But I lack the filter to keep energy out of my being – not just my mental and emotional being, but my physical being too.  I remember as a teenager passing out in the Kaiser Hospital elevator after having visited my grandma. There was no blood or anything gruesome, she was just in a lot of pain.  My psyche couldn’t handle her suffering and away went my consciousness.

Last night I stayed up until 12:30 on the computer, getting all the online store and credit card transactions from this month’s sales entered into QuickBooks.  The deposits were a puzzle to figure out, but I really wanted to get it done before year end.  I did this knowing that being up that late, looking into an electronic screen (two, actually) with my brain engaged with numbers would impact my sleep.  Sure enough, I had a hard time falling asleep and then woke up just three hours later.  I’ve got a little head cold, so depriving myself of sleep is so not what I needed.

All of this is to say that I’m coming to terms, 53 years into this life, that I am a really sensitive person.  Having been raised around a bunch of boys – my three brothers and all their friends – I didn’t have much in the way of an example or a reflection for my kind of sensibilities.  I climbed trees and did a lot of “boy stuff” not fully knowing how girly I really was inside.  I’ve been called a “trouper” all my life, for my capacity to dig in and work hard, even physically hard – like that tile work I did in college.  We keep doing what we are praised for – it’s a well-worn groove.

Becoming an artist and teacher in mid-life has brought to me praise of another sort entirely.  I am not just sensitive to violence, pain and working my brain too hard late at night, but also to how beauty is everywhere, how unique and precious each act of creation is, each attempt at making a watercolor painting.  I am grateful for my capacity to hold people in a particular way in their process of learning to paint, for my ability to see color, for the instrument that lives in the center of my chest that responds to inspiring visions – hearing them say “paint me.”

Tomorrow is the last day of 2014. Though it’s rather arbitrary, the calendar is a structure that we live around.  As such, we look at endings and beginnings. I’ve been shying away from New Year’s resolutions for several years. I’m so susceptible to the “bright-shiny”-ness of the hope for a “whole new me.”  Though it’s still useful to reflect and envision.  Looking back on this year, much of what I was so eager and hopeful for at the start has not come to be.  But what I do see is a profound deepening of my understanding and appreciation for who I am and what I’m here to do and offer.

I’m an artist and I am a teacher/guide/companion, particularly to others drawn to make the kind of art I do.  And the capacity to hold the possibility of  transforming their lives as I have mine.  These are gifts that are intertwined with my sensitivity. Gifts I did nothing to gain, other than to answer the call from outside me to bring them forth.  What I see this morning, is that in order to most fully serve, in the particular way only I can, I can’t live like I did when I set tile, or wrote computer code in the corporate world.  I can’t “do it all” in my little business either.

Life unfolds and reveals us to ourselves and each other in its own time and way.  It’s not new that I need to care for myself differently – I’ve even just shared this with you!  But my experience is that it keeps landing more deeply and clearly.  I can only go so far, watching myself live in a way that goes against my soul before my choices change.  It can be slow, but I stake my life and future on the knowledge that it is steady.

Looking into 2015, with a tender heart, I wish for Life in Full Color to expand, to find its way to bring life, light, color, inspiration to other hearts that resonate with it.  I wish for whatever is needed in me, for me to understand that Life in Full Color is so much more than me, and that bringing it more fully into being will take much more than me.  And I trust that at the end of December 2015, I will look back and see that something has moved and changed and grown.  It’s the nature of the universe.

Thank you, once again, for being there in my world, for having drawn this art, this teaching out of me, for giving me my life’s work.  Sending you my love and blessings for all you wish for in the coming days and months of the new year.

Love,

Cara