Wisdom, Vision and Craft

In my advancing years, I've come to understand how little I understand. And that is such a joyous feeling. Sounds strange, but it is so liberating to feel like a frog in a well who has jumped out of the well.

Of course, I jump back in all of the time. To be human is to search for stability, what is known, what can be counted on. I counsel clients on managing fear of the unknown all the time, working with fear has been an element of my work forever.

I love how Dave puts it "all we can be certain of is uncertainty, and our goal is to allow our intentions to reside in consciousness, and all will be as it is, as it should be".  It makes me go ahhh.... I love that. Most of my clients don't go "ahhh..." when I tell them that, so clearly I'm not doing that quote justice. I used to teach workshops on letting go of fear of the unknown, I think I will add that to my list of " what I might start teaching in Hoboken this summer".

I've learned, as many have, that the essence of letting go is surrender, and the path always leads to surrender. Letting go of the need to control that which cannot be controlled is freedom, and freedom is wisdom. It seems to me that to cultivate wisdom, we have two natural tools at our disposal. Vision and Craft.

As creative beings our vision sustains us, guides us, connects us to consciousness in meditation and if we are lucky, in the present moment. The intangible essence of our lives.

Craft is our ability, in "human time", to shape our vision in the material world, our actions, and put our work in the world out into the world. The tangible manifestation of our lives.

So putting the three together, Wisdom, Vision and Craft creates a road to balance, evolution and peace within. I like that. Maybe that's what I'll call the first class I teach in Hoboken this summer.

I'll add it to my list.

I am an avatar voyeur

I am. I've written before about watching my son play WOW, XBox 360, PS2, etc.. , watching my husband play his XBox 360 games as well.  I love it. I am a visitor vicariously loving the ether worlds that artists create, that other artists know in their hearts to be real.

Recently, I was talking to a client who was ashamed of liking to watch people play - and asked me, why I did.

It was a great question. I never thought about it too much before, it seemed interesting, funny even, but light and wonderous at the same time. For me , nothing is what it seems. I love going deeper, parsing out the underbelly of  - well ,  you name it. That is my mercury in scorpio nature, in case you are wondering.

As I analyzed it out loud with my client, I realized that I love being a cheerleader. Being a supportive - you go guy, kill that zombie, buy that armour, enter that ether world challenged mission and, well you get the idea. I love being an avatar voyeur. Entering ether worlds of beautifully drawn imaginings, and travelling along with the hero or heroine - mission accomplished or not, does not matter. I can experience it from a far, imagine my own travels, without having to risk game over. As a retired mars warrior, I like that. An arm chair adventurer. It's funny and spicy at the same time, don't you think?

Part of me thinks that is what I love about being an art collector. It seems similar to me. Watching - collecting. The indescribable beauty of another persons  vision that connects to our own - isn't that what art is all about?

I think we all love the surreal. That part of our psyche that connects with life force, demon and angel energetics that impel our consciousness forward into dream land. Which on some level is real time.

I'm sure Dali would understand this post.

I also love to play - but yet am resistant. I have not plugged in my Wii in months. My ikami wolf lies dormant waiting for Mother Devine to breathe fire into his lungs.

Perhaps tomorrow.

Dignity and Balance

I find myself wondering about the essence of dignity, and how to best live in concert with our basic life force and vitality. This is not a competitive place, but a place of presence. A place of calm and inner balance. Dignity.

Say the word out loud - Di - g-ni-ty. It rolls off the tongue, and forces a smile with an exhale. Perhaps we can practice this as a breath meditation with sound. And sit in silence afterwards.

It sounds simple enough. But then the ego gets a death grip on our minds - and our thoughts swirl. Self-loathing appears before we know it, and we sabotage ourselves and forget who we are. At our core, we are all connected in our humanity. You wouldn't know it reading the newspapers sometimes, so easy to forget. Anger arises. Dave asks me sometimes - do you want to be right or do you want to be effective?

There was a time I wanted to right. And still do at times, I have to admit. But more and more as I grow older, I want to be effective. I want to help. I want to be myself and not care about climbing, attaining, forcing, voting, changing. Just shining, from the inside out.

I don't understand the dog-eat-dog mentality very well anymore. Or perhaps I have lost patience with its values. Rising at the expense of others. If we do not join together, find a way to help each other, we will not survive. We need community now, more than at any other time. We need to be vocal and local - share and build and support those around us.

In this new age, which I hope to contribute to, the renaissance of beauty and spirit that I feel we need to re-discover in ourselves, and allow to rise, there lies at its core - dignity.

Placidity

I have often felt that the calm center within me, that place beneath the tumultuous storm of emotion and worry is the most sacred place of all. Placidity. If I could only lay down within that circle of light, that fluid pool of liquid consciousness and expand in the reality of placidity, all would be well. All would be eternal. It probably already is, but I fight it.


What else would you expect from a south node aries? Ah, the transformation into a north node libra is an interesting process. 

My meditations carry the same image day in and day out. The ravens and harpies grab my fate and fly high in the sky, creating lines of dance and movement that make the angels cry. My next painting. I get this image so often now, it is joyous in a strange way. The lines are lovely, yet the sounds are not. Caucus, loud, like fantasia I needs to script this with classical music. Perhaps mozart or chopin, dvorjak. Life and death in a spiral of dissolution.


Talking to Dave about placidity. An eternal personal goal. He is the most well read philosopher I know and an amazing scholar in his own right. He sent me this beautiful passage, which I love. I find such solace in it.

" In the Taoist belief, nothing is important.  In their opinion, the most serious thing that can happen to anyone is to die, and even that is not important.  There is nothing worth fretting over or hastening after.  Things you do not have are responsibilities escaped.  High rank you cannot achieve is disaster avoided.  Man's wants are many, but needs are few, and the Taoist makes the goal of his life to live without effort, without stress, and without strain.  He moves slowly and methodically, without tension and without nerves, to whatever end he desires to accomplish, always careful that his ends are few.

If he finds himself in a position of responsibility, his first task is to remove the consciousness of responsibility in himself.  Where ever he is, he is unconcerned.  But crucially, he is not complacent, he is not a fatalist, he is not inert or slothful, he responds to the call of each moment, he does what is required, he does everything as wisely as he can, and then immediately dismisses the entire matter from his mind.  Rich or poor, befriended or alone, old or young, he lives in the same sense of detachment.  He wastes no energy and permits nothing to irritate him.  In this way, he overcomes most of the causes of human decay.

Very few people wear out; most of us rot out.  The life of most is corroded by acids of disposition.  Strength is wasted toward ends that are not real or valuable.  Most men die from the exhaustion attendant upon the effort to live.  But the sage lives without effort.  He seldom practices great physical exercise; in fact he avoids every type of exertion.  He never wonders about what he does, nor fears the results of his thoughts or deeds.  Most centrally and importantly, He lives by a formula of virtue and right.  He never departs from it, he never concerns himself with evils that may come to him.  In other words, he lives as if he were like water, for this fluid fits itself into any container without discomfort, flows into low and simple places without despair, and in the end mingles with the universal waters without regret.

Placidity is power and makes available our inner resources of intuition, creativity, vision, understanding and broad comprehension; relaxation is length of years, detachment is health.  It is only one who actually lives the doctrine who can know its truth, and only such a person can take the sting out of life and be fitted to endure peacefully the years allotted."

A Great Work

There are times we are simply surviving. Obsessed, so to speak with making payments, stretching the funds we have on hand, trying not to worry about the anxiety that runs our obsessive minds. As a client wrote to me today, "between the funerals and the old house falling apart ..."- things are not going so smoothly. Working gigs are far and few.  Tense. This is not a smooth time in the universe.  Loss. Obstruction. Unemployment. Yet, I can't help feeling there is a call to the heroic within us that is sounding in the ethers.

The heroic. I know, I'm a mush. But can you hear it?

It raises its head while we are in process. Those glorious moments of process.

Process can be defined as living in the breath. As being present. As just "I am". Meditate on the heroic within you. Paint it, sculpt it, YouTube it.

Process is the feel and sound of the brush scraping along the surface of the paper or canvas. It is sexy. It is life enhancing. It is all encompassing. It is sublime.

I think this is the era of the Great Work. I feel the call in myself, though it is not yet the time. I can hear it off in the distance though. Listen. Perhaps as you can allow the anxiety to subside, and the veiled birds who live between the realms of time who swoop in and remove the strands of your ego and old karmic desires from your minds eye to release you from the bonds of your mind.

Create. Nimble, flexible, chaotic. The times will call for it. You can rise to it. A great work.

New Vision forming

I'm starting to dream again. About art, about artists, how we can create something innovative and soulfully satisfying. Am starting to feel a curatorial pull...

A show about beauty, the human spirit in all its forms and conjugations. Elegant. Lyrical. Perhaps it will ultimately be a show about decay. Or birds.

Perhaps I will curate it and have it hosted in my backyard, and then film it for Youtube, in sequences.  That appeals to me. As the work falls to the weather and changes, the dynamic of interaction and the ultimate witness. Is that the artist, is that the viewer, the birds?

Ah, the birds again. Must rent the video. I date myself, I mean the DVD.

Lately, feeling like we can create dynamic awareness through conversation that is indirect.  By that I mean, lets take the time to read each others blogs, and react. Start a chain reaction, your idea kindles my idea kindles another idea. Do we need to talk to eachother? I dont' think so. But is that not really the relationship we should aim for? I'm not sure. I liken it to a fireplace - lets put another log on, and see the colors burn.  And then what is born within? Ash?

I guess I have a yearning growing for transformation. I want to see it, feel it, taste it, curate it.

Strange musings for an early evening in late January. Time to make dinner.

Don't ask, I really do ponder these ideas. A Pisces moon is a strange creature.

The Beauty of Community

I think a lot about the state of things..art, spirit, love, family, vision, cats.... and community.

I've been talking to Dave for years now about the need to invite in and enhance our community.  We can be a bit isolationist, happily so but perhaps not dharmically correct. With the coming collapse of the world as we know it, the pressing importance of building, sustaining, enlivening ones community is calling our name.  All of us, not just the personal us. The way forward is presence and inclusiveness, not exclusiveness. I am, you are - the same. All together.

I always come back to the rightness of the universe as it is. Not a platitude that is easily swallowed.

I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the trends that are unfolding around me, and the ways I can be most helpful to those around me. My clients, my students, my loved ones. Those I don't know and will never know. I don't think it matters really. Community is really anyone we turn to and say "i'm here for you". Maybe we are all strangers to each other, and yet, 'I'm here for you". Something totally beautiful about that.

Talked today at the lecture about community, about integrity and authenticity. Business mind bridging to creative mind. I believe all that I say, funny. I do. Lovely crowd today, honest creative beings - who will do important work as they are ready. Sometimes I think that all we need is to be re-inspired to live in our truth, motivated to enact what is real from within - and then all will be ok.

The creative spirit. Naturally forming community. Leading us - as within as is needed. The collective artistic vision will be an interesting manifestation of our times. I look forward to being its witness.