And the tears keep coming...

So I am continuing with this “practice” for the 40 day Creative Experiment with BrushHeart Intuitive Painting.  In my last post on this practice session I wrote about resistance and learning what that resistance is.  Click here to read that blog: http://sabbathcenter.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-being-stuck.html

I have continued to follow the path that opened for me as I invited the resistance to show itself, came face to face with its fleeting nature, and painted it out.  I painted it out, blogged on it, and then went and re-painted my root chakra, before returning the next day to this experiment.

What I have learned this last week is how each painting teaches and informs the next one.  “What do you mean?” you ask.  Well, the “rules” of this experiment are to add at least one brush stroke a day for 40 days.  When I went to add a brush stroke the morning after painting my root chakra, look at what happened:

Notice anything? 

What I noticed was how the themes from the previous night were still showing up.  I started with light blue, almost indigo circles.  The tears began to wash away the Shadow that was choking my Chakras.  That chain of tears.  I allowed it to form and run and flow wherever it needed to.  And it flowed around the darkest of the Shadow, around the place where my Spirit and Soul and Energy were being most choked, freeing it to imagine itself into something new and beautiful; inviting it into movement....

The blue began to burst forth and flow.  Followed by that orange.  Yes orange.  Interesting.  And for me, even more interesting that it took the shape of an angel’s wing.  (I’m still reflecting upon that....)

And it continued to unlock and invite flow....  movement.... opening....

 

A bursting forth of my Soul into freedom.

I have to admit that I do feel movement within me.  Movement toward some unknown Future Me.  Movement into manifesting my dreams, hopes, visions in life. 

I feel myself returning after so many years of being dormant; of being pushed into my Shadow; of being shut down; of slowly dying that Critic death.

I feel the fire burning again; flaming up from deep within.  (Another theme from my root chakra painting showing up.)

 

My heart burning, like a candle flame.  Expanding me out, out into the Universe, out of my cocooned self of old; into something new and exciting....

Falling in Love.....

I’ve fallen madly in love....with my painting.  Yes I will totally admit it.  For the first time ever I am madly and totally head over heals in love with this painting.  I can’t believe it came from me.  I mean, I’ve been dark; deep into my Shadow as of late.  And this.  This beautiful sensual flowing painting arrived, greeted me, and blessed me last week.

I have begun re-painting my chakras.  This time, instead of once a month, the class is one chakra a week.  It is going to be more intense.  I signed up because I was curious to see what would happen to revisit them again.  I was curious to see what movement had occurred.  I was curious to see what healing had happened.  So, I signed up and jumped into it.

To begin, my teacher talks some about each chakra.  Then she takes us through some breathing, centering, yoga, movement to get our bodies connected into our creative expression.  She asked each of us to allow a word to bubble up from our Root Chakra for the night.  Before I share my word, I will share what happened as I engaged my body.

I began breathing, inviting my breathe to my pelvic floor, to my root chakra.  I allowed the chakra’s movement and spin to come to my vision and heart space.  With each breathe I heated up.  I mean heated up.  I felt like heat was emanating out of me.  I was completely uncomfortable.  

My arms, my head, my ears all on fire by the end of the exercise.  I mean on fire.  I could feel the heat at the tips of my fingers.  My ears felt like they were bright red (but apparently they were not).  I have had physical reactions when painting, so I knew I was about to learn something, release something.  Movement had begun.  I just needed to paint it out.

So I began.  I put my paper end to end.  I needed length in this painting.  The paper went floor to ceiling.  At first it felt overwhelming, but as I painted it felt more and more right.

I  began with red, orange and yellow.  I began with fire and heat.  I began to allow flame to appear on the painting in red, then orange, then yellow.  Flaming up the center of the painting, all the way to the ceiling.

I added gold.  Not a color I have ever touched.  Honestly, I don’t like gold.  I’m a silver person.  But I added it to the top corner.  I rubbed it into the top of the flame.  I fell in love with how gold brought out the orange red of the fire.  Gold.  Who’d have thought?

Then I touched blue.  The blue on the right was great.  It felt like a river next to the fire, especially when I added the purples.  It gave the painting flow, movement.

But the blue that took me down....that was the light blue.  I put it on the bottom and on the top.  I instantly had a visceral reaction of hate to it.  All I wanted to do was take it off.  It stopped me in my tracks.  I could go no farther.  Anger rose and rose and rose.  

I heated up.  Again.  Heat overwhelming me.  Stopping me.  Distracting me.  Heat.  My arms, head, heart, ears.  Heat -- overheated.

I sat on the stool I used to reach the top of the painting.  I became agitated.  I began to thump my water bottle on the floor.  

My teacher joined me.  I was stuck.  Stuck in my agitation, heat, anger.  Stuck in the light blue.  The only movement I could find was out, away from my body, away from my heart.  It was orange.  I had no shape or form.  I had only movement away.  So my teacher suggested I go with orange, put it up on the painting and pay attention to what showed up.  Orange is really my new black right now!!

I resisted, but I went with it.  Because my teacher suggested strongly that I leave the light blue alone and not cover it up I went with orange circles following the flow of the fire and the flow of the river.  That loosened me up again.  It did not get rid of the heat, but it got me back in the flow.

Next came a strong whack of orange paint in the top corner on the gold, then a melding of the two.  More work between the gold and orange.  

Then a few deep breathes.  Some shaking of my arms and head to try to clear away the heat to no avail.  So I decided to cover up the light blue.  I mixed some orange because I was tired of the oranges that were already mixed.  I added white to lighten the orange and began to cover up the top corner.  I rubbed my fingers through the paint to give it texture.  That was fun, and released some anger and frustration.  I did it a few more times until it looked cool and I felt like I released all I needed to.

That helped.  The heat lessened.....

So, I turned my attention to the bottom corner, to the blue at the base.  I figured if covering up the blue on the top released this heat, maybe the rest would go away once I covered all the light blue.  So I put orange on it and had a huge negative reaction.  I did not like it and this time took it off.  I scraped all the paint off that corner, removing the orange, green, blue, all the layers I had put there.

It had this really cool look to it.  Orange circles over top a faint light blue.  I stood there looking taking it in.  I backed up and took it in.  I went to the opposite end of the room and took it in.

I stood there at the opposite end of the room breathing, tears bubbling up filling my eyes.  I took deep breathes and awaited a color.  Green.  I took a few deep breathes to find the courage to put green on the painting.  I took another deep breathe and a step and grabbed the green.

I put green all along that side.  A deep green.  I covered that orange and blue up with the green.  I rubbed it in so that it flowed with the red of the fire.  I stood back...  I was stuck again.

I walked over and sat by my teacher with a green hand -- that’s how stuck I was.  I didn't even wash the green off my hand.  She wondered why I stopped.  I was in the groove and then I stopped.  Hmm....

We chatted for a few moments when I realized what I had done.  The only color in my heart was light blue.  It was tears, those tears that bubbled up on the opposite end of the room, those tears that I scraped off and covered up.  That is why I was stuck.  I took them off and they really needed expression.

They wanted expression to come in dots.  But when I was attempting to pick the size dot I wanted, I realized I’m not a dot person.  I did not want closed circles on my painting.  I am an open circle person at the moment.  I want that openness, that empty center.  I wanted circles.  So my teacher and I went in search of the right size circles to use and found them (creatively of course).  A candle holder, a paint cap, a pen cap.  

And I went to work, adding the light blue circles.  That is was brought the painting together;  brought the fullness of movement that I so love.  That is what got rid of the heat in my body.  That is was lightened my heart, emptied me of tears.  Blue tears in the form of circles.

I stood back once again and looked at my painting.  A sense of peacefulness present in my heart and body and soul.  A smile across my face.  I realized as I looked at that painting I was in love with it.  For the first time ever when asked how I was I responded I thought it was the most beautiful painting I’ve done.  I loved admiring how pretty it was.

I saw the healing that has taken place of the past six months as I have painting my way through my chakras, deep into my Shadow and back toward the Light.  I noticed parts of myself formerly living in my Shadow showing up in the beauty and Light. 

Artist, liturgist and theologian Jan Richardson wrote this blessing for her devotional this week.  It echoes what my painting is saying to me:

Curl this blessing beneath your head
for a pillow.
Wrap it about yourself
for a blanket.
Lay it across your eyes
and for this moment
cease thinking about
what comes next,
what you will do
when you rise.

Let this blessing
gather itself to you
like the stillness
that descends
between your heartbeats,
the silence that comes
so briefly
but with a constancy
on which
your life depends.

Settle yourself
into the quiet
this blessing brings,
the hand it lays
upon your brow,
the whispered word
it breathes into
your ear
telling you
all shall be well
all shall be well
and you can rest
now.

Blessed Be.

On Being Stuck....

Well, once I ruined my painting (in My Brushes on my iPad) and found peace again I began to experience a feeling and sense of being stuck. (If you are lost, check out my previous two blog entries.)  I had no idea what to do next.  I felt blocked.  I did not want to continue to engage this painting.  It felt complete.  Why mess with a sense of peacefulness and wholeness?

I wanted to start something new.

But that is not the invitation in a 40 day creative experience.  No, the invitation was to stay with one painting.  The invitation was to put at least one stroke on the painting each day.

Well, “I’m just practicing,” I reasoned with myself.

“Correct,” replied my creative soul. “The practice is not over.  You have not practiced for 40 days.”  

Hmmm....  My creative soul was right.  This is part of the process, getting stuck.  So I took a breathe and did what I was being invited to do.

I forced myself to put one stroke on the painting each day.  I went to my favorite non-messing up My Brushes stroke -- these soft bubbles that you can spread around the painting.  I picked white because I did not want to go dark.  I put them all over the painting creating a sense of snow and Light.

The next day, I was still stuck.    So, I choose my bubbles again, but this time black.  I put them all over the flowers lightly. Then I added a black flower, with a red spiral.

Then I began to be curious about why I was stuck.  What was happening that was causing me to not want to continue to engage this painting?

Was I too attached?  Probably.  But this stuckness was not like my not wanting to mess up my painting.  It felt different.  It was not in the same spot in my body either.

I decided to practice something that I had read in a blog from Kindergarten Mind, regarding her Why Not Now? Wednesdays.  Maryanne Devine wrote about being curious when stuck, not paying too much attention to the project, just sort of keeping an eye on it.  So I decided to do that.  It makes sense to me.  Parker Palmer, Quaker spiritual director, talks about the soul as being a tentative animal that is easily scared back into hiding.  I had a deep sense that by following Maryanne’s advice, my stuckness would appear and show itself.

So, I put down my iPad and went for a walk with the pup.  I let my mind go blank with the movement of the walk, the beauty of the woods, the warmth of the sun, the feel of the pup next to me, the sound of both of our breathes as we walked.  And that is when I realized that I was resisting, resisting the Shadow again.  I saw out of the periphery of my Eye this invitation to play with Black once again.  It was an invitation to bring the Shadow around all the various different chakras.  It makes sense.  Each of my chakras have had to work through the murkiness of my Shadow to come forth and express themselves.  

Ah, thank you Maryanne.  That was a great idea and it worked.

Sort of.  I now knew what I had to do, but not why I was resisting.  I say this because when I sat down the next day to follow that invitation, I just couldn’t do it.   I found myself going back to the black bubbles.  I stopped myself, saying “No that is not the invitation.”  But I found that all I could do was darken the non-flower areas a bit more.  I found that I had to accept that.

So, back to Maryanne’s exercise.  I needed to be curious about this resistance.  I needed to play around it but not with it directly.  I needed to engage it on the periphery and allow it to show itself in its own time. 

I’m learning that this is what the process of going deeper is all about.  Each time the invitation comes to go deeper, resistance appears.  (At least for me.)  I have to pay attention to that resistance.  Going deeper ends up being about addressing and working through the resistance.  Opening it up.  Bursting forth from it into whatever is next.  Putting it up on the painting.  Releasing it into the Universe.  

So, I went back to being curious.  I cleaned my house.  Packed all my belongings in my car for moving to Philadelphia.  Washed my dishes.  Walked the pup again.  Played with something entirely different -- a little mini play date.  Wrote some poetry.  Played on Facebook.  

All the time, keeping my Eye on the resistance.  And this is what I learned.

It is dark.  

It peeps out of its hiding spot quickly, like a mouse going in and out of its hiding spot.  

It does not really want to be seen.  

It enjoys playing hide and seek.

It revels in messing me up.  In stepping out and knocking me over just when I’m about to get on a roll with something.

It bubbles up in my belly then moves into my head whispering words of failure and fear.

Hmmm.....

It is time to paint it out.  To put it on that painting.  I now understand why it needs to wrap around each of the flowers, each of my chakras.  It really is trying to close them down, block them, jam them up.  I need to see it to believe it.  

So, I took a deep breathe.  I picked a black spray-like brush and went to work.  When finished, I looked at it.   I could not tell the difference between this and the previous one, except that I added a twinkle in the heart chakra.  I am left with a feeling that I went to the Light too soon.  This resistance that I have been feeling did not really show up.

Deep breath.  

Try again.

That is better.

It looks like the darkness is choking, blocking the flow of the chakras.  

Yeah.  

That is the resistance. 

Right there on the painting now.

Releasing into the Universe.

Now, I can start healing it.  

Bursting the box it has around the flow of my energy.  

Stopping its negativity in my life.

Now, I can listen for the positive whisper of my Soul with the resistance released from its place of power.

And it begins....

That bridge between my sacral and heart chakras starts to open again....

My hope for what I want in love and life begins to rise....

I am now intrigued to see what will show up in the next few days as I continue to add to this painting.

I am curious to see how my Soul plays with and engages Resistance.

I can feel it beginning in my heart...as it opens.... expands... twinkles... re-engages that mischievous nature that has recently shown up.

Hmmm.....curiosity it seems is the answer to becoming unstuck.

The Invitation from the Eye...

Because my Eye freaked me out, I continued to work on the same piece, going deeper, paying close attention to my Eye, listening to what it was asking of me and going there.  I spent three days working on just my Eye.  Playing with it.  Adding to it.  Allowing it to come to its fullness of expression...

In my previous blog, I shared to the point of the twinkle that showed up and how it sparked some poetry.   

Last night, this came.  This Haiku.  It came in the middle of the night enlightening me to what is happening with my Eye.

Tears Fall Westwardly

Cleansing healing woundedness

Heart rooting growing

Tears Fall Westwardly

Twinkle ignites in my Eye

Heart Blossoms Open

I sat with that twinkle waiting for the next invitation, learning from it:  the spark of energy, life, vibrancy;  but also that spark of mischievous playfulness.  When I opened to that mischievousness the invitation appeared...

The invitation to open my heart to love and life and play.  The invitation to embark on the journey of life by following my heart.  The invitation to allow my heart to guide me, to open me, to drive me, to root me.  

I love that the hearts came in purple.  The deep purple of the Crown Chakra first.  Reminding me to first open my heart to the Holy so that it is the Holy’s heart that flows through me, that expresses Herself through my heart.  

So that, as the lighter purple of the Third Eye arrived, all that I do, all that I manifest, all that I listen to for guidance is intertwined with the Holy, the Sacred in this world and beyond.

And then the Light showed up.  After the lighter purple of ME, the Light of the Holy appeared as a rose shining forth over all that was, is and amazingly will be...

The following morning, I began to realize that I was too attached to the Eye.  The Eye had come and taught me what I needed to learn (for the moment).  Now I felt like it was time to move deeper, to release the Eye and the Rose into the Universe and see what would show up.  That was tough to do because the only way I know how to do this in painting is to ruin my painting; to do something drastic that will bring about an “UGH! I hate this” reaction.  It was a huge UGH reaction when I went there.  So huge, that I spent the whole following two days working hard to bring some sense of peace to my soul and painting.

I started by making the twinkle larger and that was okay.  I added fireworks to the rose and that was okay.  It was when I touched the yellow circle that everything fell apart.  Then the enlarged spiral completely put me over the edge.  My soul was shaken.  

Of course, it did not help that I was also packing all my belongings to move out of my apartment making the ending of a 10 year relationship real.  It was probably not the best day to ruin my painting and send me into my Shadow.  But I have realized that, in my life, that is the time it happens;  those are the moments when stuff bubbles up from my Shadow inviting me to pay attention yet again to something that needs healing, releasing, expressing, reclaiming, growth.

So I worked at this painting....

  

and I worked at it....

and continued to work at it

until it began to come together....

until all of my Chakras showed up.  

I had this moment -- wow!!!  So that is what this is all about.  I’ve been painting them one by one for months.  Painting them set me on this journey that I’ve been on.  And I am about to begin painting them again, weekly this time.

Here they all are, twirling, spiraling, doing their thing:

First the Third Eye (lighter purple)

Then the Heart (green)

Then the Throat (voice) (blue)

Then Power (yellow)

Then Sacral  (orange)

Then Root (red)

and finally Crown  (darker purple)

And then Light showed up again, mixed with Shadow.  It seems to me that this is wholeness.  Light and Shadow together as one engaging all the Chakras in living fully.  

A really cool vibrant active bouquet of life!!!!

Practice Brings Confidence

I paint at BrushHeart Studios  (http://www.brushheart.com/) in Berwyn, PA.  My teacher put out a challenge she is calling the 40 Day Creativity Experiment (http://www.brushheart.com/node/85).  Here is how she describes it:

 “Being creative is your birthright. What would you feel like if you allowed your creative voice to be present in your life?.

Feel more ALIVE by Expressing your creativity daily.

Reduce stress expressive your creativity

One mark, One image, One word a day- will allow you to feel more alive.  What is the 40 day Creative Experiment?

Expressing your creativity daily is just as vital as breathing and eating. When we express our creativity; our heart becomes more joyous, a smile arrises, and stress disappears.

Join me and others as we try an experiment. for 40 days in a row.

Guidelines

Choice the medium you will work in, remember this will be for 40 days so it might be something you need to travel with.  You need to add to your ONE creative piece everyday. Don't remove anything or cover anything up because you don't like it, but you can end up layering over what you did the day before. This is about the creative PROCESS not the end result.”

I decided to take the plunge, to work on one piece for 40 days.  This freaked me out.  I have not done that before.  That is a huge commitment.  One piece for 40 days.  What if I run out of ideas?  What if I get stuck?  What if I get too attached and don’t want to change something?  Can I really commit to one piece for 40 days?

I decided I needed to practice, to see how it would feel to work on one piece for more than a few hours.  I also wanted to make sure the medium I was contemplating will work -- My Brushes on my iPad.  I need to be mobile, especially in August.  I will be commuting between Philadelphia and NJ plus I’ll be doing some continuing education and more.  So I must be flexible in my medium.

I have been about one week working on the same piece.  It has been an interesting experience playing with the same piece.  A few things have happened:

Day One

• I have been forced into an awareness of my attachments, as I attempted to add one stroke to the painting each day without messing up something I love.  In this painting, it is the rose-like circle that I created into a flower.  It has been there since the first day.  I am very attached to it.  I know at some point in the next week or so, I am going to have the “ruin” it to move deeper into whatever I am being invited into in this work.  

Day One

• I have learned that it takes courage to ruin your work, courage to go deeper, courage to follow the flow of the brush, paint, finger touching the screen, etc.  It takes courage to face the depth of my Soul and listen to what it has to teach me.  In this case, what my Soul needs to teach me about healing the wounds to my heart, power, voice so that I can blossom fully into Future Me.

Day Two

• I have been confronted twice by a new theme that popped up in my last painting -- the Eye.  Each time, it freaks me out.  It is like something is staring deep into my Soul and I have no walls to hide from it.  I know it is an invitation from the Holy to go deeper, to open myself more to my Shadow self; to allow deeper conversation between my Shadow and Light selves.  I know that.

Day Three

• 
  

• I have learned that this 40 day creative challenge is not going to let me ignore those invitations.  The first time that Eye showed up, I ignored it.  I covered it up.  Yes, I will admit that.  I did not want to go there. Instead of going there, paying attention to the Eye, I followed the rose and created a blossoming of my heart expanding out further and further into the Universe.  And I stayed there, playing with that concept for a few days, ignoring the Eye.  

Day Four

• Notice though, the Eye does not really get completely covered up.  This intrigues me.  No matter how hard I tried to cover it up, it just continued to peak through...

Day Five

And then another Eye appeared.  This time it formed without my help, without my attention...unconsciously.  If you look maybe you can see the shape of the Eye appearing between the stem and pink heart.  It is there.  

One morning, I could not ignore that Eye anymore.  To “go there” I had to ruin my painting.  So, I put green and purple fireworks exploding from the rose and hearts.  This loosened me up.  Relaxed me.  Changed the painting enough that I was not as attached.  I could then put that Eye right were it appeared.  I just followed the outline, created the pupil, added the spiral.  Then I freaked out.  Yes, I freaked out.  I kept opening up My Brushes, looking at it, closing it, and walking away.  

Day Six

• I was unsettled.  That is okay.  I am learning that is part of this process.  The painting is going to unsettle me because it is inviting me to go deep, deep into my Shadow self, deep into my wounds and face parts of me I would rather ignore.  That is the Holy work of healing.  

Day Seven

• The healing comes with the next stroke... For me that was the realization that the Eye needed to cry tears.  So I turned my iPad and created tears.  What struck me was that the tears were not just blue.  They were also yellow, green, orange.  The wounds of my voice, heart, power and sexuality needed cleansing, releasing, healing.  As I put those tears there something did indeed shift, something released, let go, opened up.  This is why I continue painting, continue creating.

Day Eight

• Painting opens me to other creative expressions.  The healing began here in My Brushes, but it continued through different medium as I continued to add one stroke each day.

For me, it has recently turned to poetry.  This is shocking because I have not written poetry before in my life.  But painting has opened my creative self to expressing myself, to working through and processing what is happening inside myself through poetic expression.  It started when I needed to write a sermon the day after ending a 10 year relationship.  I had no words except poetry.  That is what my congregation got.  Spoken word.

It has continued.  My previous blog is the different poems that have come from processing my SoulCards.

Last night, this came.  This Haiku.  It came in the middle of the night enlightening me to what is happening with my Eye.

Tears Fall Westwardly

Cleansing healing woundedness

Heart rooting growing

Tears Fall Westwardly

Twinkle ignites in my Eye

Heart Blossoms Open

I am excited to see what happens when I engage the same work for 40 days.  This past 8 days of work has cracked me open in powerful ways.

This practice has given me the confidence to look forward to what the Holy will do in 40 days in my creative wilderness.