the touch of mystery

When can I say this all began?
How did I get where I am today?
Who am I?

I love these questions and today I am feeling how they have become my life, how they live with me, how they carry me along into the mystery, day by day, moment by moment.

This morning the mysterious process of creative living was underlined once again by the wise words of Julia Cameron.
Bless her heart. Bless her work. Bless her for writing and listening to her process.

It was her book, The Artist's Way Every Day, that still sits by my morning side, which I read through the fifteen months of my woodland time out. I know that those months are the ground for all I do, now. It was a time of such deep questioning, stopping and listening, and is indeed, how I arrived here. Its mystery is woven into me and is why I can write at all, now, and actually let my words be released, trusting them to be strong enough to fly.

Julia Cameron writes, "Mystery is the heart of creativity. That, and surprise. All too often, when we say we want to be creative, we mean that we want to be productive. Now, to be creative is to be productive -- but by cooperating with the creative process, not forcing it."

"Creativity requires a respectful reticence. The truth is that is how to raise the best ideas. Let them grow in dark and mystery."

Today I am celebrating every step through the "dark and mystery" that brought me here. I feel all my questions and how they have settled down into my body from my mind. I feel all the waiting, all the wondering, all the aching, all the confusion as I faced the mystery and found myself in relation to it.

Today I wanted to acknowledge all the hands that kept taking form in my process painting this past year.

They were reaching to touch me: red hands, black hands, pink hands. 
I was reaching to touch me and they were in service to this longing.

How strong the impulse was that it needed such strong colors! Yes, there were moments of judgement. Oh, the black hands! Oh, the red hands! So dangerous my mind said they were! But over time they no longer carried a story, they carried feeling, only feeling. They were necessary.

Yesterday the hands came again and took on a recently mixed soft pink color and they were my own hands, touching my mother's face and hair. I had begun to paint myself and could not ignore the resemblance to my mother. To allow both these realities is the way I came in touch with myself and what I was feeling. Mother is where my life, with all its needs and joys, began.

The mystery of process will bring more surprise to life through this painting.

I'm so grateful to life and the process that has brought me into such intimate relationship with the mystery.

That mystery has taken the form of many women who have supported me along the way. Most recently those women are Barbara Kaufman, the director of the Center for Creative Exploration and Julie Daley, the creator of Writing Raw and Unabashedly Female. Both these women live, work and play in San Francisco, CA.

I can't say enough about process painting or writing raw.
The mystery can never be fathomed, nor can we.

my new job:
wake up
feed the birds
make tea or coffee
ponder
be inspired
don't even try to fit this into words
write
or paint
do whatever comes first.
love being
such a mystery.

the tenderness of our creative potential

Today my painting felt like flow and I named it as "my flow."
Then when I made a move that I considered not to be in the flow, well, the painting process showed me even more about flow.

The process is the teacher. And oh, am I the student.
The ways of forgetting that are as subtle or as shocking as the ways I remember.

So, here’s the story behind that observation.
I began painting myself on a half sheet which is 20x26 inches.  I had just completed a very large painting 65x40 inches, which I look forward to write about as it held me through some very rough energetic seas and gifted me in the completion with an experience in paint, of the flow of giving and receiving and how they continually dance.

Of how giving becomes receiving and receiving becomes giving. 

It is amazing, to watch that occur and then it disappears into memory. 
It is more than a memory though I couldn’t say what it is, but I was a part of the experience. 
And that is so wonderful, to include oneself in life at the level of creation.


As I painted, I noticed the judgment that I would need to paint the whole figure didn’t land anywhere, nor did the thoughts that I really don’t know if I was doing this right - beginnings can be awkward. The feeling of not knowing and wanting to know, to catch the way it was related to what came before, it all flowed along as the shapes and colors appeared.

What I also noticed was that it reminded me of a few very early paintings from my first year in college. At that time, I did not want to paint the way I painted. In my mind it (I) was unsophisticated. I wanted to paint the way everyone else painted. I wanted to do it like they did. This belief was my conditioned destiny. It caused the tension I lived with for years.

If I had known that doing it like they did, which was basically aimed at belonging - and wanting to be myself - were two opposite wishes, I could have asked for support to find the way to paint my paintings.

It’s ok.
I learned other good things and am still finding my way to own my way.
Which after 40 some years of painting (and 62 years of living) is a good thing to be able to say.
I have not given up.
I wouldn’t stop process painting for the moon.

In process I am able to see so directly what I do to protect myself from the tenderness of being myself (as well as not knowing myself) 
and how I shy away from experiencing the tenderness of creativity itself.
What I saw myself do after I began the small painting today was to overlook this tenderness.

While I was mixing paint for tomorrow, I tested the blue. Boldly I painted radiating stripes from behind my head.
The beginning had not even had a night to rest before she was over shadowed by this willful move of mine. And I put a strand of pearls on her neck!

Where was I? Had I moved out of relationship so quickly from the previous hour that I moved in to use her for my own agenda, to test a color, to make a bold radiant background?
Could I have held in awareness the possibility, instead of filling up that empty waiting space?
If I had held to the self identity (am I looking for a rule here or a good direction….) If I had held the identity of myself with a bit more care, would I have moved so boldly?
My answer is that I was not in relationship to the painting.
Whether the image begins as myself or not, the main thing is to be in relationship to the painting.
It is, after all is said and done, only me, realistically and spiritually speaking.


I am breathing and writing through this and asking myself for some compassion.
I saw what I did. It was a conditioned response. And thank goodness no harm was done! I’ve been known to be more foolish in real life. But my stomach did feel the difference when I saw the first photo at the end of the day.

Until I made that comparison I was unaware of how my will had moved into the process and moved me out of relationship.
Then I judged me.

I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
Thank you.

How many times will I be called to forgive myself?
100,000 times or more.
To see again how hard a judge is and always is.
To see that some judgements flow by, and I breathe easy and others find their hook and settle in, inviting me to breathe deeper into not knowing.

A beginning is something new.
I learned quickly through this painting, how I want to bring more attention and care to a beginning. 
To let it unfold slowly. 
To stay in relationship to the empty spaces, too.

There is nothing to gain in barging into a beginning with such bravado.
And the process let me see that, and to even question that statement!

Tomorrow I will step in to what is there, and come back into relationship to the potential that is waiting to unfold.
The process also lets me step out of the control I wish I had on the painting, on myself, and yes, on life.
Oh, there is the idea still alive and well that mistakes are mistakes and not opportunities for learning.

Again and again, the love I have to paint has found a way to be of service to self knowledge and to my own gentle and colorful surrender.

her sense of humor

"In the absence of role models for the new feminine in our culture, the Goddess speaks through dreams and creative imagination, giving guidance to those who choose to listen. Her sense of humor always softens the sharpness of her approach. Her compassion for the human being in the human situation establishes a strong, loving container so long as communication is kept open." ~ Marion Woodman


I was on the receiving end of her humor tonight as this painting came to a completion. I was hovering near an end that I did not know but knew I had to dare toward.
And so, the erection came in from the left side and the brown man appeared, with his hand outstretch to the woman.
Then I waited.
And the apple dropped into his hand.

The humor did not escape me of him handing her the apple.
Red splashed into the remaining white spaces and the painting and I felt complete.

and that's what it's all about....

I thought to just ramble a bit in this post, about this process of Spontaneous Painting I am enjoying so much, trusting that one's joy song is everyone's joy song, even though the words may differ. I'm honored to be a part of your world in this way.

Spontaneous Painting is your direct experience of being in relationship to the unknown and giving it form, painting it - literally.

When we are honest about the unknown, none of us knows what is going to happen next.
We may have a plan, but we really cannot know how that plan will fulfill itself.
Our plan will be challenged by life and when we can remain open to the unexpected, our plan is often fulfilled beyond what we could have imagined.

We’ve all experienced that kind of outcome I'm sure, even in our day to day lives.
I am curious about feeling lead from within, beyond what is imagined, in a way that one experiences more joy and ease in relation to life.

I have a little book on Zen by Cheri Huber called Nothing Happens Next.
This is a wonderful koan.
Everything is only ever happening now.
Process Painting is a tool, a support, a means, into the direct experience of Being. Here. Now.
 
Process Painting gives us an arena to test these muscles of ours and to see where those conditioned muscles of control can be given a little more space, to relax.
It is not about becoming a better or even a more spontaneous painter!

It is a practice of discovering and exploring what lies underneath the grip of control, underneath the ‘me’ plan.

I’m going to be painting with some 4-H kids this month for Living Sky Foundation in Sperryville, VA. I am looking forward to the natural spontaneity that children bring to painting.
But I do have a mission.
The more time the young mind lives in the world, the freedom of that unselfconscious child is slowly put to sleep. Many succumb to the world’s expectations and demands on their creativity and time. It is part of the process of "growing up" in the world as we know it. It is the process of growing into the individual that we all must pass through.

But what if a child didn’t lose contact with their creativity?
What if they were taught that it can be trusted and that they can be trusted with it?
That it was in fact, their (your) birthright, their (your) connection to who they (you) are and why they (you) are here?

Spontaneous Painting is an exploration of those conditioned responses we have placed before the unknown for the sake of feeling safe, comfortable, right and in control.

Are you willing to leave that paper open and empty, just a bit longer?

Are you willing to paint without knowing where it is going or what it is about?

Are you willing to give yourself the space to find out that you honestly don’t know.
Are you willing to be with how that feels?

Are you willing to be with yourself as the conditioned ideas of ugly and beautiful, of wrong and right, of good and bad - all your stories - rise and fall away in you?

As the painting brings what is unknown in you into the light,
are you willing to be gentle with yourself at the same time?

So, my friend, Spontaneous Painting is not about the painting that you will take home with you.
It is about who you are when you go home, having let go a little bit of the product maker.
It is about what happens while you investigate this quiet, deeply interior well of creative possibility within you, with paint as your flashlight of color.

Don't forget the  simple joy of color !!

Everything is happening for our awakening.
There is no hiding from it.
Awakening doesn't take us away from life, but into it.
This is the Age of Aquarius, my friends!
It is time for our uniqueness to live as the heart and light of our humanity.
It is a time of synthesis, of knowing that spirit and matter are one.


Let’s rock this boat and free the slaves
(they have served us very well)
Be liberated and astonished
By your very own true nature!


Painting and Writing are my passion.
Process Painting may help you reconnect with yours,
if you sense the connection is calling for some support.

And it's fun, it is really fun.