the upper hand

grateful

for 

mind and heart

in process

heart's longing is getting the upper hand

the gift of process

We are in process. Sometimes we may forget that we are in process because we are thinking thinking thinking about where we are heading. 

By letting thinking have us, we miss the moment 

                                                     - b e i n g  h e r e  n o w- 

the fullness that is beyond our thinking of being fulfilled when we reach our goal is subtle and always present, waiting for our heart's attention.

The Life Death Life process painting continued and reconnected me to my living and breathing process. 

It spilled over into my oil paintings and I feel as if the thread has been returned to my hand.

It has brought me closer to the silent place where thinking does not have a chance. 

It takes trusting in the not knowing to open the space for the flowering.

a poem came out of the experience - "the fire within has a language of its own" - and can be read at womanhappytobepaintingandmusing.wordpress.com

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.

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.

red in process

red again
these paintings begin to stand on their own
as they are
in process
transparent
holding the possibility
as yet unrevealed.

dots are necessary to complete a dot
connecting the dots comes naturally.

color moves from light blue to white to yellow
each moment in response
to all that came before,
now.

then the red arrives
and the expansion is felt
dots grow in size
the painter is saturated in red
and something feels complete.

my heart beat is felt
thrilled to be connected
and expressed.

yellow completion

those red pulsing threads

returning to the thread of a painting requires trust
and willingness to hang out in i don't know
or any judgement that jumps in to keep company with
"i don't know"

the red pulse magnified by brown lines
grew more and more bold
and still
we found a way in further,
there was still a doorway to open

how?
was it as simple (yes) as to invite another color?
i could feel the answer was yellow

the yellow began to bubble
and then

the brush found its way
rounding out the circles of yellow
bubbling here and there and there

it was like breathing
like the painting was breathing now,
whereas before it was just pulsing, beautifully.

astonished
i painted yellow circles
until i knew the satisfaction
and quiet thrill of completion.

a simple red mark

I was convinced that I had followed the “right” path. I was reentering the painting, warming up by making small red marks in the red layers of the womb wall, then smaller strokes of blue in the waters around one of the children’s heads.

 I “got the idea” to bring more attention to those small marks, to not just let them brush on as they came off the brush, but to make the mark a MARK, really, in hindsight, like “a better mark, a more care-filled mark.” I felt connected while I was doing this but I was indeed doing it.

Then what? The question arose what to do next, where to take these marks….(now I know that is a caution flag of its own- where else would this question be answered but from my idea filled mind).
I looked up and saw the daisies growing against the blue sky, and thought of small white marks in the blue sky. But when I got there, I made clouds! I began carefully painting, la dee dah, sure that I was not fixing the loosely applied paint from days ago that made the daisies and sky blue……


Just about that time, Barbara came around for her second visit of the day…..

I am chuckling now, I really couldn’t hear her!  She said, right away…..as I told her about what I was doing, how I was “developing what was there” - gosh, even that is a caution signal for me, thinking I know and have something to tell - (now, I might venture to say that the truth is either I don’t know or I am painting)….. but I digress……

So she said, “I’d be suspicious.”

What I love about Barbara is that she doesn’t say, she is suspicious, she guides me to become suspicious. She is not being the devil’s advocate, she is an advocate for the truth. It’s her job.