the lineage and the hands that hold all this

i'm learning that i can still learn to be with the death of 'me'.

i started the painting with myself last week, 

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my mother.

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my grandmother, my mom's mom, 

then i thought a lot of thoughts 
and i had a lot of feelings, too.......

and then the black hands came in to hold all this, 

all this.....

God is holding all this for me.

i am learning that being "at a loss" is not such a bad place to be.

the upper hand

grateful

for 

mind and heart

in process

heart's longing is getting the upper hand

beginning again

bones

calling 

for flesh

and ground

to walk on

living in the meaning full and meaning less

how does meaning occur?

what gives meaning to our lives?

what is meaning?

can we live without it?

can we grasp it?

and can we let it go,

giving rise perhaps, 

to a deeper sense of meaning that is not mind made?

Mind/Ego gives meaning to forms and colors as I paint.
Mind/Ego needs meaning to know where it stands.
Without knowing where it stands it is put in great danger. 
The meaning it creates can also create a disturbance in me,
When I believe what I am thinking, when I identify with Mind.
If I like what is painted, I am stressed to lose it, 
If I don't like it, I am stressed to get rid of it.

I've heard that this is the function of mind - to name, to grasp...
Identified with mind, I have a preference for every experience that arises.

a stroke of the brush is made 
and mind will name it
this or that
it loves to do this
.and that.

Meaning created by mind has a quality of holding tight, 
keeping something intact. 
It has the quality of resistance, 
not yielding to something greater than it can know.
Being able to step back and let the painting be painted,
I allow the process to do its work through me. 
I let go and am returned to a wholeness that is easy and good.
Laughter is a by-product of letting go.

in life,
in process,
with awareness, 
the effort to hold meaning intact is dislodged, 
gently.


When I am aware of the feeling of touch 
of colored brush to paper,
without knowing what anything is
I feel 
the quality
the contact
the sense of connection
of felt meaning, 
of being, 
in the heart.

This brings rest to what is seeking meaning.
This brings to rest what is seeking to be seen.
This brings the awareness of a deep and abiding joy into my life.


the meaningful encounter
breathing
living 
issuing out of the silence we share
we become more sensitive to one another
and we find meaning, 
after all, 
without looking for it.

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

lifedeathlife in process

i'm in a quietness.
i was asking the mother of all
what to do, how to bring form to what i do, in relation to others
how to do this sharing of the heart's gift?

i have a note on my dashboard,
one of those prayers that came spontaneously from the deep...

'let me be your doing'

will i begin to let this be the way i live?
i notice i am still confusing myself, looking for results that appear long term...

like, oh. this is what i do. and this is how it is received. and there it is. like that.
sounds like something that would fit into a box!!

after i asked how to bring my gift into the world and how and where and when.......
in the next moment i had received a mail from a friend whose husband is dying.
she asked me to come over if i could.
this is not like my dear frightened friend who was wishing he would die.

this man, 

he is dying. 

i do know the difference. 

and it brings the deep up to the surface, to share...

i can
sit in the quiet
near the unknown
with another.

i can paint there, too
and offer that to others
celebrating all it brings into form,

together and alone.

but what is being asked
seems to be
to be quiet.
to sit with.
to be with.

something greater than i know
is showing me what to do, to be her doing.

i'm in practice with lifedeathlife herself.

jai ma

beyond the visual by mary mckenney

                              

http://ccesf.org/beyond-the-visual/#comment-6

click on the above link to see the painting and read more of Mary's response to life through paint.


this is the piece of writing that opened the window this morning

Art is a visual medium. But it is mainly visual from the point of view of the observer. For the artist, the visual is only a means, a tool—a medium, yes,  but not just for the eyes. For the artist it’s about consciousness. The painting we observe is consciousness in a costume. The art is everything we cannot see. But the sensitive observer sees with the artist through the costume, the outer layer to the real creation.  So maybe art isn’t a visual medium as much as it is a vehicle, an opening, an exploration, an exposure. If the artist’s heart is open, the art will be timeless. And in timelessness is the opportunity for the observer to receive and respond to the work … because she is consciousness, too. In that way, art can be a mirror.

This painting definitely looks finished, doesn’t it? You might say it’s too finished, too “busy,” dense, impossible to see what’s going on, sort of interesting on the left where there’s some yellow, but too dark on the right. Someone named Arthur William Radford said, “Half of art is knowing when to stop.”  (I’d be curious to know what he thinks the other half is.) To know when to stop means that the artist must change from creator to speculator, make an aesthetic judgment, an active decision not to go past an arbitrary boundary, risking chaos. The initial brushstrokes may have burst forth with abandon, but what is crucial is stopping at … just … the right … place. That makes the artist half creator, half a judge of distance and control.

What does it mean to go too far, to ruin a lovely effect, to make something dark and hard to decipher? It means to lose control—not in a wild, destructive way, but to go beyond the limits of the mind. A true artist is not concerned with making a pleasing painting. A true artist does not care about the viewer orthe judgment. She cares about truth and readiness, the inner readiness that is consciousness. The painter who knows when to stop becomes a businessman, a seamstress with a tape measure, an authority, a jailer of the self and all its potential.

Mary McKenney