The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Wednesday, August 18, 2010.  Following Pat Allen’s “Open Studio” process, I made an intention today to stay on my journey toward connecting my work with my life. From my previous open studio work over the last 2 weeks, I am starting to see that an exciting part of my journey consists of reconnecting to my artistic side that has laid fallow since I quit my landscape design/stone masonry career.

This Open Studio process is pretty miraculous.  I’m excited now and starting to trust it. Following Pat Allen’s process, I am learning to bypass my conscious, thinking mind. Each time I’ve tried, I’ve been catapulted out of my mind into the present moment where objects jump out at me, speak to me as it were, connecting me to some higher self or, in Pat’s words, connecting me to the “Source.”

It happened again today after I made my intention. Soon thereafter, I had to go to the dump and while there I was strongly attracted to a piece of trash: it was at first glance, a monstrosity: a fake window frame with ornate ironwork attached.  I knew I had to have it!

I brought it home and after trial and error, found the sweet spot for my new possession: A blank spot on the outside wall of my office near the door.  Now it was no longer trash.  But what to do now?  It stood there incomplete, it’s three iron rings, open and grasping.

Casting about in my mind, I remembered a strange distorted branch that I had saved for years, fascinated by its shape.  In the past it had been too twisted to be of use yet it fit perfectly in the center ring of my creation. Then I remembered another beautifully shaped branch I had saved because, some day, it could be a perfect walking stick. I added that to the first ring. Finally, I rummaged around and found a wonderful, ornate walking staff, my brother had made for me years ago.  I placed that in the third ring.

I carefully worked at arranging the three wooden staffs. An artistic composition was coalescing in front of my eyes.  It was looking good but much too somber and bland for my taste.  What else to add before I photographed my creation? 

Ah, here it is! I’ll take a sprig from my crabapple tree: bright green leaves, about nine crabapples, red and yellow like perfect little peaches.

There now I’m done!  I like it a lot but what does it mean?

Perhaps I’m now on a path to bring art back into my life?  And if so, the walking sticks are to help me on my journey. Yes, I think this may be so.  And the brightly colored sprig of fruit is to remind me that the journey is not supposed to be staid, drab and ordinary but infused with light.

A phase suddenly hits me powerfully out of the blue: Yes, that’s what the luminous, sprig of fruit represents: Lightness of Being!

Now I'm ready to photograph my piece. I thought it was finished. But none of the straight photographs I took (see above) were able to convey my inner feelings and spirit. After working in Photo Shop I came up with an image I like much  better.

Here's my Photo Shop version. You can click on it to make it bigger.

The Photo Shop version resonates with the paradox I feel between the physical nature of my journey which feels somber, heavy, and confusing, containing as it does a maze of meandering paths, many barely visible. It takes work and dedication to stay on the path.  The luminous green sprig is the diametric opposite: playful, spontaneous and uplifting, representing the unbearable lightness of being, which keeps eluding me,  always beckoning to me from just out of sight around the next bend, telling me to wake up, be in the moment, just step into the light and I'll be free.

 If you have been able to hang in there and read this long epiphany, Thank you.             Jean

Beautiful creations for no good reason at all

This cupolo constructed

 in such elaborate detail

Incongruously attached 

to a Plain Jane, box of a barn.

Lovingly built in a bygone era

When people had time

to craft beautiful creations

for no good reason at all.

Still elegant in decay

A haunting reminder

of what we have lost.

Being-in-the-Present

Being in the Present

Walking around in meditation mode

I come across four crows

Strutting about on the common

Free

Foraging

Forgetting to forget.

I attempt to sketch this happy quartet

But my designer mind objects:

"you can't make a pleasing

composition of four," it warns.

Until it dawns on me:

I'm the fifth crow!

Are we getting shallower?

Nicholas Carr in his new book, Shallows, argues that our brains are "plastic," that is they are modified by the tasks we undertake. "When we're constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking. We become mere signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory."

This is another facet of 21st Century living affecting who we are: how we live, how we write, how we do art? This is what this blog is about: how to get out of the shallows.

"MAN HAS NO NATURE"

"The stone is given its existence; it need not fight for being what it is -- a stone in the field. Man [sic] has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstance; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment. He is given the abstract possibility of existing, but not the reality. This he has to conquer hour by hour. Man [sic] must earn his life,  not only economically but metaphysically.”  Jose Ortega y Gasset from History as a System.


To check out Ortega y Gasset's book, click here: History as a System and Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History

Writing & Art as Resistance

I’m so frustrated about rampant injustice bubbling up all around us, I could chew the head off a nail. While we fight endless wars no more productive than the BP oil gusher, the rich get richer while the rest of us get poorer. 

It's a well known fact that the standard of living for working folks has fallen since reaching its high point almost 40 years ago while middle class income is stagnating; nevertheless, the safety net for those in need continues to be shredded.

And even more galling to me, here in New Hampshire, one of the richest states in the union, state government is balancing the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens during this great recession (depression?) when so many are unemployed and suffering in countless ways.

For instance, just last week nonprofit agencies that provide mental health services to our poorest adults and children found out they are facing yet another round of draconian budget cuts.

Why? How can this be?

I take some solace from reading, Thinking Class, by Joanna Kadi. In a chapter entitled "Writing as Resistance, Writing as Love," she says, "I can't forget I have a kitchen with food in it, writing utensils, clothes. These are privileges. They should be rights for everyone on the planet, but right now they're privileges and I must think about how I use them...”

“Do I espouse the oppressive lie about 'pulling myself up by my bootstraps...' Or do I understand my literacy and writing skill as one tool for resistance and liberation? Why do I write? For who, for what? Who benefits?”


Kadi's straight talk, provided me with a real wakeup call, a 2 by 4 to the side of the head. As a self-described working-class, lesbian of Arab ancestry, she viscerally understands her position in society, feeling discrimination to the very core of her being. As a white man, because oppression is not constantly in my face, I sometimes forget. (Although as a Vietnam veteran, I shouldn't).

The truth is: It's too late for talking heads and blue ribbon committees to fix this mess.  Instead we must join with one another in solidarity and resist!

Writing is a noble form of resistance. The Forum is a prime example of creating such solidarity. The New Hampshire Gazette, edited by Steve Fowle, is another. All art has that potential to resist by speaking truth to power.

The art I have included with this piece is a perfect example: An Iraqi woman, against all odds, lighting a candle to dispel the darkness.   I recently bought this watercolor painting at the Concord Arts Market. The artist is 15-year-old Iraqi young man who recently emigrated to New Hampshire with his family.

Long live art! Power to the people!

xxx

For an update on speaking truth to power by RESISTING, click here to see my blog entry for October 17, 2011 entitled Arial Dorfman, Mentor to the 99% of the rest of us.

Also listen to Ariel Dorfman's inspiring message to youth who want change by clicking here.

You can check out her book by clicking below:

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Mourning Dove Messenger

The following is an amazing photo from the internet. (Unfortunately, the photographer is unknown.) Following the photo is a poem I wrote yesterday.

As I state in the poem, I found my close encounter with a mourning dove in our garden to be a positive experience, a soothing balm, comforting and reassuring on the eve of my second cancer surgery.

A rose blushed ghost with a luminous glow,

Suddenly, as if by magic, there she is:

Gently cooing at my feet.

Serene, confident, trusting in something bigger than herself,

She looks up at me with a keen but soothing stare

That releases me like deep meditation.

According to legend, such an encounter signals a death.

But what I see is such gentle grace and divine beauty

That I am comforted and reassured, not afeared,

By my Mourning Dove messenger.