It seems like our global pain and reconciliation has come home to roost personally, in my life and in the lives of the those I love. Maybe that’s because our inner and the outer lives house essentially the same energy … at least that’s what I believe.
Relitigating old pain … some of it ancient pain … offers the benefit of exposure … of acknowledging and re-experiencing the pain. That’s the conventional approach. And I guess there’s a role for that since most people are comfortable with their conventional patterns of thought. But “all boundaries are conventions waiting to be transcended.” One of my most important teachers, Janet Sussman always says,
“There are two ways to take out the trash: we can look at it while we take it out, or we can not look at it. Either way, we have to take out the trash.”
Language has power and direction, like a vector. Content comes from one place and moves in the direction of the subsequent place, and along the way, ideas and feelings are conveyed. I know it’s semantics, but experiencing old problems and trying to work them out, doesn’t sound very efficient or fun to me. I think the words we choose, in large part, are the thoughts we choose. And the words we chose along the process of rebuilding with a new reality, just like the colors we choose for a painting, define the ultimate destination.
This painting is the first real piece of art I purchased. It’s by Jim Byrne. When I saw it at an opening, I was spellbound. And for months after that, seemed like every time I closed my eyes, it drifted into view. So finally I tracked it down. It was delivered to me in Charlotte, crated like a piece of furniture. As it hung over the fireplace, I gazed at it for hours … just drank it in … and walked myself through the step-by-step process of creating such an emotionally charged object. I would picture the canvas underlayer, and how the paint was built up … how did it feel to hold the brush … what did the very first brush stroke look like … where was it … and why did Jim start there. And how about second brush stroke….
After about three months of that, I became a painter. When my birthday rolled around, I ask for art supplies, which baffled everyone since I’d never painted before. The first thing I attempted was a portrait, and it turned out to be a pretty good one. No one was more surprised than I.
I don’t understand the process that started in me, sparked and fed by this painting, Hammock. But I know art has the power to do magic. And the process of visualizing the final picture long before you get there is where the magic happens. It changes our language/thought patterns to experience the beauty as it emerges … not lingering on the muddy, disorganized footsteps along the way. Taking out the trash without looking at it.
