• Pages

  • About Cathy Aten
  • Cathy’s Video
  • View Cathy’s Current Work

My Sister

 

This past weekend,  my sister took my nephew off to his first year of college.

I did not grow up in an environment of respect and love.

I really am at odds to fathom how my sister raised her children with such a loving heart,  openness to her two kids’ individual needs and wants,  a giant dollop of good cookin’ and the ready listening ear she is for her spectacular children.

I know she’s hurting today in a home that feels alien in its’ emptiness.

How,  exactly,  do we learn to love?

How do we do that thing if we’ve not had a trustworthy model?

Each of my three siblings has seemed to draw from some mystical well and pull up the instructions for loving their kids well.

It truly baffles me.   And makes me quite proud.

I chose to keep my art at my center and not to have kids.   I married late, at 40,  which lasted 4 years,  but was never drawn toward raising a family.

These choices were true to my nature and I am ever grateful I knew to make them.

Even so,   as I pull through all the pretense I previously cloaked myself in before being diagnosed with MS,  that  ’love manual’  my siblings seemed privy to is mine,  now,  to peruse.

I feel a bit of an innocent,  however.

The essential Cathy ain’t been too present till lately.

Can’t really love if you’re not all there.

Today’s post is really to honor my sisters’ magnificent job of mothering a son she now releases into the world to find his own flight plan.

I feel so good that the world gets to have him as he is an extraordinary young man and the world will be better for him.

Learning to let go with love.. gotta be somewhere in this  ’manual’  here….

Guides and Mentors

 

Yesterday,  I saw a physical therapist recommended to me by someone I respect highly.

After a number of years dealing with many,  many body workers,  doctors,  etc.,  I notice that I have a built in litmus test that tells me within minutes whether I am sitting with a person who can help me move toward wholeness or head for the nearest exit.

People that love me will often relate stories of people they know who have experienced amazing results working with a particular regime or person.

In the beginning,  just after my diagnosis and thereafter until fairly recently,  I listened hard and watched for when I was drawn to act and made an appointment.

I gave my attention to the particulars asked of me by the practitioner as best I could and watched for results.

During the almost ten years of my relationship with MS,  out of all the people I have sought guidance from,  I have stayed the course with 4 people.

What is it that these practitioners have in common?

They can get out of their own way.

By that,  I mean I am,  over time,  THE MAIN EVENT.

This is not to say that I pay people for the ego solace of undivided attention.

I am talking about the difference between someone who gets a great charge  (and identity)  out of having a ‘following’ of patients doing what they are told to do.

If the results are not forthcoming,  likely it is the fault of the patient.

This very common experience I speak of has a very STICKY quality to it.

There is usually a sense of performance anxiety because when good stuff is happening,   the tone is affirming and pseudo-electric.   LIFE IS GOOD!  What I am doing is WORKING for this client!  I am GOOD at what I do!  YEAH, me!!

And the patient is going:  I AM A GOOD PATIENT!!!!  YEAH, ME!

When results are not forthcoming,  a sort of pall slips in… disappointment for both parties and usually the responsibility settles with the client because the practitioner’s ego is so bound up in  ’success’  that they CANNOT BE WRONG.. So guess who is?

The alternative to this less-than-ideal experience is to work with someone who does not carry the agenda of needing the client to heal or behave in a way that makes them feel good about themselves.

The woman I saw yesterday was a good example of that.  She had nothing to prove to either herself or to me.

She took a brief history and began with a trust in the work that she was doing with me that was palpable.

Her work seemed effortless and I felt safe enough to relax into the unknown.

We both just listened to my body and registered movement and changes.  We both had stepped aside energetically into the witness mode.

The work was not personal.

Big results happened for me.

My body began to unwind and let go of some of my familiar tension and holding patterns.

I heaved big sighs.

I was excited!

She was pleased but not overly so.   She didn’t have that sort of manic  ’I DID A GOOD THING!  I AM A HEALER!   energy about her.

I really felt like during the session everything about me was respected and she wanted NOTHING from me personally;  only to hold the possibility for a shift toward wholeness and the innate integrity of my body.

This experience felt like something I’d like to repeat so I made another appointment.

Absolutely NOTHING is carved in stone..  not weakness,  strength,  health or illness.

I just follow the threads that I register as having possibility for me to move toward God, really.

Some prove weak and the tension breaks under pressure.

Others stay strong and I keep pulling myself up,  hand over hand.

Destination, unknown.

Rain

 

It rained here last night.  ALL night.  Big,  gigantic deal  ’round these high-desert parts……

 

 

RAIN

 

She kept doing it!

All night without a let up

She took my tears back.

 

 

                                    -Cathy Aten August 2009

Point of View

 

Working with clay is a tricky business..  so elemental.

Really, you’ve got the dirt and water (clay), the fire (kiln) and the air.

Master ceramists achieved that status because of a deep understanding of the elements  (I said UNDERSTANDING, not CONTROL).

In the history of Japanese ceramics,  if a coveted work of art fractured or broke in the firing process,  they would fill the break with 24 carat gold and call attention to the  ’flaw’  as an integral part of the beauty of the piece.

It is hard to see in the above piece but I did just that.

My ceramics are pit fired.

I dig a pit,   lay sawdust down and a layer of kindling.

Then I carefully place the work and pile wood on top.

I light the pile then cover it with a piece of corrugated metal and leave it overnight to burn and smolder.

In the morning I return and uncover the pit.

When I saw this piece,  I just stopped in my tracks…  to me it was so very beautiful..

The colors and markings all come from the fire and I happened to use some old wood that made the fabulous drip marks.

I took the piece and excitedly put it under water to rub off the soot and see the piece more clearly.

It was still slightly warm from the fire and the water was cool and……….

IT BROKE IN MY HANDS.

I cried.

(Ceramics teaches one non-attachment as so many things break, but still…)

I filled the crack with gold.

It was such a precious process as the love of my art was there,  the grief of it’s not originally going the way I wanted it to go,  the cost of the gold,  the care and time it took to do this…

I have kept few pieces for my own collection but this one I have.

Such a gorgeous metaphor for my current state of being.

It’s all truly a question of point of view,  is it not?

Flawed or perfect?

A  ’throw-away’  or a keeper?

New

 

Everything about the Autumn in Santa Fe is perfect to me.

It’s not QUITE here but last night,  all night long I felt it sneaking in.

I was up most of the night for some reason.

The moon is waning but still has that strangely magnetic pull to it.

It had me last night..  wanted me to go out there.

Honestly,  I feel almost sinful that I didn’t do that.

I was just too,  too perfectly content there in bed and feeling the slight chill after such a stretch of the heavy heat we’ve been having.

All through the night I watched the shivering aspen leaves out my window reflecting the moon.

I felt the quiet and tended my nest.

I just let each moment slide effortlessly into the next.

There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in me that wanted ANYTHING to be DIFFERENT.

Today,  I’m tired but feel soft.  Expectant.  Because change is coming.   Autumn is pulling into the driveway and parking her car.

All this to say that my BODY LOVES THIS SEASON!!!!!!!!

I walk better.  Feel better.   Eat better.  Have energy.  Get inspired more.  Feel friendlier.  More on top of my game.

I really need the seasons.

Helps me remember that change is the only thing we can actually count on.

Pieces of a Whole

 

I always sort of cringe when I see this piece I created so long ago.

It is one of those works of art that had me by the throat and made me do it.

But I am still somehow intrigued that it actually came from me so I thought I’d just take another look and try for a direct gaze instead of a sideways one,  for a change..

She looks kindof like she has prison garb on the top.

The bottom is this naive attempt at a door opening as I remember.

Her head is a spiral and two crosses at her sides.

A galaxy seems to be going on behind her.

She is put together somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle. 

She is wearing a dress.

Over the years as an artist,  a few recurring symbols have kept me company.

I was never particularly interested in digging too deep for their messages;  I just allowed them their place as they saw fit.

I know SOME things about why these motifs feel personal to me.

The spiral is intriguing because it’s movement can be either inward,  outward,  upward or down.

The cross has both the horizontal  (human)  and the vertical  (Spirit).

A doorway can be entered or exited.

The stripes probably signify the SHADOW in us;  choose to look or no..

The stars.. possibility.

When I pull this piece of art apart like this I can see her story.  The voice she carries unbeknownst to me at the time.

Hers is my story,  of course;  the parts that make up my whole.

I look at her and see her youth.  How she didn’t know how to do the  ’take-away’  I now use as medicine..  in my art and elsewhere.. that of removing EVERYTHING EXTRA..  each element that doesn’t need to be there,  GOES.

The reduction to ESSENCE that comes with the grit of unexpected life.

The stuff we think we need and don’t.

The people we love and shouldn’t.

The lines we draw that are awkward.

I love this girl that showed herself in this painting.

I love this woman who can now love and not judge the young ‘her’.

I love the whole damn bumpy road.

 

Just for today, probably….

Little Things That Aren’t

 

Yesterday a good girlfriend and I went to an old haunt for a civilized Sunday brunch.

Imagine the white table linens,  crystal glassware and porch setting of an old Santa Fe interior courtyard.

When I arrived in New Mexico in 1989 I was still doing hand-painted fabric and the waiters at this restaurant all wore custom neckties I created for them.

So I have history there.

This is a very civilized restaurant and I had not been there for a long while.

Bobby,  the owner was there as usual,  greeting everyone warmly.    We love each other.

He betrayed his surprise at my significant physical decline since we last saw each other by doting…

He seated us at a table easy for me to access.

He sent us an appetizer on the house.

He whisked my new plaid walker away so it was totally out of sight.  I wasn’t sure if this was for my benefit or the other diners but it happened so quickly that I just let it..

An alarm bell went off in my bladder but I said nothing and let Bobby do what he wanted to do.

We had a gorgeous afternoon in this  ’oh-so-civilized’  little spot.

Even though I like dirt so much for my work and can be caught drooling over a particularly fine or even tricked-out truck and do find deep beauty in ordinaryness,  I am a woman who NEEDS CIVILIZED BEHAVIOR AND ENVIRONMENT as a salve to ease most of life’s ruffles.  Just once in awhile.

And this place is THAT.

Here I am feeling so perfectly content.

Of course I now have to pee and my walker is unearthed from the shadows and Bobby,  the owner is making sure he leads the way like a tour guide to the bathrooms so I know which is the larger,  handicapped one.

I closed the restroom door and cried at his gentle and proprietary way of caring for me.

When our meal was finished,  Bobby was magically there as I began to lift myself up from the table.

He took my elbow from behind and pulled out my chair.

While all this  ’tending to’  was going on I had an odd assortment of stuff happening in my head and heart.

Wow,  I thought.  This is an awful lot of attention.

And I am sssssoooooooo piss-ass independent that I usually manage to  ’do for myself’.

But Bobby was loving me in his gorgeously elegant and compassionate way without me feeling diminished one iota by his over-the-top-assistance.

In fact,  I felt disarmingly connected to and safe in the world.

I did not feel like a disabled person.  Or at least that wasn’t at the top of my list.

I felt beautiful,  loved,  visible as a friend and loyal customer who has been in this community for 20 years and who now is changing physically but remains essentially the woman she was when she walked tall unassisted by a walker with a plaid pouch.

It really meant something to me that Bobby didn’t make a fuss.   But really he DID and I TOOK it and didn’t push it away like I do so often.

I left our lunch feeling very much an integral element of a community.

I do believe this sense of belonging is my most precious creation.

For it IS a creation..  a work of art.

No one dropped this community in my lap- it is a creation and not a given.

I see that I am reaping rewards I could never have dreamed.

And I can REST in that.

Wanting….

 

Yesterday I ate a chocolate.

Then I couldn’t walk.

Recently I caved and ate french fries.

The next day my joints were totally weak and stayed that way most of the day.

My usual diet these days is pretty raw with lots of blended vegetables and fruit, salads and some organic protein.

I eat this way because of lifelong digestive issues and the recognition that certain foods render me seriously weak.

All our bodies are toxic to a certain extent from eating refined foods for so long and our environment full of non-natural substances we are forced to maneuver.

My real sense is that a good portion of my daily weakness can be assuaged by pinpointing dietary triggers individual to me.

There ARE certain foods alot of people dealing with MS seem to be affected by:   sugar,  chocolate,
trans-fats are some of them.

Sometimes,  like yesterday,  my rational mind just takes flight and I WANT.

This path to health  (whatever that looks like)  is a constant Zen master at my back with a stick rapping me on my shoulder when I fall asleep.

I’m not sorry for this enforced urge toward consciousness.

But sometimes a girl just wants chocolate…

And she pays…

And she pays..

And maybe makes a different choice next time.

And walks tall.

I wonder when the rewards for eating totally clean and being strong will outweigh the perceived pleasure of feeding my human WANTS..

Elements of a Life

 

Yesterday I took a trip to a local MS Society and to a medical supply place to check out wheelchairs.

One of the challenges I’ve faced since diagnosis has been the dense and patronizing air of people trying to help me (doctors, nurses, sales people etc.).  The victim mentality that surrounds this disease is monumental.

Where on earth is there to go when you are proclaimed :  ”Primary Progressive MS and there is nothing that we know of that can help you.”

The pronouncement has bad stuff built into it.

I don’t really blame anyone for caving to the very human response of shrinking in the face of this,  whether it be literally getting smaller and withdrawing into oneself or doing the  ’brow sweat’  and hand wringing routine, or tears or eating,  drinking,  or head bowing and eyes narrowing in the apology for someone’s own thrill at their good luck for getting a pass on MS.

I really understand all this.

But it bores me.

Yesterday I tried to practice the  ’SOMETHING ELSE’  I keep trying out as a panacea for the deadly slime of any kind of life sentence kind of thinking or being.

The way I do this is to hobble into new situations as free of my own GUNK as I can get and with an expectation there is a life experience about to happen that I might like.

One can call this incurable optimism if you’ve a mind to.

Anyway, yesterday it worked pretty well.

The MS Society was able to give me exactly what I needed and more in their friendly and well organized way.   Totally free of weirdness because what I came to them needing was their specialty and they are experts in the territory.

Then,  at the wheelchair store I met both salespeople.  They were young and eager in a fun way.

I felt very seen as a woman who cares about grace and beauty and aesthetics so we could stay far away from the horribly antiquated designs of most hospital stuff.

I bought a new walker that is camel-colored with a sassy plaid pouch attached.   I like it.

I tested scooters and wheelchairs and decided on what will serve my current needs best.

A fun and well designed portable scooter that breaks down into two light pieces so I can manage this whole set-up and take-down-put-in-the-trunk maneuvering.

The point of this whole post is the possibility of using my creative being to craft a new life out of the sort of bent and incongruent cards I’ve been dealt.

It’s up to me to set the stage,  invite the actors,  decide when to enter stage left and when to exit.   Good and fun props make the scenes interesting.  A slight shift of tone of voice or inflection can make or break a scene.

The big difference here is that I am no longer trying so hard to entertain others.

This is my play and I’ll do what I can to make it richly textured and keep my interest high.

I’ll be so pleased if some of my riches fall off the back of my wheelchair and you pick them up feeling richer too..

But really..  this is my ride and I’ll keep doing my best to keep it tuned toward adventure, beauty, curiosity and courage.

I want to keep wanting to wake up each day;  frailty or no…

I’ts ALL my choice,  damn it.

Favorite Meditations

 

GOLD

Imagine you are lying down in a small,  slow river where the temperature is perfectly attuned to your body.

Your head is lying in the direction where the water is coming from and flowing down softly toward your feet.

The bottom of the river is smooth sand and you let your weight just settle.

 

Close your eyes.

Now imagine that the water is pure liquid gold.

It flows into the top of your head,  around your body and down and out through your feet.

Breathe.

Give yourself to the river.

 

 

THE LEAF

Imagine you are standing in a crystal clear,  still pond.

The water comes comfortably just up to the bottom of your nose.

Your feet are planted on soft sand below.

Close your eyes and imagine there is a leaf resting on top of the surface of the water just in front of your face.

As you breathe out through the nose,  the leaf moves slightly away from you.

As you breathe in,  the leaf is drawn back toward you again.

Breathe out..

Breathe in..

August 6, 2009 | Filed Under Sculpture, Spirituality, nature | Leave a Comment 

« Previous Page — Next Page »