Iron Gate
“NAVIGATION”, 30″ x 45″, 2000, m/m
____________________________________
I truly recognize that my ticket into true abundance is vulnerability.
I’m speaking of a particular kind of vulnerability, here.
We all hate the word, I know.
It is overused, has connotations such as ‘soft, weak, grow a pair, get over yourself ‘….
VULNERABLE as an adjective means ‘open to being hurt or wounded.’
The key word here is OPEN.
My life, these days, is turning markedly toward a miraculous inflow of goodness.
It renders me speechless, to be frank.
For a couple reasons..
One is a warrior-stance I have lived inside for too long:
That of the ‘I’ll give to you first so you’ll feel real good about me and that will deflect your attention away from how bad I really know I am inside but you are too stupid to see it.’
This is what is called SHAME with a capitol ‘S’.
It is the IRON GATE extraordinaire.
During this precious season of the returning light I have received two gifts of the ‘over-the-top-blast- your- heart-open-with- gratitude’ variety.
And in each instance it was VERY apparent that there WAS NO ONE HOME TO RECEIVE THEM!!!!!!!!!
I’m the GIVER! Not the RECEIVER!
Gifts of this magnitude are the purveyors of life-altering insight.
They put you right there at the wall..
Do you have a Self there which values it’s existence enough to open to the expression of love from another?
Or will you defend and squirm or just take leave and go through the culturally acceptable motions of gratitude and awe at your good fortune?
I hate writing about this.
I really do.
I want you to think of me as cool and together and wise and wonderful.
And there are those parts of me, sure..
But this thing of which I speak has had me by the tail for eons.
And now it is boring.
Not just neurotic or irritating.
But BORING.
Yeah.. I am well aware of the genesis of my shame.
But moving from that awareness into standing naked and RECEIVING ANOTHER’S LOVE without armoring up is another thing altogether.
The fact that these gifts are here in my life tells me that it is time for me to lay down my guns.
I am going to let these people in my life love me in this way and honor their gifts by receiving them fully.
They are giving to me in this way because they see someone here who is worthy of their efforts, time, money.
And until all of me believes that too..
I can honor their choices by softening my protective and ‘oh-so-overused’ muscles of deflective giving,
And truly receive their love and care.
Amen.
Letting Go…. Again
detail of textile, pigment on wool flannel
________________________________________
My favorite architect is John Pawson.
He designed a monastery that I just keep wanting to look at.
It is pretty severely minimalist by most accounts.
And yet.. I am drawn to it with a hidden velocity that won’t quit on me.
Why is this? I wonder…
During any of my days I can be found moving around my home with an incessant backstory going on.
I am ALWAYS HANKERING AFTER SPACE.
Or, rather- ‘the pause.’
My senses are overstimulated by the clutter on my desk, the pile of clothes on the floor of the closet, the plethora of too many appliances on my kitchen counters, the bathroom shelves unordered, too much stuff on my altar, computer, et all….
Remember, my little nest here is 450 sq. feet and I adore it for the location, space and light.
And yet.. I want less.
In a small space it becomes clear what and how one wants to live.
I see myself giving away art these days.
And boxing up stuff for Goodwill.
And hardly ever turning on music preferring the silence to anyone or thing holding my hand and guiding me away from the state of being I might be having at the moment.
I am just watching myself be drawn toward an economy of speech, movement, consuming, stimulation, doing, wanting.
My nervous system WANTS ROOM, though…
And that is a desire I intend to fulfill.
I will generously give myself one shelf ordered or one box set out to be gifted or one file deleted or one drawer tended to each day..
And take immense pleasure in the emptiness
And pause
And possibility for peace
Those little actions will provide me.
Voodoo
detail of sculptures, 1995, 12″ x 3″ (varies), porcelain
____________________________________________________
.
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
.
- The Buddha
.
_____________
I gave the sculptures above to a friend years ago.
I find myself missing them very much.
They took me so long to create; each tiny hole pierced as it’s own mark in time.
Some people in the community ceramics studio I worked in at that time thought it was like voodoo..
Poking a figurative shape over and over as I sat there for hours in a trance-like state.
It was a viable conclusion to draw..
But, for me… it was REVERSE VOODOO.
Each time I pierced the forms I imagined that part of my body WAKING UP.
I was at the stage in my life where I was beginning to peel back the masks and costumes
To reveal myself… my Self with a capitol ‘S.’
So.. in the process of piercing and prodding these pieces of gorgeous and delicate white porcelain
I let this sort of self-inflicted acupuncture wake me up.
And now… years down the road… here I am still doing it.
I’m speaking metaphorically now, of course.
The woman revealed after all the seeming ‘navel-gazing’ as my life may appear to others
Is, at last, becoming quite vulnerable in the highest sense.
Like the young and moist clay I worked with back then..
I am slowly discarding the burnt and impossibly hardened layers
Left by the fire.
And what’s left is a new garden
In an unfamiliar location.
But the dirt smells fine.
And someone nicely has plowed the thing.
So now…
I am dropping my heart-chosen seeds carefully into the eager soil.
And I say a little prayer of gratitude to myself
For the courage, tenacity and discrimination it has taken
To keep choosing authenticity
Over convenience or costume.
The Love Thing
“RED”, 1995, 6′ x 4′, m/m
_________________________
.
.
For me.. this says it well.
I send you wishes for a season of peace in your heart, the privilege of rubbing a dog’s belly and some Great Mystery to ring softly in your ear.
.
.
.
Blessed Non-Attachment
untitled, 2006, ceramic, 30″h x 18″d (varies)
___________________________________________
There are a very few pieces of art I have kept for my personal collection.
The ceramic sculptures pictured above are one example.
I have loved living with them.
The other day I was preparing to take my dog for a foray in the neighborhood.
I bundled up and sat in my wheelchair.
I powered her up and we took off slowly for the front door.
BIG, GIANT CRASH heard behind me.
Dog freaks out and thinks I am VERY angry with her.
I am weirdly calm.
VERY weirdly at peace..
Like I took valium or something.
I know exactly what happened..
The power cord was not fully disengaged from the chair and as I took off it caught the bottom of the urn on the left.
I swivel around and the prized sculpture is in bits all over the floor.
Here are the things that went through my head:
1. Oh, God.. I don’t have the energy to clean that up.
2. I really loved that piece. Why don’t I care if it’s broken?
3. Am I totally in denial, here?
4. No, this is really real..
5. I don’t especially care that it is gone.
6. This is like REALLY weird, Cathy. WHO HAVE YOU BECOME???????
I opened the door and Olivia and I went for our walk.
I came home and got the broom and did all the bending and scraping necessary to sweep away the remains.
And I carried on with my day.
When one is challenged by chronic illness
Value systems shift around in profound ways we aren’t even quite aware of
Until we are.
For me, yeah.. I loved that sculpture very much.
But it was only a ‘life-enhancer’ to a certain extent.
And I saw in my reaction to it’s demise that it’s value had fallen considerably
On my list of my true needs for a thriving life.
Used to be that inanimate beauty was key to my survival.
And being surrounded by things that reminded me of who I was: Cathy the artist, etc..
But I am much more these days.
And who I am seems not defined by stuff.
I am certainly not immune to someone coming over to my home for the first time and seeing how small it is; simple and great for me but not one of the aesthetically fabulous places I’ve called home before,
And maybe judging me or having some opinion or concern for me in some way because they are unfamiliar with ‘this Cathy.’
No, I see and feel people’s reactions.
But I also see their confusion and wonder at my level of ‘ok-ness’ with my life and Self.
I recognize my level of peace is palpable (when it actually IS a part of my life…caveat: NOT really here during the holidays).
What gets me there has absolutely nothing to do with the urn I loved.
No one can take away the feeling I had while creating that piece of art.
And the process of making this life, day to day, is no different.
The medium has shifted.
But my life is my art these days.
The Light! The Light!
untitled, 4 1/2′ x 6′, m/m
_________________________
“Innocence is what we allow
to be gifted back to us
once we’ve given ourselves away.”
“….it seems as if the developed western world has entered an extended twilight, as if it has for a moment lost its way or doesn’t want to find the way or is too tired to find the way or as if it needs a good glass of wine and a good lie down to catch up with itself. It is as if it has no time for bravery or new beginnings and as if it is ending a very awful, bad day indeed, its sole perspective a pervasive indebtedness; a profound buyer’s remorse.”
– David Whyte
I get up in the morning and read the news in various places: CNN, NPR, Huffington Post.
Trying to keep one finger on the pulse of what’s outside my sphere which feels so myopic at times.
I have particular places that are my ‘go-to’ web locations
When I REALLY need to find LIFE.
I mean LIFE at it’s pulsating best.
Not a technicolor version with incessant bells and whistles,
But real life, unveiled and naked and trembling.
I don’t want a report at times like these..
The lively and fluid and impossibly red blood we all share as humans is what I’m after.
Today, I found the above quotes from David Whyte’s site.
He is a poet.
But more..
He is a depth connoisseur.
A deep and wide listener of the Mysteries and Realities we each hold hands with on a daily basis.
I sense a wriggling and patient (sometimes not..) LIFE in his writing and thinking.
He is a ‘go-to’ guy for me when I stumble
And get the dead air knocked out of me.
He helps me breathe again.
Usually, it is impossibly fresh.
Falling in Love With Duality
“BLACK AND WHITE”, ceramic, 18″ x 4″
_____________________________________
My girlfriends, (of ‘the dinner’ I wrote about over the weekend)
Sat in a circle and aired our concerns.
We found them to be small in the face of the shining thing that is our friendship
And left the circle a tighter knit brood of broads
Than we were before.
That healing would never have occurred had the ‘bad’ part not catapulted us onto the playing field of love.
My heart feels soft.
And I am paying homage to the contrasts that accentuate the things we’d like to be different.
Please do have a look.
As we go into the darkest night of the year, I think it is good to remember the light as well..
And value them both equally for the gifts they are and those they help us see clearer.
Happy Solstice.
Girls With Claws
textile designs, 1988, various silks
__________________________________
If we, as women, find ourselves in the company of good and true girlfriends sometime in a life,
We ought to pause and reflect on what it took for us to get to that shining place.
Because it ain’t easy.
We are bred to find one another the enemy.
Are you prettier than I and will you gain the attention of the man or job or acknowledgement I WANT?
Do you have more money or better breeding than I and does that make you shine brighter and maybe keep me from acquiring someone’s attention I might need or desire?
Are you smarter than I?
Do you have a law degree and maybe that gives you a leg up on the ladder that I can’t even reach?
Is your home one I might envy instead of just taking joy you have it?
Do you know mysterious and secret things about Nature that might make you a better student than me?
Do you have a lover who is handsome and when he puts his arm around you, you look 16?
I want that.
I want those things.
I want what I have and everything else, too…
Four women shared a dinner table last night.
We like and respect one another a great deal.
We are beginning a study group together and this dinner was the first time we sat ’round a table together.
The energy between us began to get competitive and judgmental and wonky as the dinner progressed.
I was withdrawn from the start as I should never have been there because the place was too expensive but I had missed our first meeting and wanted to belong so I went.
One friend walked in looking like the pure gorgeousness she is.
I couldn’t just leave it at that..
I wanted her giraffe-print coat.
Then, when she talked about ‘three-day horse events and caviar and chignons and her family’s power’ I felt lonely and began to judge her.
It was my response to feeling lonely for her company.. the woman I know and love when we are by ourselves.
All of a sudden, when the four of us got in a group, the various defenses came out; our honed protective mechanisms.
We used what we knew to separate ourselves because we haven’t yet learned how to be together.
Some of us judged.
Some went to sleep.
Some told stories.
But we TOTALLY MISSED EACH OTHER!
We each left with claw marks on us.
Inadvertent, yes.
But there, just the same.
Women have to work to feel safe with one another and not hyper- vigilant that we’ll be left with ‘not enough’,
Is a cultural overlay that we’ve lived with for eons.
It takes honesty and effort to dissolve the armor we’ve all got that prevents us from truly enjoying our sisters.
Today, I’m trimming my nails.
And forgiving myself.
And all of us.
For wanting so much to love but often not knowing how.
To The Dogs
detail of painting on wool flannel
________________________________
My friend Marc, over at WHEELCHAIR KAMIKAZE has a slightly renegade sense of humor like mine.
I do believe possessing such has kept us ‘weller’ than the next.
When all the world feels like the enemy, I go directly to my dog.
I love her beyond any knowledge of love I can conjure.
Marc posted the following ditty which, for me, acted like an IV of some sort of divinely concocted medication.
Saving Spaciousness
detail of painting, 2001, m/m
_____________________________
Moving into more authenticity as a woman has meant, in part, becoming aware of my deep need for a sense of spaciousness in my life.
For me, that means lots of light, silence and connection-to-Spirit time.
This may sound as if I’m just a couple steps away from a monastery.
But really.. I have a very connected life.
I’ve noticed that as holidays approach I begin taking steps backward.
Away from the static and morass of cultural expectations,
And all the tempting goodies.
A friend recently told me of his 4 year old son’s comment while looking through a catalog; “Dad, this makes me want stuff..”
Uh, huh…..
Yeah, it’s clearly working..those pesky advertising people..
I like Christmas lights, and choral singing in old, adobe churches and Native American displays of their reverence for the season.
I like the sting of a surprise snow and my new shearling hat.
I like feeling in to what I ACTUALLY WANT MY HOLIDAY/LIFE TO BE.
It is a lot about space.
And that very space allows me to be fully present with people.
People…space….people…space…people….
I cannot have one without the other.
Which has prevented me from knocking on the doors of the nearest monk-haven.
And so- I make it up and watch where my toleration level is crossed in either realm by registering how my body feels.
Because after all those years of numbing myself, my physical body is finally my greatest and most trusted tool for deciding what is good for me.
It will not let me over-ride it anymore.
And when I do, IT FEELS SO BAD.