Divorce
“SEED”, 1995, 40″ x 40″, m/m
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I said a prayer.
It went like this:
Dear God,
“Please send me someone who has all the qualities I need to help me get back into my physical body and curtail this muscular/psychic atrophy visiting me at such an alarming rate. If You could please find someone I would actually listen to without thinking I know it all, that would be great. Also- if You could get right on it that would be good because time is scratching at my door.”
And so….
Only a few months later I am attending a Yoga/Qigong class filled w/ other folks like myself who would not be able to attend a regular class due to various constraints.
Into my life comes Daniel Villasenor; our teacher.
He has a history of extremely debilitating illness himself
And found his way forward to become a man in service to Life.
He stand there; moves with almost unbearable grace and measure.
He holds the knowledge of how to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’
And I need him.
I listen carefully because he has nothing to prove;
Only the impetus to show and tell us (pilgrims)
About the ART OF BEING ILL
And how to clean our brushes
And begin a new canvas
With colors that have no name.
He pushes me in class.
Because I respect him,
I let him.
Parts of my body
And mind
And heart
Are rubbing the sleep from their eyes
And waking up.
These are facets of me I only vaguely recall
As it became too dangerous to hanker after what was.
So I took it upon myself to execute the divorce papers.
I separated myself from certain kinds of hope and possibility
And settled for tidbits and crumbs of who I was.
I walked out of the lawyer’s (my pesky mind) office
With all the strain of remaining upright
Dragging my right leg behind me.
Having the structure of this class
And the true and present support of my fellow students
Is a weekly infusion of hope
And it feels like church to me.
We each enter the room and spread our mat which is our pew.
LIFE is what we bow to, there;
In all Her strength and frailty,
Tattered costumes, all.
Want And Need
“BLUE”, 1995, 30″ x 6′, m/m
___________________________
I am settling into my new life
Of Social Security Disability assistance.
My new mantra: “What do I WANT? and what do I actually NEED?”
Sweeping away casual decisions regarding financing a life
Is sobering but fulfilling as well.
Now that I have accustomed myself a bit to the realities present for me,
I notice the high level of anxiety I’ve been negotiating
And have begun to soften my grip a bit.
I have found a perfect place to move to which is clean and safe and I adore it.
Nothing I need in life has EVER come to me through the inherent contraction involved
In the act of TRYING HARD TO WILL SOMETHING into existence.
Getting scared and scrunching my gaze down to slits
As I white- knuckle my mind into battle-mode
Gets nothing done, I’ve found.
This tactic is culturally generated because we are so in love with the mind.
We never learn the true power of INTENT, ACTION and SURRENDER.
In my own process of late, I practice being clear about what I need,
Take action toward that end,
Then take my hands off the wheel and let the thing happen.
This surrender part is essential, I’ve found.
And challenging to do.
My impetus is to ‘tough it out’
Or Keep fiddling with a situation (relationship. finding a home, getting published, getting healthy)
Until it falls apart from too much ‘handling’..
If it gets too hard something is off.
Time to step back from the scene and give it some room.
Then revisit.
Or not.
The assistance available in that very ‘SPACE’
Seems to be something potent and worthy of cultivation.
“Still More Beautiful Later..”
hand painted silk robes, 1987
______________________________
I think about death.
It is the great gift of chronic illness; the impetus to peek behind the velvet curtains our culture has so elegantly hung;
Obscuring the taboo, the sacred, the untidy.
I truly am not in the least ‘done’
However I let death inform my life.
Befriending death allows me to better recognize Life when I see Her.
Steve Jobs’ sister delivered his eulogy.
He lived gorgeously.
Like a rocket.
And died beautifully.
From the tidbits we have been privy to,
You’d think his ‘life-theme’ was creativity..
Surely, that was there.
But there was something else.
The fuel he ran on was other that we knew.
And so..
Befriending death
I add gold to my days
By just keeping my eyes peeled
For Life.
In Steve Jobs’
Life and Death
I found treasure.
Sass and Class
“SOME WOMEN ACTING KINDOF SASSY”, 1994, 24″ x 36″, m/m
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This is one of my personal favorite pieces I created back in the mid-90′s.
I have always gravitated toward African art, culture, music and dance.
I think, in this case that the title: “SOME WOMEN ACTING KINDOF SASSY”
Just plain makes me happy.
I love people and their stories.
Everyone has one.
And they interest me tremendously.
You may think a lot of what I post here has nothing to do with either healing or MS
And that I have set you up
By titling this blog what I do.
For me, healing comes in many shapes and colors, thankfully.
I came across this website recently:
It is hosted by a fave fashion company: ANTHROPOLOGIE
Where I go to drool, on occasion.
The site I am drawing your attention to today
Is a virtual gallery of sorts
In which ‘common’ people are exposed for their very UNcommonness.
It makes me feel connected to what is innately good in us all
And helps me reframe my life and days
In search of a deeper ‘listening’
And watching
For our own extraordinariness
Inside what usually passes for ordinary.
And another.
Each offering is so satisfying in it’s own way.
Black Whole
Untitled, 1992, 14″ x 9″, ceramic
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Let this photo stand to prove I made some scary stuff in my art career!
Interestingly, people have often used the word ‘scary’ to describe my work.
I think it is because I allow very primal places to be visible.
Today’s return to posting marks the longest hiatus I’ve taken from this blog.
There is a reason and I’d prefer to stay mute.
But I won’t.
This virtual place you’ve come to
Is about healing
Which, as we know, can be messy.
I am smack in the center of the new realities of my life:
I know what I’ll receive from Social Security Disability
Which is minimal as I never worked for anyone else but myself most of my life.
I’ll receive Supplemental Security support as well.
My family has stepped up to make sure I am not on the street.
It embarrasses me to say that until all ‘this’ started happening in real time
I really DID NOT GET IT;
‘It’ meaning the severity of the situation.
It is one thing to intellectually understand that your life is about to change
And quite another to negotiate the waters themselves.
By ‘negotiating’ I mean recognizing my new means,
Re-prioritizing to food and shelter,
And sitting with what feels very empty, at first.
Absolutely no more making casual decisions regarding money.
I remember my mother on her incessant quest for treasure through all the thrift stores in town.
Her soul was hungry from neglect.
Finding a designer ‘something’ filled her.
For me: I have done the same
With buying books, coffee, clothes, eating out…
All in the name of filling in empty places
With unconscious acquisition
And vague accounting.
By reconciling my financial life
And taking a real look at where and how I have used money
I begin to sense the reversal of
My lifetime of leaking life energy.
I sense that my heights of creativity
Allowed a balance point for the see-saw;
The life-force generated by my art-making
Did a good job of veiling the reality of a vague and untended relationship to money.
So now- I get an opportunity to life differently.
I say that with deep weariness in my bones, yes,
Because I am so damn tired of life-lessons.
People are whispering behind my back: “I wish her life was easier.”
And I wonder about that as well…
I HAVE had what seems like a lion’s share of challenge.
And yet..
The largest part of me keeps dusting her Self off
And putting lipstick on to begin another day.
Truth be told,
I don’t know WHAT I would do at a spa!
All the ‘hard’ stuff I have negotiated in my life
Has allowed my soul to feel lighter somehow,
And quite shiny, in fact.
It is a mystery to me, this phenomenon;
Shouldn’t there be more ease and glide in a life?
I have never once asked myself the question: “WHY ME?”
Because my experience of challenge
Has ALWAYS opened previously closed doors of my Self.
I see my courage, resilience, nod to the Sacred, and an intimate relationship with that which is larger than us, after all.
My heart is more porous and not so guarded.
I know better what Life is because I have the raven of Death on my shoulder.
My tears are wetter and my smile very real.
You are vital to my existence when before, I was sure I could go it alone.
The ‘shadow’ is my very good friend.
She has always spoon-fed me when I didn’t know where to go to feed myself.
I am not afraid.
(For the moment).
I can do this.
Today.
With support.
And gratitude.
That, there is the leavening agent.
Faith and Collapse
detail of painting on wool flannel, 1986
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I saw a photo of Barack Obama yesterday,
In which he looked so weary
And physically curled in on himself.
I am used to seeing him present himself with an uprightness and fortitude.
My politics are energetic.
Certainly not solely..
But significantly.
This used to embarrass me
As my handle on participating in an intellectual discussion regarding such
Is wobbly at best.
I trust my energetic read of a person place or thing
Over any other intelligence available.
This, certainly, does NOT mean I am never wrong.
Because I am.
I am just aware of humans creativity
When it comes to coercion.
When I saw Obama with his collapsed chest
And shoulders curling forward in a protective stance,
I recognized that posture too well.
It demands psychic gymnastics to move through the world
In a disabled body.
I choose to keep the FAITH
That there is purpose,
Hope,
Inherent trust (for me)
That my glorious physical Self
Contains all it needs
To remember it’s Self
In the fullest sense
NO MATTER WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE.
With chronic illness
(And, indeed, with politics)
It is a herculean task
To keep the faith…
I was in a yoga class the other day
And someone came up to me
Saying: “You look so noble sitting there with your straight back.”
Aside from the fact I can physically approach
Few of the postures
The way one might see them laid out in an instruction book,
What she named ‘nobility’ in me
Was really FAITH.
I was choosing FAITH over COLLAPSE.
It would have been so very easy for me to curl into myself
In a slump.
It is not so easy to have faith.
And yet..
Each time I choose it
It seems to get recognized
In ways large and small.
But I keep choosing in this way
Not for the recognition of it.
I choose
Because my choices ARE my politics
And I know something about the sacred nature
Of ALL LIFE
And I can’t bear to let Her down.
And so I keep righting myself
Often in the smallest of ways.
And consider that
My prayer.
Not That Interested In The Fruit
Untitled, 2002, 30″x 7″ x 11″, ceramic
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Summer ends.
We age.
Physical bodies grow tired and weak.
SomeTHING is spent.
We had a currency.
And now there is less of it.
We had the heat and plump greenness of full and long days..
Of white linen blouses.
And suddenly (to us),
We are folding that material and sensual pleasure.
With a bit of grief,
We lay her in the box
Marked “SUMMER CLOTHES”
And close the closet door.
My body is like that.
All the elements are there:
The endless waiting for summer, the luxury of carefree languishing and trusted outcome of pure and sensual pleasure in a body.
I had a physical experience
Of a tuned and shimmering instrument.
Not too very long ago, really.
That currency I spent.
Like a summer in white.
I have grief, surely.
I do.
It’s just that the harvest
I enjoyed
In that girl’s teeming collection of cells
And muscle and dreams
Is no more interesting to me
Than this woman’s
Humility
And reverence
And capacity
To Love.
My basket used to be brimming
With impossibly ripe fruit.
Now,
The basket
Is quite empty.
And yet…
This particular harvest
Is so much sweeter.
Because
NOthing
Has become
THE thing.
Rolling In Coyote
detail of ceramic sculpture
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My dog, Olivia has moments
Of shunning domestication, altogether.
We’ll be on our morning outing;
My wheelchair bedecked with orange safety flag, orange scarf tied behind and me wrapped in an elegant
And orange
Paisley shawl
In order to avoid death-on-the-dirt-road.
You see, where I live is fairly rural.
Wild enough to host a few brave, non-human critters.
(I did see an elk with a macho- looking rack one year..)
In the cover of night
Coyotes stalk their prey
And yip frenetically
As they chew someone’s beloved cat..
I know… It isn’t fair.
But it IS..
When Olivia comes across
An olafactory motherlode
Some satisfied coyote has left behind
In the dirt,
She rolls…
She rolls in utter ecstasy and slight bewilderment.
There is a haunting recognition afoot
Of a genetic link
Between the two.
She WANTS that wildness!
Witnessing this always makes me laugh.
It also has me wonder where I left my own.
Wildness, that is.
Where is that girl?
I have been too busy doing the work
Of keeping myself upright;
Mentally, physically and spiritually,
And I’ve all but forgotten the wild girl.
I miss her.
I have become far too domesticated.
And left that lifeline to ‘other’ unattended too long.
My very physical life as an artist making stuff
Helped me connect to that place.
Now my right hand lies curled awkwardly in my lap.
‘On hold’ as I think of it
Because I can’t bear the thought
My strong and capable limb
Got the ultimate pink slip.
And so.. I see Olivia roll
And my chuckling has a tinge of regret
Amidst the overt pleasure of seeing her so happy.
I roll on in my power chair;
(Is this to be the extent of my own rolling??)
With wantonness
In my chest.
And I just let it be there
Instead of leaving it
By the side of the road.
The Problem With Compassion
“BLUE FACE”, 2001, 14″ x 14″, m/m
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I have had a misconception
About what compassion really is.
We think about Mother Theresa and seriously wonder
Where she finds it in her physical smallness
To be so big?
I think it took us, as a country,
Ten full years to even approach
Climbing over the fence of horror and fear
To reach compassion where 9/11 is concerned.
It was just too big
And we are so very small.
We had to turn away
And wait until we had the capacity to bear it.
The problem with compassion
As I see it
Stems from the mistaken understanding
That in order for me to feel compassion for you
I MUST FEEL IN MY BODY
EXACTLY WHAT YOU FEEL;
I should be feeling so deeply that I cry with you,
Or at the least let my chest curl in on itself
As I let you know your angst over a divorce
Or death of a child
Has been registered over here
And is therefore real.
No. This is not compassion.
With understandings like these, is it any wonder that we turn away
In favor of lighter territory?
When you sit with me
Or see me out and about,
My heart’s desire is only to meet your clear and soft eyes
And be blessed with the ‘take away gift’
Of having been witnessed in some real way.
You see my limp. Yep.. There it is.
You notice my frequent disappearances from my historical ever-presence around town?
Uh huh.. that too.
Do you pity me? Yuk. Please don’t.
That pity may be your own very visceral reaction to what YOU might feel in my situation.
Really, that is probably a dream on your part
As we never can know who we will be in a situation
Until we are there.
Compassion is not ‘work’.
Compassion is the easiest thing you could imagine.
It demands nothing from us
Other than the capacity to WITNESS ANOTHER PERSON.
That’s it…
Just to be still and let someone tell you whatever they have to tell you.
If Mother Theresa were to ‘take on’
All the angst and sadness
Of those she tends,
She would have used herself up long ago.
She sits.
She listens.
She makes it known she has ‘seen’ the other
And that they are NOT ‘other’
But instead: not separate.
Compassion doesn’t even need a word or any sound what-so-ever.
Could be just a gentle and knowing look
Or a wave from a neighbor.
Compassion takes nothing from us.
But it has the capacity
To give us back our humanity.
No work involved.
Practicality Is The Antidote To Emotionality
UNTITLED, 1986, 5′ x 5′, pigment on wool flannel
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I know there are people in my life absolutely ecstatic
Over the appearance of the word: ‘PRACTICAL’
In my vocabulary.
Fact is: We, humans have leanings toward particular
Ways of being.
I have been an artist longer than I can remember.
My primary tool in this vocation has been
Access to the watery and indistinct nesting grounds
Where inspiration lives.
My current path in life demands I pick up other kinds of brushes and paint.
My desire is not to displace my emotions
In favor of something ‘better’ or more effectual.
No.
The root of the word PRACTICAL is ‘PRACTICE’.
It has to do with ACTION in the ‘real-time’ world
As opposed to the theoretical.
Living in partnership with chronic illness
Demands we give our precious emotional lives a rest
And enlist the support of the practice involved
In carving out the logistics of a new kind of life.
A very good girlfriend (an artist in the practicality realm)
Helped me, yesterday
With a fabulous tip:
She wanted me to tell her THREE THINGS
That were causing me pressure in my life this week.
I said:
1. No energy to do the dishes.
2. My dog has a barking issue.
3. The woman that grocery shops for me told me she would not be here but I forgot.
Just the action of saying the things relieved me.
But she stepped in and gifted me with some housecleaning!
And I asked another friend if she’d shop for me and she said yes.
I called a dog trainer.
PRESTO!!
Pressure vanished.
It was THRILLING, I tell you…
The alleviation of my previous interior machinations
Left me feeling
GRATEFUL, NOT ALONE, CONNECTED, RELIEVED, HAPPY, LIGHT.
I think this THREE THINGS CAUSING ME PRESSURE admission
Could be used in anyone’s life at any time.
Ask your lover, child, friend:
WHAT THREE THINGS ARE ADDING PRESSURE TO YOUR LIFE THIS WEEK?
And see if you can do something about it
Even if it is just to listen.
I’m here to tell you
This is a fine, fine paintbrush to have at the ready
As we all make new lives for ourselves.