Rushing Toward Beauty & Building Resilience

8"x10" Footprints On The Earth Oil & Cold Wax

While I was painting this afternoon I noticed at one point, how much I was in a hurry to get a part of the painting that I didn't like covered up. That little palette knife was just doing 90 in a school zone.  I could feel the rushing, the almost breathless way I went after the offending spot.  And I thought to myself, "isn't this interesting?  What's that all about?"  And it struck me that this is very like me in many parts of my life, this lack of tolerance for the imperfect, for the messy, a reaction that often leads to feelings of frustration.

Feeling sick?  Let's get that out of the way.  Messy kitchen?    Messy life?   Let's get that cleaned up. A Longing for problems to disappear in a poof.  Hmm... in a hurry to make the ugly; beautiful, the imperfect; less flawed.  A magnetic draw towards beauty and perfection.  Definitely encouraged by our culture, I think we all have this in varying degrees.

8"x10" Uncovered Oil and Cold Wax

And aiming oneself in the direction of clean and tidy and beautiful is a fine intention, let's not get weird here. It's perhaps the rush away from mess and chaos, that requires reflection.  And how we handle the movement from what we "find undesirable" to it's counterpart is vital to our well being, I think.

It came to me how much depth and complexity I rob myself of, when I hurry to get things all "nice" without appreciating the nuances of messy.  Perhaps I miss finding the interesting hidden line or shape, or a new direction in a painting I am in a hurry to get resolved.

16"x16" Tethered  Oil & Cold wax

Maybe I am thinking about things in this way because I've been dealing with a dental adventure that found me having a tooth extracted last week.  Around the same time I came across a German doctor who writes about finding meaning in illness. His take is that the healing lives in the more complicated crevices of understanding, buried in the deeper meaning of our symptoms, instead of in the headlong rush to get those symptoms out of the way. In the same breath that it makes sense to me, I also want to get on with what interests me (some habits die a slow painful death)!  I've gathered my arsenal of natural remedies and am marching my little holistic army toward that dental infection.  The inclination to be well is fine, don't get me wrong, it is the energy we bring to it that's important, I think.

I was reminded of the quality of "resilience" in my work, my health and some frustrating encounters with Samsung's customer service this week. I listened to a talk by Joan Borysenko a couple of weeks ago on "stress hardiness" or resilience and it really resonated with me. Unfortunately I can't link you to that talk because it's no longer available but here's a similar one. She talked about the 3 C's of stress hardiness: 1. Commitment- a sense of purpose and engagement with the world.  2. Control- a belief that our actions can make a difference.  3.  Challenge - an understanding that life is constantly changing but viewing that change as exciting rather than scary.  Here's a nice little blogpost someone wrote about it.

I am really working on #3, viewing the less desirable ones as exciting.  How about you? I wish you a stress hardy week.

"The Unknown, The Territory of the Creative

I am hoping for rain tomorrow.  Did you hear me say that?  I can't believe I just said that.  But there is an ulterior motive.  If it rains I can stay in and paint all day!  Recently I have been weed obsessed.  I jump out of bed in the morning and race outside to spend time in the company of weeds.

 The definition of a weed is simply a plant growing where we don't want it to.  Aren't we bossy, we humans, wanting plants to grow only in particular places.  We are so not like the natural world that just accepts things wherever they grow.  I aspire to be more like nature but meanwhile I have my own ideas of beauty which doesn't include small green things growing in pathways and filling up ancient herb beds in a helter skelter sort of way.  And this idea of beauty comes with a cost.

I have spent many days working in my yard as a weed tamer, (not as dangerous as lion taming and no whip or chair required) hoeing and digging and pulling until my wrists and finger tips ache and my hands look like those of an ancient peasant woman.  I love it really, pulling weeds.  I love being outside with the birds and the squirrel, the deer.  I remind the quail not to eat the grass seed I've spread on some bare patches and listen to the buzz of hummingbird wings aiming themselves at my sagging prayer flags. I am treated to the strong sound and huge expanse of eagle wings cruising past me as I work.  Sometimes I think about the spiritual aspect of weeding.  As I pull each misplaced green thing, I think of weeding my mind of its less wholesome thoughts, it's worries, it's doubts, it's inclination to manufacture problems and blockages where really there is just open space and situations.

But back to painting and the creative life.  Here's a wonderful talk by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche where he takes a broad approach to creativity.  He talks about living creatively with openness and joy as essential ingredients to this way of being.  He invites us to open to our resistance and fears, to "host" them as he calls it.  He invites us to enliven ourselves by orienting ourselves to what's right in our life.  He teases that this will energize us more than a cup of coffee in a mid afternoon slump.

I also wanted to draw your attention to a great creative resource I have been exploring.  It's a site called the awakened eye created by miriam louisa who has been exploring the ground of creativity for many years.  She has a free 8 chapter ebook of exercises that I have plunged into which are inspirational and packed with years of exploration and teaching.  Her site also offers bios and links of artists that explore the dual path of spirituality and creativity.  She has kindly featured me there in her latest post.  Her list of artists is extensive and a fun place to wander away the hours.  I have discovered many amazing artists with fascinating orientations to their art.  Favourites of mine such as Frederick Franck (her site is a nod to Franck and his book of the same title, "the awakened eye"), John Daido Loori, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche all rub elbows together here.

I will end with a little teaser from the first of  miriam louisa's ebooks.  "Making things provides an opportunity to observe all the strategies we blindly, as well as intentionally use to avoid encountering the unknown.  The unknown is the territory of the creative."  Join me tomorrow at the corner of unknown and openness.  I'll be the one in the tatty sweater with the crazy hair and a rumpled paint brush in my hand.

Does Alice Live In Southern California?

I am in what seems like a diva realm to me; Southern California. The air is warm, everything seems clean and beautiful. There are palm trees everywhere and being March, everything is green. In some places the air is filled with the scent of orange blossoms and miscellaneous flower scents unknown to me. The gardens are magnificent. Even the small homes seem uncannily perfect in my eyes. Perception, imagination, the mind forms its opinions and assessments of what it takes in, in an instant. I saw a card in a spiritual book store the other day that reminded me, "with our minds we create our world". The quote was attributed to the Buddha and reminded me of the great power of our minds, how we need to use them with care and attention.

I find my senses filled with so many things in this perfect land. I greedily drink in the beautiful people and their antics. I could people watch for hours here. I am amused and entertained and slightly removed as if I am watching a movie. There is an unreality to it all.

And if the smelling and seeing isn't enough, there is the tasting. Twenty-five pounds of organic oranges for $10 fresh from the orchard. Avocados and fresh pecans, walnuts and dates, I've even bought a cherimoya to try. There are more amazing raw and vegan products in the stores than I can believe. I want to try them all but my wallet offers a cautionary note!

And so goes the festival of the senses. When does it tip over into greed, instead of mere appreciation and enjoyment? Where does one cross the line into craving and desire? How can we tell? How quickly does it happen and what are the signs? I wonder about these things as I eat the most amazing raw chocolate mousse made from Irish moss and brazil nut milk and cocao powder at Planet Raw in Santa Monica.

And do you see the Buddha here in the picture? He sits at the entry way to Venice Beach. Is he offering refuge to lost souls or perhaps simply emitting his energy to offer balance and calm. Or maybe he is simply bearing witness to the crazy things us humans get up to. Actually the sign near by tells you to stop or you will incur tire damage.

Now while this neck of the woods is beautiful, it seems a hot bed of excess if you look a b it. You can watch people pull up in front of the raw food restaurant in their black mercedes, call up on their cell phone for a juice and thrust a credit card out the window as one of the slightly harried young servers goes by. Ten minutes later you might find yourself nose to nose with a street person showing you a stuffed rabbit playing music. A young man passed me on the street and asked me if I could hear God.

There is so much of everything here sometimes it makes my head spin: the beach houses in Malibu, the houses on the hill that look like they might be museums, the upmarket hotels and swanky restaurants, the high end clothing stores, the spas and home decor shops. It is easy to feel their tug as you see them over and over. I remember the Dalai Lama saying that after driving by the fancy shops day after day, even he felt the lure of some of these things, even though he didn't know what half of them were. And so perhaps we humans are a bit like racoons, attracted to the shiny things we see, the tug of desire raised easily with little provocation? The inward gaze easily distracted by outward glitz.

And it is fun here in the land of perpetual sense excitement, the novelty of it all. But as I stroll the botanical gardens or the take in the produce in the farmers market I look forward to my return to a quieter life, with active tasks to do, to paint and garden and prepare meals. But I remind myself to enjoy the present, the beaches, the flora, the friendly folks who offer free goji berries as I wander their shop, or the free recorded Quan Yin prayer when I buy a small Quan Yin statue. I am easily drawn to feel slightly guilty in the presence of all this. But that I remind myself is wrong view. It requires awareness and some vigilance to enjoy, to remember to be present for the beauty, to drink it in, to not grumble when this orange isn't as juicy as the last and not to fall down Alice's rabbit hole of sensual desire.