Navigating By Heart

A Cave In The Heart 10"x10" mixed media

The other day while exploring the second hand store of my inner landscape I discovered the vast navigational powers of the heart. But perhaps you are more sailor-like than I, and already knew about this awesome device?  I  was combing the cluttered inner shelves of stories and regrets, moments of delight and longing, rubbing off dust and cobwebs, when I came across this valuable but rusty bit. I mean I have bumbled around with this navigational heart-tool, using it  haphazardly, perhaps even recklessly at times. And there have been stormy situations where I suspect this knowing tool steered the course while I choked and sputtered below deck.

But as I painted the other day, the words "navigating by heart" bubbled to the surface of my little mind pond and I realized that for once this is what I was doing. The imposing navigational device of my mind had dropped off the charts (perhaps for scheduled maintenance?).

Continental Heart Drift mixed media 8"x10"

I am not negating the awesome powers of the mind but sometimes reason and logic are not the best tools in the chest.  Perhaps they are best called into service as gathering tools?  The mind can collect and process vast quantities of information, bringing home jewels and treasures. And maybe then the navigational tool of the heart is called into service, working its magic, making  choices, charting the way through narrow or difficult creative channels where the course is best steered with the heart.  Sometimes you prepare a checklist for what you want in a new home or what elements should go into a story you are writing but in the final cut, you buy that home with your heart or the story veers deliciously off course to become something you hardly recognize.   When we trust our hearts we may find that the heart can know what you need when the head doesn't have a clue.

Rounding The Cape of Good Hope mixed media 12"x12"

And so it is with the process of creating as you stand before your project. The head is limited to what it can conceive of but the heart is open to unknown possibilities, its maps and charts are less well defined, more amorphous.  Because of this the heart has a reach that is greater than the head's and that's why it's navigational powers hold such strength.  The heart is charting the course by a map that the eyes cannot see, traveling in terrain where the mind doesn't go.  There are stars shining in the darkness that the heart navigates by.  There are tangles in the bushes that the heart somehow eerily anticipates, if you let it.

I recommend heartily (pun intended) that you get yourself over to the hardware store of your inner knowing, close your eyes and pick out a heart compass that is vibrating at just the right frequency for you.  Pick up a few and hold them.  You will know the right one by how it feels in the palm of your hand. There are wonderful topographical maps and charts of vast inner oceans waiting for your heart compass to navigate. I wish you wonderful travels.

The Veil of Fog

16"x16" cold wax, ash, milk paint powder 

This morning the landscape is hugged by a deep, white fog. The trees and barn that usually greet me have slipped into shadowy outlines as if I have grown thick cataracts on my eyes overnight. A curtain of white has been drawn softly across the distant view.  I hear the Skeena Queen's passage traced by her fog horn receding through the thick air at methodical intervals.

My mind is like this fog much of the time, thick with thoughts and opinions. The filter of belief through which I peer often allows me to only see the shadowy outline of people, of situations, of things. I know this to be true for several reasons. Sometimes I bump into something in the fog of self that pierces me in a way that wakes me up. Suffering is like that, it wakes you up. Brushing off my hurt, I see how the self protective fog I've pulled around me has prevented from seeing things as they are.

Retreats can be fog melters.  There can often be a brightness, a clarity to everything after a period of prolonged practice.  The sitting, the slowing down, somehow melts the fog, a de-fogging solution for the window of the heart/mind.  There can be a brilliance and beauty to the simplest object, a sharpness to sounds and a wider net of acceptance cast over everything. And then as the days pass I slip back into the fog like the Skeena Queen, methodically sounding the old horn.

20"x20" cold wax, ash, dirt, milk paint powder

And sometimes for reasons unknown, the veil can lift. I know you too, have seen this fogless landscape. I might be standing at the sink washing dishes or working in the garden and the view out becomes brilliant. Maybe I am gobsmacked by the brilliant fierceness of a tiny hummingbird or the spiny armour of a pill bug. Maybe an insight into some difficult situation pops into view. The prevailing fog lifts for a minute or an hour and I  see fog free.

On the art front I spent a decidedly fog-free afternoon with Jeane from ART IT and her special guest Rebecca Crowell on Wednesday's ustream broadcast from the shed. I have been exploring a little jar of cold wax that I've had for ages to my sheer delight, mixing it with wood ash and plaster of paris and some white milk paint powder. Cold wax doesn't mix with acrylic paint or watery things so I have been rustling up whatever things I can find and having so much fun!

I am also looking forward to exploring some natural pigments and perhaps finding a less toxic version of cold wax. Leslie Avon Miller in this post reminded me of the toxic nature of many art materials including the acrylics I use all the time and though the look of cold wax calls to me, the smell tells the tail of toxic mineral spirits. I am so careful in my home about cleaning products and paint and food and gardening and yet I am drowning in toxic art materials. Another example of fog.

Wishing you a happy fog-free weekend.

How To Get Settled

 work in progress - not sure what it needs

I have been thinking about "settling" lately. I have been noticing this phenomena I think of as "settling" when I paint, when I garden and in relation to my life on this island. I noticed it as I painted the other day. It wasn't a well formed idea, but I became aware of  the busy thoughts and the stories of how I needed to add something to one painting and fix another. I felt the edgy energy as I picked up one canvas and looked at another and wondered what I should do next. And then finally after a bit of sparrow mind, of wanting mind, I settled and worked without need.  A small blustery "head" wind had simply blown itself out.

The strength of this idea really took hold later when I went out to garden. There was an almost manic sense of getting this weed and picking up that stray branch and oh my god, this needs to be done and that needs to be cleared away. And there is so much work to do. But then Self said to self, "this is silly" and I realized the complete lack of urgency of the whole situation and I settled into the lovely chore of weeding and planting and watering.

Mapping The Heart 6"x6"

And as I wandered, I saw a thread trailing from studio to garden. And as the thread sewed intself into a thought, I realized it takes time to settle. I know this is not revolutionary or rocket science (kids, don't try this at home!, no go ahead, really), but it seemed important, the simple fact that the mind needs time to make the transition from one activity to the next. Busy, wanting mind needs time to settle. It's like the old "dirt shaken in a jar of water" story. When we move from one activity to the next, especially a busy task oriented one, to a slower, perhaps creative endeavor, the swirling continues for a while.  And the thing I realized is we can't "make" our minds settle. We can offer the conditions for settling. We can put the jar down but the settling happens on it's own. Trying to make the mind settle is just another form of swooshing the jar.

And as I picked weeds and marveled at the beauty of the treed hillside and the rolling meadow below I realized that I had finally "settled" in a very tangible way, here on this island. I'm not quite sure exactly when it happened but after 2 years here there is a deep sense of home. After many forms of wanting and swirling, I can see the small ways that tell me I've settled.  When I walked past the barn last night on the way from picking kale in the garden, I thought that my former home no longer was my idea of "home", that this place was much more "me". I have started buying things that indicate to me I'm staying here, farm things. The push lawn mower from city life has finally been replaced. I have given up telling people I have a back up plan. There are so many small signs of settling.

 small work on canvas paper

In small ways we are like the earth. When the earth settles in a spot sometimes it cracks or heaves to accommodates the terrain in quirky ways. And so it is with us. We have no idea exactly what will happen when we settle, momentarily or otherwise. But to be sure it is like our whole being breathes some sigh when we settle. Something in us relaxes. Our mind quiets, we stop asking for more, we stop wanting to know and we just are. Settled.

Sometimes we are explorers filled with the energy of excitement and sometimes we are settlers, setting our heart roots deep into the landscape, into our selves, into life and relaxing into what is.  I wish you good settling.

Riding An Unruly Horse

Here's a picture of the future studio. At this point in time it seems far into the future. I have been playing host to fatigue from cleaning and packing and riding the emotional horse of doubt and angst as we get ready to move tomorrow. I am holding on for the ride, watching the changing terrain as I fly over each boulder and tree root of my imaginings. Sometimes I am sliding down one side or the other of this unruly horse. I have lost my hat and decorum long ago. I am definitely getting a work out. And it is the perfect opportunity to experience impermanence at the gut level. A little phrase has stuck in my head from a blog I came across yesterday called Appropriate Response. "This is what it feels like to be human." So I have been feeling this raw, humanness or as Ezra Bayda calls it "the uncomfortable quiver of being".

It is so interesting to watch the machinations of the mind, throwing up all kinds of worries and fears, expectations not met, schedules not kept. And it reminds me that when we tie our hopes and dreams to external things we are bound for disappointment. I need to learn this over and over. These are the things I am working with as I prepare for the moving truck to arrive tomorrow. The mind loves to weave a big story that this is the culmination of a year's adventure of moving and traveling and relocating. It likes to make a big, scary 3D movie. It is a master at making "what is" into more than that.

I watch my inclination to want to retreat, maybe roll up into a little pill bug on the couch, to hide from all this. Overwhelm threatens to take the upper hand and then I remember to just do the next thing that needs to be done. Wrap that glass, clean the stove burners. And so the day unfolds.

I realize I will miss this beautiful landing spot on the island with its amazing ocean and island views, its bountiful garden just outside the door. It has been a good friend to us. I need to remember to feel gratitude, instead of just a sense of loss. The two can coexist in the same breath.

And our new home is ready and waiting for us. A Tibetan teacher we know came and performed a purification ceremony on Saturday. The sun came out from behind the clouds and graced us with unseasonably warm temperatures. He chanted from a Tibetan text, walk each room and the perimeter of the house with incense and finally we hung some prayer flags that had come from Tibet and had been blessed at the Green Tara Sand Mandala Ceremony held on the island in July. Yesterday friends came from the big island and helped us move some things and walk our new property with us.

Last night there was a torrential downpour, complete with power outage. Today the sky was blue, the sun warm and our parting sunset over the ocean and hills magnificent. Such is life as a human.

Dart To The Heart

This piece was almost finished before I packed it away several months ago. There was something not quite finished about the face. And so yesterday I took it out of its paper and got out the eye shadow & the blush (just kidding), added a little more blue to the sky, green to the ground. It's called "Dart To The Heart" and it's a sister painting to "What The Buddha Sewed". Adding finishing touches was a nice way to ease back into work instead of having to stare down a blank canvas as the first act.

I am learning to be kinder to myself, to pay more attention to inner inclinations. What better time to shed the old snakeskin of habitual behaviour? What better time to disconnect service to the little voice that tells me I should be doing this or that, in this way or that way? It's true I didn't need to move house to leave behind old habits but why not use this occasion intentionally? I think that concrete physical acts can offer an opportunity if we employ them. In a way it's not that different from ritual. We light some incense at the beginning of meditation. An outward physical act connects to the inner act.

It's about the mind, really and how we use it. The mind is a little power substation that can offer light if we use it wisely. And I am well aware from experience that it can do some high voltage damage if we let it course through the lines unchecked. But enough of this high wire stuff, soon I'll be joining the circus.

And so when I think about "Dart To The Heart" I think about the Buddhist idea that the first dart is some pain we might experience, but we add the second dart by thinking about it in an unhelpful way, by obsessing or focusing on it. It reminds me of something RM Jiyu Kennet said, "The mind makes a good servant but not a very good master." I wonder if the mind does room service and laundry?

Zen Gardening, It's All In Your Head

It is that time of year when gardeners pour over seed catalogues and plan and dream of digging their hands into the cool brown loam.  In this corner of the world if you're lucky some kale may have survived and perhaps the garlic is poking it's head out timidly.  As my partner turns his mind to our community garden I am reminded of a gardening metaphor.  

About 30 years ago (eek!) we went to a series of workshops with  John Kehoe, who was just starting out in the field of mind training.  He used the "mind as a garden" metaphor  and when I think back,  it had a very Buddhist quality to it -- Buddhism without the Buddha.  Here's how I remember his little garden manual.  Our minds are our gardens and it's up to us to cultivate them.  How we work with them will determine what grows there.  If we plant the seeds of hatred well guess what grows, if we plant the seeds of happiness, the crop ripens accordingly.  It is up to each of us to plant the appropriate seeds.  If we cultivate and tend and water, our harvest will be bountiful.  If we neglect our tender seedlings they will be withered, dead, stunted.  This is  akin to the idea in Buddhism of working with our minds... cultivating awareness, wholesome thoughts, choosing and re-directing our thoughts rather than letting our minds run wild.  When we work  to cultivate  mindfulness, faith and wisdom  we are working to enrich the fertile ground of our minds.  When we cultivate joy and gratitude we are planting the seedlings of happiness.  When we try to step back and see the bigger picture we are planting a stalk of compassion.

Kehoe talked about weeding the garden, which was an idea I loved.  Weeds pop up in the garden, that is simply the nature of the garden (our unwholesome habitual tendencies from a Buddhist point of view).  And so the garden needs weeding, otherwise you will end up with an unruly patch of goodness knows what, something bitter or poison or just inedible.  (The definition of a weed is a plant growing where you don't want it.)   So the weed or the thought is not inherently bad (an important tenet of Buddhism) it is simply growing where we don't want it. Presto -- out comes the hoe.   When I think about it now, those weeds can actually become good compost for our gardens (our unwholesome thoughts or obstructions can become the fodder for good, showing us where we need to do our work and providing us with the opportunity to turn weeds to rich loam)

 He pointed out that we don't dig up the seeds we've planted to check on them .... because if we do there can be disappointing consequences.  So as in Zen training we just train.  It is not helpful to be constantly checking to see how our "meditation" is doing.  We just do it, for the sake of training.  It takes time and patience and faith.  And then one day we notice something nice growing in that sunny patch over there and we are as surprised as anyone.  

So dust off that Buddhist  (or any other tradition) seed catalogue and start studying what you might plant and get inspired and motivated.  Start digging around in that fertile patch of yours, planting and weeding and adding compost and water.   And if you need to borrow a hoe or a rake, just ask.  Oh ya,  that's me over in the corner plot holding the biggest weed you ever saw!