Thursday, June 23, 2011

Dry Spells

I've been going through a long, difficult dry spell. Oh, sure, I've done some work this year, but not as much as prior years. And I've done a lot more the last few months, so I think I'm gearing up over all. The last three years, in fact, have been slow. I keep finding other things I need to do. I'm there today as well. I really, really, really want to paint. It's raining and it's the perfect storm for color and brush to dance over some available surface. But, I can't paint the way things are right now. I have no choice but to deal with the clutter in my environment.

It's a mess. I cleaned my closet and now I find myself going back there and just standing there looking at it, admiring the tidiness, cherishing the orderliness of it all. My sock drawer - I can't even open it, lest I disturb all the matched companions nestled there so snugly. I confess I love, admire, envy tidy people. But, the truth is, I'm just not one of them. Oh, yeah, I make a big deal out of OCD being a disorder, just as bad as messy hoarding, but I'm just jealous.

I want to do what I did to my closet to the rest of my living area, but I just can't figure out where to start. I tried starting on the porch, but I needed to clean things, which meant doing the dishes first. Dishes are now done, but they need to dry and be put away to make room for the next load. It's always something. I'm not naturally tidy, or neat. What my bff doesn't know (or hasn't shared with me that she ever suspected) is that I am currently about the tidiest I have ever been in my life. I feel like I've come so far for so long, that I just need to rest on my laurels a while. But, I can't. The clutter really does crawl right up my last nerve and admonish me to do better.

That's the thing with self improvement. You are just never quite done. Small success begs for a bigger victory. A tidy sock drawer double dog dares for a clean, uncluttered desk. A human's work is never done.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

one-ness

I was asked an interesting question yesterday: "what does your life falling apart look like?" There are just infinite numbers of ways to answer that question. Life exploding and falling apart is an experience on the mental, emotional, spiritual, physical levels and so much more. And it's messy. Take everything in your refrigerator and shoot it out of a cannon into your living room. What my life exploding looked like, felt like, at the time.

Before you get all ready to help me, this happened many years ago. I weathered that storm, and many more since then. But, I like an interesting question. It was someone showing an interest in me, who I was, am, where I came from, where I'm going. Artists are like that. And, usually, an artist will share with you what they think, feel, perceive, pray about a particular thing, topic, whatever. Non artists seem to hold those opinions to themselves. I think it's because non artists don't think their own particular perspective on a thing is sacred. Ah, but that's where I think non artists are incorrect. Note, I don't think they're "wrong" - too judgmental. Wrong isn't possible in a oneness world. Which brings me back around to my initial point.

Oneness. An artist said, in part and parcel of the above mentioned conversation, "I am a non dualist." This is a term of art, I know, among spiritual seekers. And it's a nice thought with a nice meaning. Judgment, I know, but it seems not judgment to like something, even if it really is. Since that statement, and its explanation and discussion and elaboration, I changed my perspective. Being a non dualist feels to me like a judgment against dualists and a defining by the not rather than the is. But?

I do often paint a subject as much by painting what it is not as painting what it is. A face recently only took shape when I painted in the sky where the face was not. Much as I struggled to paint the actual face, it didn't happen alone. I painted the not face. Then I saw the face. There's a duality there. There's something more that exists than I can define in line, color, shade and form. The face against the sky is as much the face as it is not the sky. In that space, that energy between face/not face, sky/not sky, right there is aGod. God is not just in all of us. God is all of us. God is sky, God is not sky. You are Me, You are not Me.