Sailing

I spent a long time trying to find my center until I looked closely one night & found it had wheels & moved easily in the slightest breeze, so now I spend less time sitting and more time sailing.

~Storypeople

 

 

matters of the heart

I’ve been dealing with matters of the heart of late…but then what isn’t a matter of the heart?  So many things are…

Circles

This is the center of the universe at this moment unless you’re looking in another direction, or are thinking about something from a long time ago, in which case it will wait quietly right here until you return.

~StoryPeople

bleu day

I am feeling very blue today….but I had the day (mostly) to myself and so I sat myself down to finish my most recent bleu horse painting.  I often paint the horses whenever I feel like it (which is often at night) but then I’ll wait to paint their world until later (which is often during day-light).  Sometimes their world never gets painted. I do have one or two of those that are still waiting but perhaps there are times when the bleus just stand alone.  That’s where I’m getting at with those ones anyways.  But these guys wanted a world and who am I to deny them? 

In between paint drying I was working on building my website.  I am once again left frustrated but I am hoping that the company I am working with will respond to my ‘ticket’ in a timely fashion and that I’ll have something up and running soon.  If I can’t get it resolved within the week I’ll probably have to postpone until after our move…..wherever that move may be to, I still don’t have an answer on that.

So, trying to keep myself busy and out of the funk.  Today is quite funky though.  I think tomorrow I’ll go on a hike and see if that helps.  I am feeling very ungrounded because of the pending changes to come.  I don’t expect that feeling to go away until we get settled again so I am just doing my best to keep myself busy.  I like this working-from-home arrangement but it would be nice if the work flow was a bit more steady.  I get excited when I get a file in because there’s something so comforting about putting all the pieces together and it completely distracts me from my worries.  I think I like title insurance underwriting and yes, after 12 years of working on the closing side of the deal that does surprise me.  It’s wonderful that I’ll be able to do this no matter where we move to.

I did paint one little bleu horse today.  He tells my mood.  I can’t ever hide from my bleus….

Inner-critic and Current Events

I’ve sure been hitting my inner-critic a lot lately.  Or perhaps it’s just that now I’m aware (more than ever before) and I’m listening.  She says that this painting isn’t good enough.  She says that I still need to work on textures (non-equine) and people a lot more before I tackle a project like this.  She says that I need this and that and that before I’ll ever be good enough.

She sure talks a lot.

And she talks about a lot more stuff than just my painting…

~

I know I’ve been quiet for a while now.  I haven’t felt like sharing too much of what has been going on in my head.  Feels like a bit of a power drain when I do that….so I’ve been letting things simmer without too much outward explanation.  Don’t worry….if I have any profound realizations I’ll share.  :) 

Also, we’ve just been really busy.  I’ve been transitioning to working from home and we have a possible move coming up.  Even if that move doesn’t happen it’s likely that we’ll be moving somewhere within the next few months unless our mortgage company gets really helpful or my husband is able to find a good paying job within a hour’s commute.  I’m not much for leaving things up to fate but then I realize that a lot of these things are out of my control (and you know how I hate that) and that what will be, will be.  We just have to keep ourselves available for opportunity when it arises.  We’ve still got food on our table and a roof over our heads and hey, I’ve been painting a little bit again!

I’ve also been spending a lot more time with my little girl.  We work on art projects nearly every day and she’s got a Kindergarten prep book we’re working our way through as well.  Hard to believe she’ll be starting school this fall…

Oh, and I have another new nephew!  I’ll get to meet him and my other little nephew in July when we go back home for a visit.

Yep, things are keeping me busy but I’m trying to get back to my art…and trying to not let myself get discouraged that I keep having to knock the rust off everytime I sit down to paint.

1000 Oceans

I once read that there are over a 100 different shades of green one can find in a single view of the Irish countryside…
I believe that estimate is likely far below the reality…
But from that moment on I longed to make the journey across the sea…
A journey that I have still yet to make.

But before I can ever see that Emerald Isle,
The island that has always seem to call me home…
I must cross the ocean.

And if Ireland has over 100 shades of green…
The ocean has over a 1000 shades of blue
And 1000 more for each one of those thousand.

So, for all the beckoning of that ancient shore…
Nothing compares with Her…
She with the frilly white petticoats, relentless in her forever teasing of the craggy cliffsides…
As if to say,
“There’s no such thing as falling…”

*

White Ponies

(white ponies – 4×4 inch – watercolour, pen & ink)

I’m remembering more of my dreams.  I’ve dreamed of a white pony and a crowd of people , most of whom are familiar to me.  They all want the pony to go out “somewhere” but I tell them no, that he’s not quite ready and at the same time I tell the pony that he’s going to have to go “out there” soon.  I’m watching over him you see and the “out there” is outside of the pen, outside of the barn…out into a city of sorts. 

I’m remembering more of my daytime dreams as well.  I cancelled the plans for the online accounting degree.  As much as I like putting numbers in boxes, I hate being stuck in front of a computer all day – it’s one of my greatest complaints of my current job.  Accounting is a pretty reliable profession but it doesn’t make my heart sing.  It isn’t what I really want to do with my life, at all.

If the sky was the limit I would  go study at a atelier – a traditional realist art study program.  Yep, that’s what I would do.  And I would learn how to paint those glowing portraits and landscapes that I fell in love with staring into the Encylopedia Brittanica when I was five years old.  There’s nothing like that even close to where I live and the logistics with a child and my husband working out of state feel insurmountable…but that’s my dream.  There’s a studio art program at our University of Virginia and at the community college in Charlottesville.  Perhaps there’s something there I could do, somehow, someday, some way. 

And there’s still that massage school idea.  I just need to figure out how to pay the tuition that the loans won’t cover and some way to move to make the schedule work with Emma going to school this fall.  She’ll be starting Kindergarten!  When did that happen?!?  Or my husband could get a job within a half hour of home and I could take the evening classes…but that’s looking less and less likely. 

I don’t want to give up on my dreams.  I love being mommy but I still want to be me too.  And I’ve got lost time to make up for and time with my girl that I don’t want to keep losing by working at a high-stress job that zaps me of my energy and creativity.  I also need a job that flows.  I’m putting on my thinking cap.  There’s got to be some way I can keep earning some income and yet be able to go back to school and/or have the time I need to spend on my art.  I’ve got one idea…just not sure if it’s a viable one yet.

Meanwhile, I keep gaining weight and my good ankle is starting to swell the way that my bad ankle did before I had surgery on it.  Not a good sign.  I’ve got to get my exercise bike fixed (we put in the new part but it’s still not working right) or I’ve got to get a new one somehow.  It’s the only cardio I can do that doesn’t cause me problems.  Money is super tight but it’d still be cheaper to replace it than it would be to buy a new wardrobe.  Seriously.  I’m thinking of trying those Acai berries…as well as a trip to the doctor.  Perhaps my thyroid is wacking out again.  That’d explain the weight and the water-retention and the tiredness.  All the B vitamins in the world aren’t going to counteract a messed up thyroid.  Gosh, I’m having all these troubles at 31.  I’d better get them straight or I’ll be a real mess by the time I’m 40! :)

So, we’ve got company showing up in about 20 minutes.  It’s snowing.  I’m making a artichoke sausage with vodka sauce pasta dish for dinner.  My husband just got back from the store with some rosemary bread (because I spent the morning de-bugging the pc (again) and didn’t feel like baking).  I’ve got a notion for a big art project with my watercolours…and that’s all I’m going to say about that. I’m working on rounding up all my ‘re(a)d letters’ photos so I can make a bunch of prints.  I think the book project will be easier for me to work on if I could hold the photos in my hands instead of staring at my monitor.  I’m more of a ‘hands on’ kind of person.  Things make more sense when I can hold the pieces…

Holding pieces – painting dreams.  Feels like the same thing.

It Takes a Village – Maintaining Ethical Standards in Spiritual Traditions and Practice

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.”

~Anna Freud

Survive -  I’m a survivor and I’m surviving once again.

Confession – It’s been almost a year already since I crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed.
Rephrased -   It’s only been a year since a line was crossed that shouldn’t have been crossed.
To clarify  -   It’s only been a year since I had a sexual encounter with my therapist/spiritual teacher.

It still hurts in this really deep-deep-down-heart-aching way.

For the longest time I thought that the whole affair really only affected me.  Lately I can see how it’s had a profound effect on nearly everyone in my life, in one way or another; my husband and daughter being the most noteable.

I’ve withdrawn from my family and many of my friends.  I’ve been mindful of keeping and recruiting a  support network and  I know I am not alone, but somedays I’m much better at reaching out than others and lately I’ve been holing up again.

I still have a lot of anger and grief.  I don’t subscribe to “everything happens for a reason” so please don’t go quoting some idealistic “you’ll be stronger for it” peptalk.  I learned a valuable lesson for certain…but that doesn’t mean ‘I asked for it’.  I didn’t ask for this and had boundaries been created and proper therapy/teaching been in place I could have learned what I needed without so much pain.

It’s got me to thinking a lot about what can be done to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future.  The man I had been seeing isn’t actually a licensed therapist, though he led us to believe he was, telling us to have him added to our provider list but then never calling my husband back after repeated requests (the insurance company couldn’t find any record of ”Michael Dean Goodman” being licensed in the State of Florida).  Such was the state of our marriage (and hence my seeking out couples counseling) that I believed the therapist rather than my own husband.   I thought my husband was just being difficult and was not open to therapy.  When I asked the therapist about it I was told to “stay out of it”.

I had sought out this man because he was said to be alternative lifestyle/kink friendly.  I was (and still am in certain ways) attracted to a very strong polarity dynamic in a relationship (also known as Dominance/submission) and was also seeking out ways to have pain inflicted upon my body.  I wanted to better understand the reasons for these urges and I wanted help for my marriage which was nearly shattered at that time.  It wasn’t long before I was placing my therapist in that empty masculine position in my life.  It’s completely natural…they even have a name for it called “transference”.  And yes, I became quite infatuated with him.

I read back over our corresondence and I remember bits of conversations that we had.  I told him how I felt.  He lives several states away and the counseling sessions were done via phone.   Perhaps he felt safe because of the distance…

It escalated.  He would tell me what to do during therapy and I would turn into a gooey mess.  He knew.  I told him.  I wrote hundreds of emails.  He knew. Perhaps he thought he was doing some great thing by using his dominant nature to get me to open up…

I started to feel like I belonged to him.
I started to believe that he could show me the white light.
I started to believe that only he could show me the white light…
Forgetting…forgetting….

We started talking of spiritual things - experiences that I was having; levels of consciousness; meditation; ayurvedic living.  I started thinking of him as “Guru”.  I was so hungry for Guru that I didn’t listen to my Self.

It is no good to see the light if you can’t see the dark – no good to embrace the brilliance if you can’t dance with the shadow.

Now, there are medical boards and state licensure requirements for all who practice medicine; people you can call if there is a malpractice; consequences for crossing ethical boundaries.  There are no such measures in place for those who practice spiritual teaching as their trade.  Who do you call?  Outside of having the money to hire an attorney (because you’re unlikely to get one to take the case without a big retainer unless your teacher is effluent) you’re on your own.

Yet, so many teachings urge us to find a guru and follow them implicitly.  How is it that this tradition has been handed down for so many lifetimes?  It works of course, when all goes well but the risk is so high.

Well, one must have good powers of discernment (which is something I think is sorely lacking here in the western world and is something that I’m still working on myself) but also and perhaps more so I think it comes down to community.  We are so isolated, even in our big cities with millions of people.  We are so alone and transplanted and lacking the safety of community.  Community knows.  You can’t get away with much in Community without being found out.

They aren’t kidding with that whole Six Degrees of Separation thing.  It’s often even less than that.

And then of course, we need to speak up for ourselves.  The only thing worse than crossing those ethical boundaries is keeping quiet about it so that they can be crossed again.

I’m not quite sure what my voice is going to sound like or the ripple effect it may or may not have, but I know the answer for me and the future is community.  If we can make the time to build and maintain supportive spiritual communities then there won’t be so many that will suffer harm at the feet of an unethical guru and likewise, such a teacher would have the opportunity to correct his or her behavior (possibly even before great harm was done) and they could look into their dark side more completely to work on their own attachments.

After all, we’re all human…
And that’s not something I’m likely to go forgetting ever again…

I keep trying to paint landscapes…

 

Which is better? A set of speakers
missing a power button, or wondering when
someone is going to come and
turn you on
by pressing plastic in, twisting
your torse to the left?

~Claire Donato

Drawing Down the Stars

11.24.2008 – Mixed Media
4×4 inches