No Out There Out There

Beth asked her class a series of questions...none of which I'm going to answer. No reason to. However, she said something that I've thought about today. She said, "I ask myself these questions all the time."

I started thinking...what questions do I ask myself all the time. Especially, what question do I ask myself all the time that has the potential to change my life? I actually have an answer! That question is:

What is it about MYSELF that makes me react the way I do to a person/situation/thing?

I believe that there is no "out there out there." If I react to, say, a person in a negative way, then I have to look inside myself to figure out why I am doing so--I don't look out at the person and ask why they are the way they are...I have no control over that. But I do have control of myself and in pondering through the question as to why I am reacting like I am, I have come to some incredible self-understandings.

Once I gain an understanding of myself in the situation, I gain the ability to understand the other person and can release any negative thoughts or feelings I may have.

The struggle to understand myself, though, is difficult and sometimes doesn't resolve itself. But when it does...

...I am at peace.

There really is no out there out there.

Letting Go

Beth got my heart racing yesterday after she posted her logo on her blogsite. (http://seeing-sideways.blogspot.com/ May 2007 Graphics for NMC) I've been mulling it over, trying to figure out why and I realized it's because she let go of an attachment!

Hmmmm how else to say that so that it is dynamic?

It's like Beth took her hand and wiped it across her art desk, scattering all the paints and brushes and canvases, leaving her with a clear workspace where she could start all over!

It's a transition point. Letting go of what is and opening up to what may be.

When I saw that she didn't use her eye logo and that the type and font was no longer conventionally pieced together, I felt a huge release.

I am always excited when a "letting go" takes place. In letting go of an attachment to something, you open yourself up--like an empty vessel waiting to be filled with something new. It's an extremely frightening thing to do because you don't know what will replace what you've let go. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes something absolutely foreign and uncomfortable. But sometimes something beautiful and fulfilling.

It's an adventure to let go. It signifies forward movement and a willingness to embrace risk. It's turning your back to the past and looking to the future. It doesn't mean that what you let go of won't follow or find you again. It's just that when it does, you'll know if it's worth embracing again.

I love letting go. It scares the hell out of me and I don't do it well at all. But when I do, I know I'm in for a ride.

Elusive Photo

Everytime I open my blog, my profile photo is gone and I have to reconnect to it. So, instead of directing the blog to where I'm keeping the photo, I've uploaded it here on the blogsite so that blogger doesn't have to leave the house in order to find it. Dumb program. ;) So ignore this post. It's nothing, really. Just a way to link to my profile photo.

Nesting Sideways

My friend Stephanie asked me if I would help her make this photo softer. Because I know Stephanie well enough to know what she likes, my mind didn't have far to scramble to come up with the softness I knew she'd like.








This is what I came up with. It's very simple but very effective. She asked me to emphasize the nest without losing the hands and she wanted it softened. I know she loves muted greens so I kept the green background. Always a woman prefers to be seen as beautiful and although I suspect the woman holding the nest is very earthy and therefore would not mind her wonderful, earthy hands being shown as they are, the softness I added to her hands only emphasizes the nest.



Stephanie and her mother-in-law needed the image because they had been asked to participate in a quilt by making a quilt block for a newborn baby. This is how they used it. It is quite lovely...not a typical baby quilt block. But, then, that's Stephanie. :)


Seeing sideways and working with clients can be very tricky. How does one work with a client and give them what they want/need while being innovative (seeing sideways) and still be true to their own artistic vision? That's a real tall order! As I worked with my client (Stephanie), I had to take into consideration her final output. Knowing that she, herself, is an artist, I had to deliver to her something she could work with that would fulfill her artistic vision. She gave me the elements and parameters to work with -- a photo that she wanted softened, with the hands still visible yet it had to emphasize the nest. I don't consider what I did to the photo anything spectacular -- I didn't "see sideways" with it because in the end I knew that Stephanie would take care of that part. What I did, though, was deliver something that I felt good about, that I knew she would like and could use, and that was still within my own artistic sensabilities. The "seeing sideways" came from Stephanie. She and her MIL created a piece of art that is not typical for a baby quilt. Stephanie was true to her artistic vision, making a baby quilt block that has a sweet theme to it but done in such a Stephanie way as to make it unusual.

I wonder about seeing sideways...when does one be different and when does one not? I believe that the crux of seeing sideways is being true to yourself. All things considered, being true to yourself, to your own voice, to your own vision as you work with others is the germ of seeing sideways. No, I didn't do anything special to the photo. But when I finished working with it, it felt good to me. Why? The final product was not going to be mine, but Stephanie's, so I gave her something to work with. Being true to myself in this regard was not about producing a piece of art that is different from all the rest but about my love for Stephanie and giving her what she could use. So...sometimes seeing sideways isn't even about the art but above and beyond that....

Blogging From The Subconscious

I have let my blog sit for a while because I chose to not continue in Beth's class. Not because I don't like the class. I do. It is a powerful class. But because of personal reasons that challenged my integrity. I was technically not enrolled in the class and even though I had Beth's permission to sit in on it, I could not do so with a clear conscience.

However, Beth has given me access to her blogsite, so I will be able to watch from afar and see how the class unfolds.

In the meantime, I have started this blog and got past the first post so I might as well continue even though I doubt anyone but myself will ever see it since I won't advertise it. Maybe blogging without an audience -- or with a projected audience -- an audience projected from my own subconscious -- will make for interesting reading...or not. :)

Reveries

The next morning I had one last thought I wanted to share with Beth regarding the egg experience:


More reveries on the Egg.

It's interesting that I have given more word-space to Bertha and my experience of her than I have to my own egg. But as I think about it, why not? Isn't that the purpose of my whole experience of my egg? To make it a thing of forgotten-ness?

And yet, I can't help but think that Bertha and my egg are related -- they are opposite ends of a continuum. Where Bertha's purpose (for me) is existence, my egg's purpose is oblivion. Where Bertha becomes a living, breathing soul, my egg is snuffed out. I have more connection to Bertha than I do my egg. I think of your egg and I get excited. I think of my egg and I don't feel a thing. My egg went out with the trash today.

Am I sad? No. Because there must be ends to a continuum. In a dual world, there are ends. Bertha is one end, my egg is the other. Both eggs hold the end points so that all the other eggs on the continuum can exist somewhere.

Don't think I didn't think about the assignment over the weekend. Just because I called it Oubliette does not mean I forgot the assignment. I didn't. I seeded the assignment then acted on my gut...no thought involved. Which is why I can honestly say my egg is Oubliette. My egg doesn't live in me anywhere and yet I presented the whole of my assignment in complete accordance with my artistic soul. I put my egg in an oubliette and walked away from it.

I had to...

...in order to experience the wholeness of Bertha and the completeness of whatever my soul tapped into in guiding me through this.


P.S. Can an artist truly portray Oubliette and be successful? Think about it... I do and I'm stumped.

A Birth

I couldn't get Bertha's "death" and Humpty Dumpty out of my head. As I left class and walked to the bus stop, I had another realization. So when I got home, I sent Beth this:

As I walked to the bus, it dawned on me that Bertha didn't die...Bertha was BORN. Why else did you just "happen" to call her Bertha? Just think of what she's been born into...she is inspiration and beauty. It was the cracks in her shell that caught your attention and began her birth. More and more cracks appeared, like a hatchling pecking its way into existence. And it is the cracks that draw you to her even now that she has evolved. The cracks...isn't it the cracks in us all that makes us the most interesting?

You will take her birth and turn her into a work of beauty. That is her birth...from a humble egg into a beautiful piece of art. How much higher calling than that is there?

Humpty Dumpty Philosophy

My next post to Beth is as follows:


This is where I draw my inspiration for Humpty Dumpty....from William Irwin Thompson:

Drawing from the old nursery rhyme, William Irwin Thompson sees Humpty Dumpty as "the cosmic egg," an image of "the immortal soul before its Fall into time." But after this "neither God's animals nor His angels can put him back into the world beyond time." In The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, he continues:

. . . the universe is an egg that shatters as it expands to begin its career of unfoldment in time. As an archetypal image of primordial unity, the cosmic egg suggests that there is unity and fragmentation, eternity and time. The Fall into time is not so much an event itself as the conditioning of time-space out of which all events arise. . . . the Fall of the One into the many, the emergence of the physical universe out of the transcendent God, the Fall of the soul into time . . . . The Fall is not only once and long ago; it is recapitulated in each instant of consciousness. The unfallen world beyond time remains as a background to the figured beats of the heart in our world of serial progression.


I'm done philosophizing about Bertha.

Cosmic Egg

In the cosmic scheme of things, the egg has been represented as the Cosmic Egg. I told Beth about this over the weekend and how the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty has cosmic overtones.

When Beth showed Bertha's "death" I immediately sent Beth an email during class. This is what I wrote:



When I saw your video of Bertha, I couldn't help but think:

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's Men
couldn't put Humpty together again.

Remember I told you about the cosmic egg falling into duality?

I am so sorry but so excited at the same time. Bertha was more than an egg scheduled for plastic surgery, she was the cosmic egg coming into existence.

How much more profound can you be than that? You had a very special egg.....

Oubliette

I do not blog well. I don't read blogs if I can help it and I surely don't write them--my first blog, encouraged by Beth, was created almost a year ago and I've written nothing since. My musings tend to be personal and directed to a specific person. It's in directing my writing to a specific person that I can organize my thoughts and deliver a voice. But...since I recognize blogging as part of current culture, I guess I ought to get involved.

During class, I sent the following to Beth. I figured since it is class-related, I ought to share it with the class. So here it is, uncensored (though censoring is not an issue):

Beth:

My presentation went exactly how I planned it! In fact, it went even better than I planned it. My theme or focus for my egg was The Forgotten. I expected all eggs to have been given some kind of personality or significance and knew that attention would be given to each egg. I opted to address the "forgotten" egg, the egg who no one pays attention to, who gets overlooked, who is invisible.

I chose "Oubliette" as my title because an oubliette is where they put people to forget about them. I took my egg home, took a photo of it amongst a bunch of trash, then promptly forgot about it. I went on with life...went to the Commencement dinner and met Bertha, went to Commencement and didn't think about eggs at all. Today I chronicled my weekend and was forced to think about the egg long enough to put together the presentation.

I focused on the theme -- Oubliette. Every element I chose was chosen with that in mind. There is a lot of symbolic meaning about being forgotten in that short movie....

When I presented, I walked up, downloaded the movie, played it, then sat down. I didn't say a word...I didn't draw any more attention to my presentation than I had to. I was concerned you would start asking me questions about my experience...instead, you played perfectly into the whole scenario...you talked about Bertha!

And no one remembers my presentation.

Oubliette.