I think I understand the twinkling Christmas lights.

I’ve got a couple of posts up my sleeve; ones that I’ve wanted to get to but are being repositioned by some other business. 

Holidays, yes –which I’ll speak about... 

But also because stuff has been coming up and out – through the body, and I’ve needed to pay attention to it. 

   

Like literally.  I broke out in hives.  

The same day that I got myself a new desk to help remedy the ergonomic (or what I thought was ergonomic) conditions surrounding my neck pain, I broke out in hives. 

Which, I realized last night while reading John Sarno’s TheMindBody Prescription is veeeerrry, interesting indeed…

Sneaking Suspicions. 

The posts that I’ve wanted to be writing are all in connection to the most recent painting and the last few posts about the Fear Balls.  I’m going to get to that, but some things are currently on an interjection mission.

All of this, however, does remain intimately, and interestingly, connected to the previously mentioned Fear Balls, and the painting. 

Fragment from Find the Holes in Your Theories, mixed media on board, 48"x28", 2011.  

Caring for my creative process. 

It’s become much clearer to me that I need to stay super-mindful about how I surround, comfort and care for my creative process.

 

I’ve been doing this with this last painting, and the latest drawings, and these blog posts.  Seems that my focus and intentionality is working.  (Cause you know, I got hives man!)

It’s like Charles, the beloved professor used to say, “you have to set up the banks of the river so that the water can flow through.” 

This is how I’m seeing my process.  Choosing to be deliberate and intentional about showing up so that movement can take place within that space. 

Movement indeed. 

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I avoid getting too-specific-with-details about my life and instead (for numerous reasons) try to take a step back and speak to the lessons and the patterns and the thoughts. 

Just wanted to say that.  I won’t go into the nitty-gritties but try to walk you through the essence of it. 

Timing.

It’s Christmas.  My first Christmas not being home with family.  Which has given me the chance to consider this holiday, this season, and to ask myself what it all means to me. 

I’ve noticed how quiet it has been when I’m not wrapped up in the usual activities. 

And the quiet has felt appropriate.  Winter-y. 

During my last period I was thinking about what I’m calling “the menstruation metaphor.” 

Bleeding as evidence of dying possibilities.  

A time to grieve for eggs that haven’t been fertilized and for a part of us that is leaving; shedding in order to open up space for future possibilities. 

Along these lines, I’ve been wondering what this time, this dark, winter, holiday time is about. 

Winter Solstice/Christmas. 

I won’t even get into talking about the adoption of pagan symbols and rituals by the Christians… or perhaps the evolution and appropriation… whatever…  here’s how I’ve been experiencing it.

Winter solstice is the longest night of the year.  It seems that Christmas, in part – with its symbols and activities, is about bringing light into the darkness. 

There are the twinkling Christmas lights, and shiny sparkly things. 

It’s a time of cozy interiority.

 

A time when the world slows down (or at least it does if you can avoid holiday madness) and we go inward.  To our homes and to our families. 

What it means for me.

I’m making distinctions about the type of action and efforting that I’d like to have happen at this time of year.  And what it all means to me. 

I guess that similar to my time of menstruation, when the darkness comes, it’s a good time to rest and nurture myself.

 

To go inward and honour the darkness. 

A good time to listen to my body.

This year, my body broke out in hives, which I just realized this morning, happened precisely on the Solstice. 

This year I had to rest. 

This year I walked down to the old town square and for the first time I understood the twinkling lights and the effort to bring light into the darkness.

This year I feel silence, and appreciate it. 

This year I feel the thinned veil between the conscious and the unconscious. 

How it relates to a painting.

My painting, and the process I was talking about above are in service of understanding what’s happening beneath the service. 

I’ve used this latest painting as a way to focus on what’s been happening in my body. 

It started because the pain in my shoulder/neck was so loud that my only option seemed to be to go inward with it. 

It’s hard to follow the thread some times.

I’ll be honest.  I haven’t always believed in transformation.  I still don’t some days.  I wonder what rituals, what acts, what intentions can actually cause change.  I doubt the potency of some things.  I question and I forget. 

But something from this process, this most recent painting process, is changing that belief. 

When I really honour my process.  When I care for it.  When I continue to put energy in, and stay in conversation with what is coming out, things seem to carry themselves along in amazing, and most interesting ways. 

I know that this is about working with, and creating a language that I understand. 

A language that speaks to me and comes from me. 

A language of metaphor and symbols that can speak to things that my conscious mind can’t always wrap itself around or access. 

The MindBody Prescription

Sarno suggests that the body will create symptoms to help distract us from unpleasant emotions that are trying to rise to the surface. 

First it was tendonitis, then neck pain, now the hives.  Something tells me that there’s a pattern here.  

That something deep, and threatening is trying to come to the surface. 

And my body, bless it’s heart, is both trying to protect me and simultaneously giving me the information that can help bring about healing. 

Cut-out from Find the Holes in Your Theories, mixed media on board, 48"x28", 2011.  

Cut-out from Find the Holes in Your Theories, mixed media on board, 48"x28", 2011.  

Raising the Red Flags

What a complicated system indeed…

But thank God. 

The question right now is how to tap into my own knowingness, to find the resources that I need, and to understand what’s happening beneath the surface. 

Join me.  Fill me in on thoughts about the darkness and this time of year and how you bring light to it…

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