 |
| Razor's Edge |
I get up early, before anyone else in my household rises. I quietly make tea and pick up my computer. All winter long I’ve pecked away at the keyboard from behind a set of 4 floor to ceiling windows in what I fondly call, “The Lake Room.” I’m fairly certain it’s meant to be a dining room, but I took one look at the full view of the lake in this charming little room that opens out to a patio and thought . . . writing.
Today is the very first day of the year that I’m attempting to write outside. It is chilly, and my fingers are cold, but I’m determined to brave the weather and be out from behind the glass and in the presence of the birds. Right now there are dozens of song birds engaged in courtship rituals while others are frantically gathering material to make their nests--all signs of spring. They’re doing exactly what they are meant to do on this morning in April.
What about each of us? Some of us are meant to explore, some of us to educate. Some tend the sick and dying while others seek to heal emotional wounds. Some of us delve into the mysteries of our cellular biology and others devote their lives to the quest of curing diseases that plague our species. Some are builders while others create great wealth and speculate in world markets. We are healers, builders, artists, lawyers, gardeners, truck drivers, postal workers, doctors, musicians and teachers. I’m always curious how we arrive at our chosen work on this planet.
I look back over my life and can see some obvious choices, and a lot of happy accidents that led me down trails and by-ways to where I am today. How much was choice and how much was chance? I really can’t say. I’d like to think that I’ve been choiceful about my life. What I’m beginning to suspect is that some of the most important choices I’ve made have had to do with how I experience the ordinary circumstances of everyday life. Looking back, I get a picture of being carried along the way as if on a raft meandering it’s way along a river toward the sea. Certainly I had choices to stay on the raft or bail out, complain or create, resist or evolve . . . I probably did not really have a choice about the river itself. From the moment of conception we all live within certain parameters. Our genetics, time of birth, nationality, economics, family size, religion, education level . . . so many factors built into the structure of each of us before and immediately after we draw our first breath. Suppose these parameters are our river? Although my particular river may, for me, be a given, certainly my choices about navigating within it are not.
I can’t help but notice how attractive those movies are that give us a window into a life that exceeds the built-in parameters of genetics & environment, a life that goes beyond the normal interpretation of its particular river. We love to watch and read about heros like the horse “Seabiscuit,” and his owners, beating all the odds on the racetrack. Then there’s Jean-Dominque Bauby who wrote his autobiography, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” after suffering a debilitating disease that produced almost total paralysis, using his only means of expression--the ability to blink his left eye. Recently the movie screen came alive with extreme will to live and determination as Aron Ralston displayed extraordinary commitment to stay alive while trapped in a crevasse in Utah in, “127 hours.” We love stories of great courage and tenacity to press beyond what most would call unbeatable limits. Why is that?
Could it be that we are hungry to break through limits of our own . . . to move beyond the constricting unconscious limits of our own rivers? Maybe we have come to accept our unfulfilled dreams as an unobtainable and fixed reality. Shouldn’t we be so involved with surpassing ourselves that there is little time or need for a vicarious experience of someone else’s life lived beyond the built-in parameters. Is it just for a few, or have we become sleepy people seeking comfort while avoiding the quiet dreams of purpose and passion that have all but disappeared from our internal reality, like the vanishing wilderness and rain forest that we have allowed to slip away in our blind, stubborn apathy.
Let us sing our own songs of courage, of limitations surpassed. Let us rise from our apathy and get uncomfortable for the sake of breaking through to our own deep purpose. Let us have so many tales of valor that we become people of song gathering to share one another’s adventures around a circle, instead of a stage where only one brave soul has a tale to sing. I fear we have become a people of audience when we are created to be a people of purpose.
Deep inside I am compelled to record my experience of being human. It is as if the blood, circulating around my body has words and images that it carries to every inch of my being. I cannot stop myself from seeking understanding by asking the questions about our lives here. It’s in my very breath to do so. The means I have found to grapple with my experience while navigating my particular river have been writing and painting.
Not all of us will win the race, climb the mountain, find the cure, or free a nation . . . But all of us have dreams inside, perhaps buried deep under years of complacent resignation. All of us have the choice to make a departure from unconsciously drifting where that particular river into which we were born is taking us. Time to unearth that which on your deathbed, you will look back over and glow with fulfillment; the memories of your life lived in alignment with purpose. In that moment, I am thinking that all the years being a spectator on the sidelines of life will bring no joy. Time here is short, a brief candle, so the poet says. Let us choose a worthy song and sing it with our whole heart, soul, and body.
That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the painting . . . Razor’s Edge is a graphic representation of the experience I have seeking to step beyond the drift of my own river and return to my deep truth. For me it is a fine edge of integrity. When I am on my razor-sharp edge of personal congruity, the view is clear and the ride exhilarating, like a surfer riding the crest of a wave. If not diligent, the surfer may take a hard fall and a tumble in a powerful ocean. If I do not take great care to remain true to myself, the fall into pretense is powerful and leads to emotional disorientation and pain.