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| Unnecessary Desperation I |
It’s early Saturday morning. The house is quiet, and the lake is still with a heavy bank of fog obliterating my view to the other shore. Right now it’s just me, ensconced in the silence imposed by this blanket of watery, white mist. I am lost to everything and everyone in this moment as if there is nothing more. I might as well be hovering in the center of the low hanging cloud before me, a hummingbird on wings vibrating my complete delight. This morning is delicious.
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| Unnecessary Desperation II |
Right now I can hardly believe that there is any pain, struggle, or sorrow in this world. While immersed in the wonder all around me hardships are far away, barely audible in the chatter of my thoughts. The ease in this moment so accessible, it’s almost palatable.
I know that in a few hours I’ll be showering, dressing for work and making my way into the city to greet and connect people to art at the gallery. I like what I do. I truly believe in the capacity for growth in our lives when we take the space to be with art. I am well suited for my work and go willingly, without resistance. I hear from others that their work is labor--something to get through so they can get on to living. I am pleased to say this isn’t the case for me, and even so, it still means shifting into another mode of energy and engagement with the world . . . It means separating from the trance of wonder the white, foggy cocoon has spun around me.
I fantasize that I could somehow lengthen this experience, stretch it out and hang on to the extraordinary beauty and rich silence. So human of me, to want more than what is freely offered in the gift of this moment. It’s not ‘wrong,’ just human. I laugh with myself a little, and get back to appreciating what is before me right now. I am fully aware that the fog is fleeting and so with it, the silence. The caterpillar cannot lengthen it’s stay in the cocoon, nor would it want to with it’s burgeoning wings thrumming an innate attraction to take to the sky. To attempt to hang on to this experience would destroy the very thing that is giving my heart song in this moment . . . It would be like denying the worm inside the butterfly it’s flight.
So much of life is consumed by our attempt to balance the obvious duality we live with. The time of action requires time of rest, the time of flourishing growth demands dormancy--all in response to the natural cycling of life. We can clearly see the duality of night and day. We, too, are a duality unto ourselves as demonstrated in our right/left ambulation, and brain function housed in separate, yet conjoined hemispheres. Everything in our life on earth is steeped in duality . . . A dualism begging for the dynamic of balanced resolution. Caught in the polarities we live as if in a continual ping pong game, tossed back and forth across an endless sea of opposites. If life is either/or, we vacillate between companionship or solitude, creative energies flowing or constipated ruminations, success or failure according to some arbitrary criteria on either side of the game table. I don’t think it has to be this way.
I believe the sweet spot in this life is to have a leg in both sides of the clear dualities and your head up in a created space of balance . . . I like to call it a space for neutrality. By my definition this space is comprised of as much of the ground level duality as one can embody, the black/white, good/bad, right/wrong, up/down, soup. If we can stretch our capacity to contain the basic elements of polarities all around, mixing it all up in acceptance without qualitative judgment, we can produce an alchemical change of consciousness. Life becomes an adventure that simply is. We simply are, and that condition invites an experience some might call bliss.
I think a place to begin the journey is with the practice of non-judgmental presence . . . Meaning, to pay attention to, and be with the what, where, & who is in this moment without labeling some aspects as good or bad, some as attractive or repulsive without denying how we feel. I am suggesting honoring the emergence of our feelings without allowing them to define our experience. We would all likely agree that this moment is the only one we have. The practice involves embodying this belief.
Looking up I can see that my white cloud is rapidly giving way to the warmth of the sun. The lake and the surface of the water is no longer still and sounds from the cars on the road behind the house are telling me that the new day is off and running. The mysterious magical cocoon, like all things I might have wanted to hold on to, is vanishing. I could choose to swing to one side of the ping pong table, judge the change as ‘bad,’ and then I will have the inevitable resentment. That doesn’t appeal to me. I prefer to experience the grief, turn toward it, and do my best to let loose of the labeling. All that has really happened is the natural shifting of the thermal-dynamic in the atmosphere. I have the moment in my memory, and now accept the shifting as maintaining the stability and balance in the natural world.
That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the paintings . . . This diptych is my story about the natural dualities and cycling in life--two parts interacting with each other in a dynamic of movement and balance. Red and green are complementary colors, and used together they tend to keep the eye in movement. Much of my work deals with polarity and dualism, revealing the complementary nature of what we sometimes label as oppositional forces. I believe, while very human, it is unnecessary to be torn between the dualities in life. It is possible and more advantageous to contain both, and move into another level of consciousness born of the unity possible within our binary existence.
About the paintings . . . This diptych is my story about the natural dualities and cycling in life--two parts interacting with each other in a dynamic of movement and balance. Red and green are complementary colors, and used together they tend to keep the eye in movement. Much of my work deals with polarity and dualism, revealing the complementary nature of what we sometimes label as oppositional forces. I believe, while very human, it is unnecessary to be torn between the dualities in life. It is possible and more advantageous to contain both, and move into another level of consciousness born of the unity possible within our binary existence.