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| Desire |
“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” Great question on a greeting card that I bought years ago. From time to time I pull it out and set it on my desk and see how I would answer. I pulled it out yesterday. Today, I’m wondering if that’s the most helpful question for me. Is it fear of failure that holds me back from something I might do?
I don’t know that I really get hooked by failure. Failure isn’t a big word in my vocabulary. My studio is a No Mistakes Zone. I declared that when I first became involved with art. For me art is a process, an adventure, an exploration to bring forth out of my deepest self the stuff of my connection to the cosmos . . . How can there be failure? I do paint over, wipe out sections of a piece tirelessly until the energy giving life to the work goes quiet. Then I know it’s resolved, and I can stop. I don’t consider that having failed. I see that as part of the birth of an idea, emotion, energy becoming paint on canvas.
To be an artist is to be a crusader for freedom. Freedom for the uniquely personal individual you are. To be an artist is to listen to your own voice and stay true to that voice and no other. In the end, it’s your work. It doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say. It only matters that you put your true, honest, creative voice to your work. When that is done, any criticism can show up as something to consider.
To be an artist is to be a defender of personal sovereignty, as Walt Whitman said, “Today, and from this hour I ordain myself loosed of all limits and all imaginary lines, going where I list my own master total and absolute . . .”
It is my deep belief that human beings carry a flame inside . . . A fire of their own to live into and offer the world. I believe we are meant to be a people on fire, burning up our lives in service to our deep passion . . . the passion that was planted in us when we were formed of stardust.
We in North America live in a privileged place in our global community. We have the freedom to pursue our dreams. In the main we are not hindered by the debilitating circumstances perpetuated by disease, war, poverty, and social oppression that our brothers and sisters worldwide deal with in every waking moment. Am I taking advantage of the opportunities that surround me? Are you? What cripples me from putting into form my deep desire to connect with and impact the world?
I’m looking at my greeting card again. “What would I do if I knew I could not fail?” is not the question to reach deeply enough into the chasm of my hesitancy. I think it’s possible I am more vulnerable to an issue of worth than failure. Who am I to think that what I would offer the world could make a difference? A better question for me might be . . . “What would I do if I knew I was worthy of releasing the light of my fire into the world?” And . . . What if everything I needed to free up the energy of the gift that was planted in my soul before I became flesh and blood was right here, right now?
Looking over my life I am suspicious of my strategy to have to find the right place, the right space and THEN I can get to the business of fulfilling my life mission. I’ve proved so far that moving to an ‘ideal’ location doesn’t accomplish what I care about . . . Everywhere I’ve gone I have brought me along, and missed some blindspot that I can sense, but not see.
Looking out my window on a sunny, beautiful day in January I can’t really find any more excuses. Where I live has all the makings of everything I have thought that I need to do what I came here to do. It’s a quiet little farm that feels like the home I’ve been seeking . . . spacious, surrounded by natural beauty. I have a studio in a grand old barn. I’m close to town yet have the feeling of being far away. I can hear owls and coyotes at night under a starry sky unimpeded by the lights of the city. No matter how hard I look, there’s nothing missing . . . So, no more excuses. What ‘s the next step?
I can already see my defended self getting riled. I’m thinking that I should do some digging to find out all the reasons why I’m not getting action, why, why . . . blah, blah, blah. It’s time to act. Time to that step through whatever it is that locks me away from doing what I’ve been longing to do. Actually taking a step might reveal more than my habitual ruminating on the ins, and outs, and underneaths of all possible possibilities.
The next thing is to release this into my blog. I write and write and write. I have pages and pages. If I am not writing at my computer, I’m writing in my head . . . thoughts interwoven with tales, and questions. I have kept all of this written and thought material locked away. I have been posting a blog, every now and then. What keeps me from posting all of it? Ah, I know. It’s not failure, and maybe not worth. I’m afraid I’ll be laughed at, humiliated, discounted. That’s the real monster in my life. Laugh at me like I’m a looney and I quiver in my little shoes. I think my personal monster is shame.
I just looked up shame . . . “A painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.” Bingo. Want to bring me to my knees? There’s the means.
Rilke said, “ All that the rest forget in order to make their life possible, we are always bent on discovering, on magnifying even; it is we who are the real awakeners of our monsters, to which we are not hostile enough to become their conquerors; for in a certain sense we are at one with them; it is they, the monsters, that hold the surplus strength which is indispensable to those that must surpass themselves.”
He speaks to me today as I shake the shoulders of my personal monster and say, “Get up!” I’ve got work to do.
That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the painting . . . Desire is the flame as it struggles to breakthrough that which has been holding it back.