How has your year been? Mine…
Swampy stillness, a mud bath.
Inner disassembling (to liberate my inner essence?)
Maybe to enfold more spacious listening.
Actual reconstruction of basic needs of house, home and body. A lot of labor.
My daughters call this being a “hot mess.” I feel it is just another page of life. Maybe the hot of hot mess is like all these hot chip flavors of late. How many kinds?! For me, hot mess is simply a new acceptance of a new mess in life I haven’t figured out (likely won’t figure out just right) or can’t yet do. The messes of life just get deeper and broader. I have had some craters before. But if life is upended, it is upended, whatever the size of the mess.
I feel that in many ways “hot mess” is simply living beyond the old standards and living in new enough territory to not yet feel comfy. I call this transformational living. Ha! Being a “hot mess” is not holding back attempts to live out -whatever- even as it is messy. I find this is courageous. To be in a hot stir and know “I expected this to go differently” yet taking hold of the reins and riding it out.
Let me put in here perspective on taking hold of the reins. My dad had mules which were not ridden enough. So that when we had to ride them for some task dad had us do, they were less than cooperative. And taking the reins and holding on was often just that. Holding deep into our saddle with our legs as they began crow- hopping and desperately gripping the reins. Crow-hopping is bucking without a full lift of the front of the animal. Holding the reins was just to say we are not ducking out of this. We are in all the way. Eventually we made our destination. But the amount of times my mule was not bucking :) but crow-hopping down the middle of a busy road! Holding the reins is not taking control, but staying in the saddle.
I feel that the hot mess ride, welcomes transformation. We are opening doors of spacious living by being in a “hot mess” and owning it. Owning we don’t know what we thought we knew. Owning this is not in my control. Owning I know less now than I did before. This is life live. This is it. A hot mess.
I have had a “hot mess” of a year. How about you?
Feeling beyond knowing - anything.
I could list my messes. Maybe we each list our messes or hot seats of this last year. So yes do it, make your list. I will too.
I would then suggest that in our looking at the list we pick one or two items, which ever way you are feeling it. Now blindly respond in some art making. Or in some mark making. Maybe just words written in a mind map. Or some pictures taken without good reason, just a vibe felt.
I would probably make the list and then be rid of it. I don’t favor lists and they continue to ask my mind to lead the way. My mind is a huge aid, but not a great leader in subtle listening or wisdom. These come from my heart or rest in my bones. The list is a great start. But be liberal with what you do with it. There is no wrong approach.
In the art making just move, mark. Make a few gestures of this or that. You are splashing on a page this or that. A color of this or a line of that. Just fill out the whole page. Don’t get hung up in what you have created as a center piece on a page, keep making a move of anything. Keep liberally making to the edges of the page. And then be done. Walk away.
Come back later. Maybe the next day or maybe next month. Mark on the back of the page the date, time and notions that will evoke a marker of what started this up.
Creative Fire * Creative Function Crossing a bridge of 2 selves: Inner & Outer life.
These movements of making generate, in time, sight on what courage has been carrying forward to be seen. They might give understanding to where transformation is happening. Or it might just be a good laugh or two. When making with no mind there can be cultivated an inner expression or inner experience which is beyond words speaking back to you.
This has been a process I have used for decades. But this last year it has been revived with earnestness. I groove with what I do not know to be so clearly present and speak freely. If you want help book a “Consultation.” OR set up a “Art shared in Group: No Mind Art-” with some friends. It will be groovy to share and be together celebrating our expressions.
Cheers to the honesty of being a “hot mess” of transformational life. Cheers to this last year however it went down for you. And I suppose cheers to this next year. Making art together might just be the ticket.
Ocean Mama
I will put up more of my experiential drawings, as they arise... from MY LIST. See the next post. Journal Art ° Early August, 2024
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