Heartsong Studio

Were the Beatles right in singing “Love is all you need”? I often wonder if this has become one of those pie-in-the-sky phrases. Some people, on the other hand, seem to assume that you need the intellect to “analyze” a work art, and that love has little to do with it.

Often our inner truth can be hard to discern.

Thinking won’t get you there, but either will emotions. Our emotions are not our inner truth, but they can certainly point the way.

I did a lot of crying when I first learned the Remembrance, and I didn’t know why. Once I accepted that I didn’t need to know why, and that whatever I experienced was perfectly all right and didn’t need fixing, I felt heard and the crying subsided naturally.

Later I understood why, but the loving acceptance I sensed from within myself didn’t need this mental understanding to do its healing. First comes the self-acceptance; afterwards comes the understanding.

We may feel apprehensive, evasive, or defensive for no obvious reason, or we might cry before a painting that “gets to us”. If we can find loving acceptance as we are right now, then we might be able to profit from our emotions by deepening our self-understanding and ultimately our enjoyment of life.

Life can make us crazy, but art has the power to put life in perspective and enhance our inner knowing, because heart-centred expression reliably transmits inner truth. Learning this new way of seeing and being seen, more than doubles the possibility of perception and self-knowledge.

How can you reach the meaning of your responses so that personal growth is possible? I don’t advocate self-analysis. If loving yourself sounds too self-centred, try seeing yourself as a bud needing water to blossom as this visual metaphor describes.

“The bud stands for all things, even those things that don’t flower, because everything flowers from within of self-blessing.” (from Galway Kinnell’s “St. Francis and the Sow”

There are times when we may stop going inside, checking in with our core truths, reflecting inward, or doing the Remembrance. It may seem like we don’t have the time. Sometimes, when the experience of unconditional love from another person is brand new, we may assume it is enough. But it isn’t.

In truth, we all need a deeply fundamental type of love. Love from another person is not all we need. Like the bud keeps needing water, we need self-blessing replenished again and again.

Recently I sent a copy of my free workbook: “Reaching the Heart of Your Creative Potential” to a new subscriber . Because I wrote it years ago, I thought I’d better have another look at it myself. I was deeply touched by the tenderness in the guidance I gave to all my clients. My own tenderness, or self-blessing, was exactly what I needed to make the next step in my life’s journey.

Seeing your inner truth can be very subtle sometimes.

At first it’s easy to miss seeing your inner knowing, expecting something surprising, but your truth more often just seems to be there already waiting. It doesn’t have to be a big production or time commitment either. Once you’ve learned how, it’s possible to “top up” your inner confidence in a brief moment, whenever and as often as you feel a need.

Deep inner reflection, as in the Remembrance, allows you to stand where your reality is right now, so you can feel the strength of the ground under you, supporting you. Then you can meet others as equals, relate altruistically, and love unconditionally, with a soft strength instead of from neediness.

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I wasn’t a happy camper. This didn’t feel like success.

My latest venture in taking on a complicated subject and trying to develop a new method in Becoming a Beginner left me exhausted and dissatisfied.

“Success can be very disappointing,” wrote Evan Hadkins in his “Living Authentically”.

There seems to be some degree of expectation or self judgment attached to any art making, whether you’re a hobby artist or a professional. If you don’t reach the level of success that you expect, it can feel very bad. And yet, it can be a gift to find what your disappointment might show you.

We always have a choice to learn more about our core selves or not.

Jung defined neurosis as suffering that has not yet found its meaning. Even to have achieved everything we seek in life and still be without passion is to suffer the absence of authenticity; a life unlived.

Jung was right. Those critical voices in my head came out of unresolved issues. The things that are hardest to accept are probably the most important lessons. While I enjoyed many surprise findings during that painting challenge, when I met with disappointment it was sometimes overwhelming.

It was very hard for me to swallow that I’d really made a hash of this project, or so it seemed.

On the positive side, I noticed several coincidences during that month. New images I sometimes found through the veils of paint lifted me to new solutions. Serendipitous solutions are probably there all the time, but so are many unrecognized troubles.

If we only see the success or failure of our expectations, we miss the chance to learn more about ourselves at the core. Resolving troubling topics and finding happy solutions can lead the way to embracing our true selves.

Even looking at others’ art can bring some of the same rewards, as was evident in some of your comments. Whatever you see in any work of art could be a clue to what you’re needing to uncover in yourself.

I can only speak of what meanings are there for me, and though our views of what we see in the same work may seem very different, I suspect there is a larger commonality. One reader wrote of not understanding abstract art, and I’m with her on that. I merely respond — or don’t — to abstract art.

On some level, a work in progress has a different evolution from that of our conscious intentions; it also reflects the unconscious. I didn’t expect or understand why the more I simplified (abstracted) the figures in Bliss, the more static they appeared to be.

Even though one figure is definitely male and the other female, they seemed to want to meld together and overfill the canvas, no matter how I thought there should be some spaces.

“There is some kiss we want our whole lives…” Rumi

We all carry a longing to connect to the “other”. Some of us have been longing to be loved unconditionally our whole lives long. In some of my past paintings there’s a yearning which shows through, no matter what my intention was. It took me ages to see this.

Suddenly, two years ago, out of the blue, a miracle brought the first unconditional love I’ve ever experienced! To my surprise, I found that when you finally find your heart’s truth, even if you mistook it 50 years ago, you don’t have to puzzle over it; it’s astoundingly obvious.

No wonder I’m still getting used to the new me at my core. The strength I’m finding in this perfect mutual trust frees my heart, and makes growth possible. What a transition! I am truly a beginner.

With time to reflect and recover from the efforts of my painting challenge and with lots of encouragement from you, readers and friends, learning through my initial disappointment, this is what I’m now seeing in my painting.

There’s no hint in sight of my old yearning. The two figures flow into one another and over the canvas with their love. At the base, they seem to be rising up from a common root and blossoming up through the green leaves. The female figure has emerging wings; perhaps this bliss sets her free. Just as yearning had found its own way into my earlier work, none of these images were consciously intended.

Our creative endeavours aren’t always successful, but they always hold the potential to give us satisfaction. For me, to be in the process of evolving and growing is the only way to really live.

* * * * * * * *

You have posted wonderful comments. I hope they encourage others as they do me. I’m very interested to hear more from you.

How do you gain insights through art, your own or others’?

If you’d like to share any ways you’ve found to deepen your self-knowledge through art, you are very welcome to post a comment, or email me privately if you’d prefer.

I wholeheartedly recommend having a look at Evan Hadkins’s site Living Authentically for lots of gentle guidance along these lines.

Now, an after-dinner mint?

Tulips Are Better Than . . . 4.5″ X 2.5″

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Since I hadn’t yet discovered exactly what my new process would be, or how to go about “backing into” abstraction, promising to show you my new painting was really going out on a limb.

My goal was to make a visual expression of Bliss, a very new and precious experience in my life.

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” — John Wooden

Please don’t take my choice of direction as the way things should be for you.   I am an expert only in the inner potential that’s calling me.   I’ve gained a new respect for all of you who have ever been students and allowed yourselves to open up unrealized potential within you.

After 30 odd years of painting in various media, in styles from abstract to representational, and a year in hiatus, it was time for a change.   As suitable as these styles were then, I longed to venture into an expanded process to express deeper meanings, by building on past experience.

My idea seemed reckless from the start.

I blithely started with a figure drawing.  “My gawd,” I thought, “I can’t post this.  It seems too specific and doesn’t suggest the universal bliss I’m trying to show”.  Was this miraculous feeling too ambitious to paint?

Instinctively, I scrubbed the paint on very thinly, simplified and reduced the details.   It became obvious that the few shapes remaining had to be even more accurate.   Otherwise, viewers might say:  “Maybe she’s trying not to say something”.    I wondered if my backing into looser work from a drawing was just a silly idea.   Arrgh!!

It’s bad luck to be superstitious.

Each time I scolded myself, I stayed stuck.   But when I could let go of my “doomed” scenario, the last ‘bad’ solution presented new ideas.   Each time I stayed open to what was there, new forms appeared, in plain view, through the thin layering of paint.

Stumbling on difficulties can turn into a gift.   So I traded in the superstition of “I can’t get there from here”, to search for a different map.   Online I scanned thousands of abstract figure paintings, researching what other artists do, until this one caught my attention.

Bride , 60″ X 48″ by Sabina Sule’.

Sabina Sule’ makes preliminary, accurate drawings on canvas, and overlays them with washes of transparent paint.  Then she starts again with another drawing and so on until it’s full.  There remains a misty record of her process and struggle.

It enchanted and encouraged me.

I wasn’t so crazy after all, to think I could “back into” abstraction.   Someone already worked this way.   I eagerly made time in my studio, an hour here, an hour there, with lots of ups and downs, impasses, solutions, followed by more frustration.

Every time I drew from an idea in my mind, it just didn’t fit.  Yet every time I “found” the figure by contemplating the work, it not only fit, but offered another aspect of the subject.   Once I started to find other images hidden in the layers, washing over them became a bit easier.

At one point, overwhelmed by all the other things to do in life, and all that was still unresolved on my canvas, I read:  “Putting Problems into Perspective” at May Johnstone’s Blog .   When I reached the word ” spaciousness”,  I knew what my piece and I both needed.

Eventually, I began to let my feelings swell and subside, like waves in the ocean, and risk short term instability for possible growth.   More hours of contemplation with my work, and a lot more painting attempts resulted in this first flawed effort — not at all what I expected.   Only some of my struggle shows.

Bliss , 30″ X 24″

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes. “ John Wooden

This approach isn’t a substitute for either representational work or abstract. It moves from one to the other and back again, until they blend into a truly collaborative relationship.

The many transitions the work undergoes reflects the experience of love itself.  You can’t have endless bliss without confronting some challenges. Every step is about learning to trust, willing to become a beginner again.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. Always keep your beginner’s mind.” Shunryu Suzuki

After thought:

We don’t often have the luxury of “explaining” our art before it’s shown.  Thank you to all who read my last blog ” Searching For Wild Mustangs” for being my motivation to follow through.  Just thinking of my promise to bare my struggles for all of you to see was enough to put me in overdrive.  Though I tried to think of an excuse not to keep my promise, there weren’t any valid ones.

The main lesson for me from this challenge was HUMILITY.   After some loose little paintings to keep limber, I’m surprisingly eager to keep exploring this approach.

I hope this encourages you to share your ideas, questions, or any new art you’ve made.   Send me a photo attachment if you like, and I’ll post it here with your comments or questions.

6 comments