Painted Meditation 4.4.16

Scribbling with Cretacolor on a purple painting previously painted a few weeks back.  Blue, black, and white were added.  Four faces appeared. One is upside down.  Sitting back, the top center figure seems opened and exposed.  I see the skin is pulled back to reveal a rib cage.  The face to the left lays opposite and beside-- somehow connected. The figure on the right is looking inside and is holding back a flap of skin.  The figure on the bottom right corner is connected loosely: it is the part that chooses to walk away (consciousness?).  This is a part that carries a sadness, a burden, a loss... I feel tearful as I write that.  I don't understand why she is so heavy, cold, and in silent pain.

This was created today after meditating and while listening to A Stutter.

The sun is old on water
Yearling flakes keep whirling by
Carry me awry

Collapsing breaths discover
Turning hope, new-boarded highs
Receding howls dew the skies

Closing eyes recover
Amber light in wintry bed
Can you pull me under the cold, charred sea?

Whispered words of summer
Fallen ode, a bawling bless,
Serenades the water and carries me anew.

By Olafur Arnalds - A Stutter Lyrics | Retrieved from MetroLyrics http://www.metrolyrics.com/a-stutter-lyrics-olafur-arnalds.html

In a transitioning space

I have fallen away from my consistent formal practices again.  I can rationalize why: work demands, family life, exhaustion, and continuing headaches.  I will not, however, beat my self up about this.  I know this is a process and that perfection is a myth.

I have been engaging in informal practices almost every day.  I have picked up where I left off with the MBSR course (week 5) and I have had some powerful imagery arise.  My current energies at work include maintaining the Faculty Wellness Wednesday as much as we can meet, and I had the opportunity to present with a colleague about this adventure at an Expressive Arts conference.  I also facilitated a professional workshop on self-compassion and the creative clinician this past fall.  Two more events will be coming up in the near future: 1) An open weekly Painted Meditation group I am offering to the community starts next week 2) I will be facilitating a self-compassion and creativity workshop in April: the money raised will go to cancer research.

So, it seems I am continuing to rationalize :)  Proving to my self cognitively that I have not fully fallen away. In my soul I have this deep longing to not just provide, but to remain the student and learn more.  I am anxious to structure myself back into the more formal practices and teachings in MBSR, and the intersection with creativity and art making.

Thanks for listening.

Holding On, Letting Go 3.27.2015

Holding on, letting go

In today's meditation, I found that too must have happened in between last week and today.  I was mindful of thoughts and tangential mind wandering.  Ideas and memories.  I sat for extra time to allow for the clutter to stop and to just be in the moment with nothing. I became aware of discomfort, fatigue, and head pain.  I tried to notice and accept without judgment.

The image that did appear were hands: initially as open palmed hands, the left resting on the right.  Then they moved, opening up into themselves as if dropping something or letting something go.  I noticed that I started to move it forward with adding details.  I stopped myself because I wasn't sure how much of it was contrived and how much of it was spontaneous.  The details included sand falling through the hands.  Later I saw a rose being held in the open palmed hands... white or white with pink, becoming red.  But again, was I forcing this to happen?  It seemed so... Then I did have a spontaneous image that disturbed me and I intentionally chose to not paint it.  A tree trunk on the left side of my view had a small hole from which a grey menacing, sharp-tooth filled snake jutted out.  Mouth open and fangs ready to strike... but at nothing.

I returned back to the hands and my wandering mind.  Breathe. What could this all mean?  The hands reminded me of holding on and letting go.  I have held these thoughts and ideas and memories without a way to sort them, connect them, understand them, or slough them off.  Perhaps today the hands transitioning into letting go was me saying it's OK to let them go, gently, with compassion and without forcing myself to understand.

July 11, 2015. Alone time together: Co-creating with Jess in our first attempts to create a framework.

Alone time together

Michele and Jess (above) & Michele's journal alone (below) c. 2015

Watercolor, oil pastel, markers, pen, colored pencil & collage in journals

My experience seemed strange... how my image began.  I was really unsure.  I worked with an open journal-- an open book. I created a blue frame.  Each side reminded me of a first page and last page, respectively. The words, "In the beginning" and "In the end" were added.  All drawing then happened on the right side.  I felt frustrated with the face in the crease.  It was intended to be a face as I literally followed natural lines and creases in the fold, and marks on the natural paper in the journal.  It started as realistic with colored pencil then morphed into the abstract with oil pastel.  I watched myself add random marks that became a wing.  I smudged, added a hand holding the wing/feather, and included "words" in the background.

I couldn't add to the left.  It didn't feel "right".  I paused and observed... nothing came to mind.  No desire entered me to add anything.  Maybe I was feeling like I couldn't reflect back, or maybe it was simply a struggle in not knowing HOW to begin...  Maybe I have more focused vision of an end product.  I am thankful that Jess and I were meeting to use art making as a process to inform our intended professional journey of writing together.  

Time and time again, the art shows us what is on our minds.  This is not conscious, but the material behind consciousness.  It is latent.  It pushes us forward.  Sometimes our defenses react and work extra hard to keep the information away and out of sight.  Reflecting back, I think the latter was true for me.  How could we develop a project without a foundation?  How can we put energy into a finished project without any real foundation established (or made conscious) to support it?  These are aspects I need to explore both alone and in collaboration with Jess.

I closed the exploration by turning the page.  I left an impression on the left side by rubbing the back of the right. In enhancing the words "In the beginning", the "N" became an "M": "I'm the beginning".  Is this where our writing project can start?  Can it start with "I am"?

Looking at our books together we discovered several interesting elements: Color, placement, and form.

Color: The warm tones of pink, yellow, and orange that exist on each of our right-sided pages.  We sat across from one another.  While we shared the materials, there was a very wide variety of mediums and color palettes.  We sat outside on steps with the materials between us.  We each started with our books on the concrete.  As I became increasingly frustrated with the face, I turned slightly away from Jess and held my journal on my lap.  We were not conscious of the similar colors until we put the images near one another as in the above photo.

Placement and form:  I see patterns of boxes and forms that resonate between our images. The wing appears reminiscent of the blue, purple, and grey lines extending to the upper right hand corner of Jess' image.  Jess' building shadows also seem to appear in the black area in the crease of my journal and between the pages.

So what happens next?  From this we decided that we need to meet again for more art making, alone together.

Meditation Monday 6.29.15: Turn off my brain

"Turn off my brain"

Watercolor and tissue paper, 4"x 4"

M. Rattigan c. 2015

It has been a while.  Formal practices appear to occur sporadically, but I notice my informal mindfulness practice is happening everyday.  While a refreshing observation, it is imperative that I return to formal practice.  I have yet to complete my 8-week MBSR course which includes following specific formal practice sessions. I find it much easier to engage formally with sitting meditation followed by art making.

Today's practice of sitting and art engagement was particularly troublesome, but I am attempting to reframe it as "it just is".  My breathing was labored and my thoughts were highly intrusive as I sat and made the intention to simply focus on the out-breath.  As I have read and heard from my mindfulness friends, disengaging from consistent formal practices is like expecting to run long distance when you and your running sneakers haven't hit the road for a month.  My mind was caught in distractions: "Breathe, my shoes are constructing my feet -- kick them off, breathe, my ankle itches, breathe, remember to call so and so, etc..." Once settled, pulsing colors of white and dark pink circled and folded into themselves.  Outlines of a person in a top hat appeared and faded.  As I attempted to bring myself back to breath, the unending chain of thoughts and a to-do list intruded again.  As my sitting meditation came to a close, I was aware that I was a bit frustrated and desired the ability to just turn off my brain.

Moving to the art table I selected two smaller papers and joined them to make a 4" x 4" square.  I painted the words "turn off my brain" and proceeded to layer tissue paper and then paint along spontaneous creases and lines and edges.  I revisited the image later in the day and painted some more layers, again following the creases and marks.  I imagined following a faded map.  I was unsure of what the map was for or where it would take me, but I trusted that its message and meaning would illuminate itself when I was ready to receive it.

There are several aspects of the resulting image that intrigue me.  One is that the edges from the tissue paper are torn and not uniform.  Another is the insect-like forms that seemed to appear in the free form strokes. One appears like a blue dragonfly in flight.  These aspects are beautiful reminders that nothing is perfect (ragged edges).  Crawling, clinging, and fleeing (insect movements) are sometimes what we resort to when navigating unfamiliar, stressful, or challenging territory.     

Meditation Monday 12.1.14: Three Male Archetypes

From left to right, the sketch presents the town drunk (fool), the wise man (dwarf/gnome-like), and the woodsman.  The wise man appeared first.  He was very small.  He formed out of no where and startled me while I was in a relaxed state.  His beard was very white an he had very blue eyes.  The second figure appeared to my left in the corner of my eye...  I was disgusted when I saw him.  He was very overweight and appeared to have greasy skin and straggly black hair.  He was unkempt and appeared older than his age which I guessed to be in the early 20's.  The last one to appear came into the corner of my right eye.  He, too, was young... in the 18-25 age bracket.  He was all smiles yet seemed to be a fake, superficial, narcissistic-type.  He had short, light brown hair and a scruffy beard.

This was a bizarre meditative experience for me.  Prior to the appearance of these images, I struggled to feel grounded and relaxed.  I have no idea what these symbols mean or why they may have appeared.  In later discussion with my friend and colleague Elizabeth, we talked about these as male archetypes but I have not done any further investigation.

Any feedback or further knowledge of these archetypes is welcome.

Thanks for listening.

Meditation Monday: White Cat, Lion Mane

White Cat, Lion Mane

M. Rattigan c. 2015

Watercolor

Trying to breathe and focus on breath.  Losing the moment to future tasks. Attempt to bring it back and notice body sensations-- tingling in my head, ringing in my ears.  A high pitched hum and perhaps little ringing bells. Such is the life now with tinnitus from the concussion.  Despite this, I feel relaxed and aware.

For quite some time my mind does not conjure up any images -- I instead see blues and purples dancing and pulsating slowly along the dark shade of my eyelids.  Suddenly, a small white cat's head and piercing black eyes pop into the blank space.  It is a flash that happens only twice.  I notice a very large white mane surrounding the domestic cat's head.  Is it fur?  Is the texture hard like a statue?  I want to notice more, but my time ends with an abrupt and involuntary deep breath as if I gasp for air.

I am curious about the combination of domestic white cat and white lion's mane.  While I did not find any easy-to-access information regarding the combination, I found information about the symbols separately.  Except for the U.S., other countries (i.e., Japan) and other traditions (such as with the Celtic and Norse) refer to the white cat as good luck, happiness, purity, trust, goodness, and light.  Interestingly, the U.S. sees the white cat as lazy and cold.  The lion's mane is a symbol of health and potency.  In nature, the lion's mane provides protection during a fight and can also be used for intimidation.  In seeking information about white lions in particular, I learned that white lions in dreams may represent coming into awareness of one's own power.

I am intrigued by the possibilities of meanings: universal and personal.  I am not quite sure what to assess from the experience, but I do believe that I am regaining some of my strength after the mild TBI -- or at least, I'd like to think so.