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.