Ravish Me

Happy New Year!

I’m painting again with an entirely new series of work for a show in March called Grace at the Kai Lin Art Gallery in Midtown. This series is about the process of enlightenment I’m beginning. It’ll be a lifetime of work and progression – but I’m on my way. The ordinary is more extraordinary and the objects I’ll paint will be metaphors for the changes I’m experiencing.

I am the teapot. Shimmering with peace and creativity. Changing. Becoming. Ready to pour, ready to be filled again. Ravish me! I can take it.

12 Reasons Why I’m No Longer A Christian

Been digging deep within my ego child’s mind in the Enlightenment therapy/training stuff I’m doing. This list came from my coach Debra, who has really saved my life. You all have heard/read about her before on this here beelog.

I recently got into a scrap with a man who used to be my “wizard” of sorts – the man who thought of me as the daughter he never had, and whose ideas about god, politics, and religion I adopted as my own from about the age of 4. This choice of mine really wasn’t a choice – but an offer of safety. We grow up mimicking our elders, thinking that if we model ourselves after them, our world makes sense, because it is all we know.

I realize now how trapped I was in a religious environment modeled after the idea of morality, humility, sacrifice and guilt. It was literally poisoning me. Today, I let go of its curses.

Now that I’ve realized I’ve survived my childhood and no longer need protection from god, the church or anyone, I see this world with such different eyes and with that, comes a new self.

I have had two children in my life. The first was my son Anton. The second is my new Self. The one who is everything there is, everything I am. And it’s all up to me. Wow. What freedom there is in that statement.

I still have a lot of anger to sift through as I reclaim my own beliefs and create my own life. But I am on my way. Through. And shining the entire time.

Here goes the list:

Some Basic Axiomatic Positionalities of the Ego

from Reality and Subjectivity by David R. Hawkins

1. Phenomena are either good or bad, right or wrong, just or unjust, fair or unfair.

2. The “bad” deserve to be punished and the “good” rewarded.

3. Things happen by accident or else they are the fault of somebody else.

4. The mind is capable of comprehending and recognizing truth from falsehood.

5. The world causes and determines one’s experiences.

6. Life is unfair because the innocent suffer while the wicked go unpunished.

7. People should be different than they are.

8. It is critical and necessary to be right.

9. It is critical and necessary to win.

10. Wrongs must be righted.

11. Righteousness must prevail.

12. Perceptions represent reality.

Healing Crisis and Nonie

Many of you know that my grandmother, Adele (we called her Nonie) died last Saturday morning. It was such a gift to be able to witness her passing and preparation for letting go. The healing and rebirth that occurred within me from having been a part of this death has lasted all week and last night, came to a pulsating head.

It began with a headache and tailbone pain (the usual for me when there’s something I need to look at or let go of). This pain is the ego child’s mind afraid, regretful, etc. I decided to go to a Thursday night Enlightenment meeting where Martha Burgess talks to a cozy group about all of this stuff – all this healing – all this surrendering – all this movement and letting go. Last night’s topic was about losing parts of you along the way and reclaiming them. The parts of me I diminished as a child that I set aside in favor of getting more love, etc. Two really big parts I diminished of mine were 1. my femininity and 2. the artist.

Even going to undergrad art school didn’t grant me access to this birthright of mine. I went through it all with trepidation and angst and self loathing. Sure, I learned some techniques but really, what I came away with was the idea that I wasn’t good enough (because I was just a woman) and that the act of creation was painful and often lead to depression and suicide. Isn’t that awful!? No wonder I stopped painting! It made me miserable.

NOW I am relearning the act of creation and pooling all of the skills I’ve acquired along the way into a more complete and productive Anne. I am finally calling myself an artist. It took that long. And I no longer curse the decision to go to art school any longer.

All I want to do in this moment is PAINT. Again. And paint big. And sell big. Gallery big. Opening big. And I’ve got more than enough content to ride this new wave of creativity and power. Sure the little books and boxes are fun – but one can never charge enough money for the amount of time you put into them. So they’ll stay as products of the fun classes I teach. But starting today, I am carving out more of my time to create the art I’ve wanted to for so long. The bulk of my income will be from painting and the pieces I sell.

I feel so liberated.

But back to the healing crisis: Last night near the end of the Martha Burgess workshop, she walked up to me and said that my grandmother on my mother’s side was with me. Martha’s never met me before. But she saw Nonie. And BOY did I cry then. She took my face in her hands and kissed my cheek and said “this is from her.”

So yeah. Nonie is one with all of life, having ended this life and entered into the next. I made this little xmas ornament for Nonie years ago and she hung it in her living room for years. Now it’s mine again. And she’s with me everywhere. So wonderful to rediscover her.

I woke up this morning having felt the cellular effect of all the healing Martha did for me last night. I’ll take it easy today and continue to heal.

The most amazing epiphany I walked away with last night (and there were many!) was this: You cannot create and worry about survival simultaneously. Now THAT redefines work, doesn’t it? So when I paint – it will be about expressiveness without judgement – the kind of judgement that says “I’ll fail, I’m not good enough at this, they’ll laugh at me.”

I will be a channel for the God within me, who is the ONLY God – not some hefty white-bearded man in a robe that is separate from me.

First step this weekend is to take a hot bath right now – get those cells to feeling better, eat and sleep and just love myself.

I am amazed by this movement. I am in awe. I am beginning to really believe (someday I’ll KNOW) that change is the most beautiful thing ever.

I am moving. My world has been rocked. And fuck, I AM the rock! and the water. and the stone…

Da Flood

The rain caused our back porch to flood and seeped into the floor of my studio. Kind of a mess and a bit of panic. Nothing was damaged, though my carpet stinks. It needed cleaning anyway. It was interesting, working through the challenge of a flood with Doug. We made it through and I think calmly. That’s another notch in our belt.

Funny thing about marriage. My idea of a perfect one has certainly been challenged. The vows we took so many years ago can be rewritten daily if we want to. It’s constantly being reinvented. And we’re both of us going through a great number of spiritual transformations. It is an awesome thing to watch happen. Again, my idea of God was the big rusty cog in my understanding of this life and how things work and can/should be. Once that changed, I broadened and I feel a great weight has been lifted off me.

The parental God, the christian God keeps you needy, guilty, ashamed, weak and helpless. It keeps you bound to things, people and obligations. It shales all personal responsibility off your shoulders. It comes at a huge price of OWING and atoning for your natural shortcomings.

This new god is about love only. No debt. No shame. No guilt. All love. It’s all love. And I am strong. And things happen as they should, comfortable or not. It’s all great information to bring me closer to the god I know I am. I am responsible for my own pace, my own learning, my own choices. And there is no fear. If I see it or feel it, I look right at it and ask it what it’s telling me. The way through working through your fears is the only way.

God isn’t fear anymore. It’s all okay.

Knitting New Scarves

This new book by Lynne Barr called Knitting New Scarves is AMAZING. What I love most is that the projects are so sculptural and use the most elemental stitches. They are a beautiful mixture of quirkiness and elegance and I’m really eager to begin one. I know this is an excellent book for me because I’m having trouble choosing my first project.

In my own work, when I “made a mistake” by over or under measuring for a book or box, there was always a way to work around the problem and solve it in a unique way. A way in which offered a new and distinctive innovation in my books, a different closing mechanism, a pocket to cover up bumps, a short sheet that became decorative on the spine, etc.

This knitter approaches her knitting classes the same way. Her students come with unique problems in their knitting and poof – she’s got a solution for the problem which turns into a variation for another scarf pattern. I tell my students the same thing: “they weren’t mistakes; they were opportunities.”

And this new way of assessing mistakes, my friends, JUST happens to be part of the road to Enlightenment, too.

The Enlightened Egg

This little book was made for Debra. The image of birds has shown up a lot in our sessions and the metaphor for their flight, beauty and grace has been really meaningful to me. I bought a cool sheet of wrapping paper with birds, nests and egg imagery and have been using it in a lot of work lately. This first book of the batch went to Debra.

The floating egg is enlightened, as she is and as I hope to be soon. Maybe it’s a gradual process and I’m already hovering just above ground level? I hope so.

The little phrase at the bottom that says “each generation of children has to learn everything over again” came from a vintage hypnotism book cousin Meagan got me in Texas this summer. And the sheet of book cloth it rests on was made from a beautiful linen shirt I bought doug years ago that he stopped wearing. It’s cut up in a million little pieces now and shows up in the work now and then. Fun!

Oh! And the sexy “feminine footwear” boots on the inside are from a vintage 1970′s shoe catalogue. Debra’s a shoe addict/expert, so I thought this book fit her well.