You are a divine elephant

My husband took this photo with his smartphone at my request: this elephant was on the tabletop at the restaurant we went to on a whim Friday evening.

I am not usually all that interested in elephants, but they had developed a particular significance in a therapy session just that afternoon, so I was amused to see one appear before me.  We hadn't been to this particular restaurant in several years, so it was just -- an odd set of coincidences.

... Made odder still this morning, when I discovered the Hafiz poem for today in Daniel Ladinsky's A Year with Hafiz:

All in All

Could you help me with this? an ant said
to an elephant when a large seed the ant was
dragging back to its nest got stuck between
some grass.

The elephant, looking down and feeling
kindhearted that day, began to contemplate
all that might be needed to render some
service,

but the task just seemed too delicate and
in need of more precision than the elephant’s
trunk or one of his feet or even his tail or one
of his grand ears could handle effectively.

So the elephant began to pray for divine
intervention, and sure enough it worked, or
it seemed to --

a berry on a nearby bush happened to fall
in such a way as to free the seed for its
onward destination.

The elephant’s faith in God was increased,
and the ant, having heard the prayer, was
now less of an agnostic, which he had been
for the last year or so because of personal
reasons... he would rather keep private.

All in all, seems things are moving ahead,
working out for the best.
Yep.

I went online after reading this, knowing I wanted to post the poem here and hoping I wouldn’t have to type out the whole thing, but I couldn't find it.  Everywhere I looked, though, there was another terrific Hafiz quote,: 'You are a divine elephant with amnesia trying to live in an ant hole.'

Wonderful!  Great message for a Sunday morning, too.

So -- how is this true for YOU?  Have you even begun to realize yet how HUGE the divine spirit is in you?  How will you release it, and give it voice?

And in the meantime, isn't it great to be reminded:

All in all, seems things are moving ahead,
working out for the best.
Yep.

Dissolving in the infinite

I have opened all the windows
in my house. 
Eagles fly in and out,
as do any words
that are spoken about me.
Anything my ears might detect,
firsthand or second --
I might give that news
a moment's attention.
and then just let it be
the tiny whiff of smoke it is
dissolving in the infinite.

-- Hafiz

The supportive audience

Yesterday two of my blog sisters took the time to encourage me on this new creative path I'm exploring.  It's amazing what an encouraging word can do: it gives me just the pick-me-up I need to keep going when things are getting tough. 

But at the same time there are those other voices that kick in -- the one that says I shouldn't be so dependent on praise (don't you just hate those shoulds?), and the one that is so desperate for approval that it wants to stop right there and keep doing the same thing for more praise, rather than to keep pushing the envelope, and the one that sneers at that eagerness to please...

Overthinking -- and too much navel-gazing -- can be the death of the creative process.  How do we listen through the cacophony of conflicting voices for the one true voice that leads us forward?

I think we need to join our own appreciative audience, and be willing to applaud and encourage our own efforts to step out of our comfort zones.  So it was amusing this morning to read -- in a chapter about the terror of the blank page in Trust the Process -- these words about the importance of a supportive audience:

"The supportive audience that practices Carl Rogers's discipline of unconditional positive regard is critically important.  If I am to be completely present in my expression I cannot be thinking about whether or not it will please or offend people in the audience.  These thoughts distract me and take me away from complete concentration on what I am doing.  Some might say that this method of performing "presence" is egocentric.  I disagree because the artists and the audience are dedicating themselves to the particular expressions that emerge through the performance.  The artist is a medium for their emergence.  The witnessing function of the audience both energizes the performance and creates the safety needed to establish an authentic sense of presence."

I suspect this is exactly why it is so difficult for so many of us to face the blank page or the empty canvas: we are so intensely self-critical that it doesn't feel safe to step out onto that bare stage and express whatever is emerging in that moment.  Fearful of what dark secrets might be revealed, we hide behind the safety of what we know, holding our successes up to mask whatever truths and failures and insecurities might lie beneath...

Stay with it...

I spent most of yesterday experimenting, but the results were NOT particularly satisfying.  I get that I'm supposed to be learning from my mistakes, but all I seem to be getting from this is that this is a rather unproductive road I'm going down: I can't quite seem to cross the bridge between where I am and where I want to go...

Funny, isn't it, how the creative life so often parallels regular everyday life!  But if I just assume that's true, then the lessons from one should carry over into the other.  Which means, I suspect, that I can't give up yet; can't walk away, must keep knocking at this door.  Something is here to be learned, and I just have to stay present with the struggle til I find out what it is.

Grr.  So much easier to cut and run; go back to what's safe...

The gift in mistakes

Back when I was married to my first husband, I used to love visiting his older sister, who lived only a couple of hours away.  She and her husband served as house parents for a prep school dormitory, and I remember she had a poster on her refrigerator that said, "If you love somebody, tell them."

Carol was particularly good at that, so she was truly a joy to be around (and the kids in the dorm loved her, of course).  And though I don't remember the image from that poster, the sentiment stuck over the years, and clearly got passed on to my daughters: I hear them saying those three little words to their friends all the time.

... which is a good thing, because we all need to hear that we are loved.   But I also remember reading a book on child-rearing in the 70s -- Faber and Mazlish's Liberated Parents, Liberated Children -- which emphasized that it wasn't enough to just praise a child: you needed to be specific about what you were praising.  They also introduced me to the idea that it was important to make it clear when expressing anger with a child that you are objecting, not to them, but to their behavior. 

So "I like it when you do that" became a catch-phrase for me, and I tried hard to impress my girls with the difference between a distaste for someone's behavior and a distaste for their actual person.  Because I do believe the world could be a better place if we could all learn to hate the hateful things that people do without hating the people that do hateful things.  (Was that sentence convoluted enough for you?)

This partly comes up this morning because I woke to find a note in my mailbox conveying praise for my performance at rehearsal last night -- and it just made me feel so good!  But it also relates to what I'm reading this morning in Trust the Process about the importance of allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Which is really important to hear when I'm caught in this limbo between what I've been doing and what I'm going to be doing: I really need to be okay with mistakes if I'm going to keep moving forward. 

And I'm realizing, thinking about Faber and Mazlish this morning, that however good I might have been about "hate the sin but love the sinner" with my kids, I'm not all that good at it with myself -- especially with myself, the artist.  If I dislike whatever art I produced that day, there's a litany of accusations that begins dripping away at my psyche in the background, like water torture.  "You're no good.  You're kidding yourself.  You'll never amount to anything.  You're not good at creating, just at copying..." And the most common one I hear from that internal judge, "What were you thinking?  You're an idiot."

Clearly I have some retraining to do of those inner voices -- both the ones that applaud (which are all too quiet) and the ones that are so quick to criticize.  So here.  This is what I created yesterday afternoon; it builds on what I created the day before, though that may not be obvious.  And though some part of me wonders where on earth this is going and what the heck it has to do with where I've been, I like it.  I like the angularity of it, and the sort of Japanese floral effect.  And so I'm honoring that and sharing it here with you. 

I'm trying to learn to be kinder to myself -- and to trust that sometimes the things that look like mistakes could be an entry point into a whole new direction.  I invite you to do the same!

The promise of mindfulness

Our reassuring words for today 

come from renowned botanist George Washington Carver, 

as quoted in Jack Kornfield's book, The Wise Heart:

"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough."

In the liminal space

Last night I got a small block of uninterrupted time.  And realizing that I'd been hungry all day for the process of creation, I sat down at my computer to see if I could invite something into being.

This is what emerged -- as usual, a combination of several different images -- and I decided to name her "Agnes, preparing," thinking she must be preparing for death.  I had no idea what she was trying to tell me, but then this morning I read this in McNiff's book,  Trust the Process:

"Creation is a process of emanation.  Nothing will happen unless we start working and allow the practice of our particular disciplines to mix with the streams of ideas and experiences that are constantly moving through daily life.  These streams are never blocked.  Therefore, the practice of creation involves the ability to tap into them... 

The experienced creator is forever intrigued with the unplanned results that emerge from faithful practice... As with birthing, the practice of creation requires a continuous respect for that which takes place autonomously and in its own time.  The creator is a necessary participant, but like childbirth the process is not controlled by the person who serves as the agent of delivery.

Creation also has a destructive aspect.  The angelic offspring are accompanied by bothersome demons.  As Nietzsche declared, the artist must break things apart in order to create anew.  Even Picasso felt that every major creative act carries a shadow and its share of negativity. The results of artistic expression may bring relief, joy, and harmony, but the process thrives on tension.  Conflict and uncertainty are the forces that carry the artist to new and unfamiliar places.  Creative practice can be viewed as a ritual of preparation, readying the psychic household for unexpected guests and fresh combinations of familiar things..."

The process of creation seems to necessitate a certain amount of time spent in that uncomfortable place we call "liminal space:" the place between what was and what is to come.  We don't get to control our going into that space or our coming out; we just have to trust that truth will emerge when its time comes.

I suspect that what this passage -- and Agnes -- are telling us is that part of our preparation for that which lies within us, waiting to be born, will be to step aside and allow certain other aspects of life to die.  And therein lies the conflict and the tension.  It's not like this is an unfamiliar process: When we enter into relationship, we say farewell to the single life.  A couple expecting their first child must say farewell to the freedoms they experienced prior to childbirth.  A child leaving home must say farewell to the relatively pampered existence of family life.   But the transition between what was and is to come are rarely as smooth as we might wish.

As I write this, I'm hearing Anne Murray's 1996 recording of "I know too much:"

You live and learn to crash and burn;
Come out of the ashes even more alive.
You make your mistakes -- whatever it takes --
But know when to hit the brakes and when to let it slide.
 
You can come crying on my shoulder
But don't ask me to show you the way:
As I get wiser, as I get older
It seems like I've got less to say
 
I know too much: I've seen the light
And I've been lost in the shadow of doubt.
I know too much to give up on love
And I know too much to ever try to figure it out
 
What would I do if I were you?
Take my advice don't take advice from me!
There's no wrong or right no black or white --
Just shades of gray as far as I can see.
 
Promises, rules and hearts get broken;
Plans and minds and people change;
One door slams and another door opens --
Don't ask me I can't explain
 

I know too much I've seen the light
And I've been lost in the shadow of doubt.
I know too much to give up on love
And I know too much to ever try to figure it out.

I know these lyrics because I used to sing this song with a group of friends called "Those Guys from Orcas."  I'll post a youtube video of it here so you can get an idea of how the song goes, but I warn you -- we are definitely NOT professionals!