This is another of the images shot at the Fort Worden Bunkers -- I've just heightened the colors and changed the top a little. It has a little statue-of-liberty-in-the-clouds feeling for me; when I first saw the original version I saved it as "I lift my lamp," because I could hear these words from the song we learned as children:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
As an artist, I am thrilled by the colors and textures of that yellow/orange-into-purple section in the middle of the picture, and by the sort of ruffled feeling of the vertical arm. But some other part of me feels that the purple clouds are obscuring some important part of the image, leaving her faceless, or blinded, or perhaps voiceless. And then there's that ominous streak of what looks like blood above the central cloud...
So here's what came to me in the course of centering prayer this morning. I know: centering prayer is supposed to be about creating a sort of inner silence, an emptiness. But just as often -- for me -- it is about opening my awareness to what's blocking that silence. And what's blocking the silence for me today is something that doesn't even affect me directly. People close to me have created a situation which they all deem acceptable, but which from my perspective has all the seeds for a potential disaster.
My rational mind tells me -- repeatedly -- that if the disaster does occur, it will ultimately prove useful; an educational opportunity for all affected parties. Another part of me is saying it's possible that because these people have different values from mine, the outcome may not be disastrous at all. And another part of me is concerned with the fallout's effect on one particularly vulnerable individual.
But I suspect -- given the nature of my dreams last night -- that what is really bothering me is the situation's unfortunate resonance with my own personal history. Watching what appears to be history repeating itself -- though that may not be what is actually happening -- is awakening some uncomfortable old demons, and so I'm pretty edgy. And the question is: what do I do with all this?
I've already explained my concerns to that vulnerable participant -- who acknowledges the underlying reason for my anxiety but suggests gently that this situation is completely different. So I've said my piece, and must be silent now; perhaps that's why the cloud over the face in the image feels so stifling. And perhaps that bloody smear is just about old wounds being reawakened, not about impending doom.
So maybe I need to get back to the roots of this image. Because the fact is, what I photographed is just a crack in a foundation. But that foundation still survives despite the crack. Is that what's bothering me? Could it be a sense of guilt for having run when my own foundation began to crack? Clearly some things can continue to exist despite their cracks; perhaps I've been too hasty? Am I willing this other situation to fail so that I won't feel bad about my own exit habits?
That is, of course, the question of the wounded healer: how do we know when what we are seeing is true, and when it is colored by our own woundedness? Is what emerges from our woundedness wisdom? Or is it simply a determination to project a particular lens onto other situations? When do we trust our intuition, and when must we step back and away, understand that our vision may be faulty, and allow events to occur without interference? And what do we do with the voltage that surges in us as we watch, even from a distance?
These, to me, are key questions for anyone who chooses to play the role of coach. But it's also a key value of my meditation practice: it gives me the opportunity to step apart and observe, a chance to see what is being triggered in me and a chance to sit with that; to allow my own issues to surface in a quiet, separate space without spreading their toxicity onto others. Which is not to say that's an easy place to sit.
On the other hand, I have to believe -- it's all good.
5 comments:
There is also both a tiny "x" and what looks to be a cross on the extended "arm". The former meaning, perhaps, the paths available, and a crossing that's inevitable; the latter, the need to know whichever route is taken, (S)He is with you.
Clouds obscure, yes; they also move. I imagine the clearing, or revelation, simply waits its moment when the light shines brightest.
P.S. Good luck with your first session as coach. Will be thinking of you.
I, too, am thrilled, yet disturbed by the image. I see the Statue, I also see a cross. Both beckon the tired and poor, but I see the clouds too. They seem an obstruction.
I hope your fears are unfounded, what ever they are. But as mothers, it's hard not to use what we have known as dangerous in our own lives and want to warn others -- and it seems to little effect...
Still thinking,
Kim
A wise friend once said to me: Louise, you must trust yourself to be responsible for your own happiness. And trust others to be responsible for theirs.
And sometimes, sitting where we are, looking in and out, our site is obscured -- until the clouds lift and we see, what we feared was nothing other than the past, as you so beautifully state it.
Hugs and good luck on your first coaching!
Yippee!
Although I've been a missing reader for a while, I must say I am NEVER disappointed with what I see and read here at your site. This is a wonderfully provocative post that I'll be printing out to hold near me in reflection time - it just feels too important to only read once.
Also, this beautiful abstract is so similar in color to the blue heron strolling through the mossy shallows in your prior post - almost as thought you've abstracted the heron into the image on this post....very pleasing to my eyes - both images, that is.
xo
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