Divine dissatisfaction

Yesterday, having given voice to my creative frustrations, I was feeling pretty low, worrying that I might not be doing what I was supposed to be doing -- whatever that might be. 

Interestingly enough, several people dropped in during the course of the day -- one even brought dinner.  And, having escorted one couple out to video wave patterns in the sand, I was walking back on the beach, just crossing up to the driveway, when I spotted a plastic bag, encrusted with seaweed, just beside my path. 

And inside the bag was this spinning heart you see here.

Now how bizarre is that?

The heart is about 7 inches high, and very shiny.  Some water and debris had gotten in the bag, but the heart was undamaged, so I took it in to the kitchen, cleaned it up, and hung it up from one of the hooks outside on my deck; I can see it spinning, tossing rays of color, from my dining room table.

Both the friends who stopped by later in the afternoon and evening remarked upon the significance of the heart.  I mean, even if you're not spiritual or particularly superstitious, it would be hard not to draw some reassurance from this.

This morning, in my reading in Jan Phillips' Marry Your Muse, I found a wonderful quote in the margin from Martha Graham that sort of cements the deal:

"No artist is pleased... There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than other human beings."

I'm not certain I'd claim to be more alive than other human beings.  But I've realized once again what I keep forgetting: that this malaise, this frustration, these transitional urges are somehow a vital part of the process. As one of my visitors said to me -- a woman I knew only as a writer and videographer, who turns out to have been an abstract painter for many years before developing her current skills -- "It's all about the black."

And can't you see that here?  It's the light (actually late afternoon sun) outside the picture that makes the image come alive.  But it needs the black inside the picture to set off that wonderful glow. So then, if we are divine images ourselves... the black inside clearly has an important role to play.

So I just need to breathe my way through this, and let that divine dissatisfaction work its magic.

It's all good.