Tag: expression

My Level of Creativity.

“By Living a Life full of Art, we may achieve an artful life.” Ellen J. Langer, who also said, “All it takes to become an Artist is to start doing Art.”

As my daughter and I walked around and saw other people’s art, it inspired me to do my own.

I believe what we do inspires us and where we go and by how we spend our time, for if you don’t consciously attend to your inner passion, your passion will recede into a dormant state.

It literally is true, what we focus on expands.

I have felt the difference in the past few days of feeling the angst of making a point to many who feel it is pointless, in comparison to walking among fabulous art, inspiring fabrics and being immersed in shopping for the right accent for my daughter’s first apartment.

The difference is vast. One pulls you back into a vortex of manic expression and the other raises my level of creativity.

August 12, 2011

art, artful, creative, Ellen J. Langers, expression, levels, rising
Disguised as kindness.

The word compliment and its twisting definition is trying to find true meaning in my head, for I feel that compliments are an outside expression we are trying to own, like hand-me-down self worth and self esteem.

When I looked up the definition I found this.

“Something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect.”

Or

“An expression of praise, admiration, or congratulation. An expression of esteem, respect, affection, or admiration; especially: an admiring remark b: formal and respectful recognition.

The first meaning seems odd, that ‘something is going to make us complete or perfect and fill us up. I know that this isn’t possible, that we can’t fill up another person or complete them in any way.

And yet compliments are noted as being kind. Really??? How is it kind to pretend to fill up another?

If I give you a compliment how do you wear it? How do you then bring it inside and own it as your own meaning. Isn’t it second hand?

I then thought that the truthfulness or the authenticity of the compliments lay within the receiver not the giver.

The state and condition of the receiver makes all the difference in the world. If your self worth and self-esteem are wanting and you are not whole and healthy, than compliments are desired to make you so. And this leads to the compliments being more powerful than you.

Compliments come from other people and they usually come after we have done something, so then this makes us work to gain our self worth, we have to do something to feel good.

I used to work hard to gain pieces of my self worth, to be perfect, for I had very little sense of self inside, I needed their opinions and expressions to show me who I was, in their silence I disappeared.

As I dropped the folks who used to give me their expressions and praise, I also dropped my need or desire for what they felt about me. I then was able to feel first hand about my self.

Isn’t there a ‘backhanded compliment’? What is does that mean? Is that an unkind compliment or one with an agenda? Is it a compliment that has a hidden meaning?

To me, if compliments are meant to make you feel better then they are dangerous, for you have to first feel great in order to receive them and then you don’t need them for you are full already.

They seem like ego mist to me…something the ego feels is good for us and that it lies within others and not within ourselves…something we can’t ourselves grasp or hold on to, yet others seem to carry for us.

Another co-dependent chain disguised as kindness.

July 24, 2011

co-dependent, compliments, expression, feelings, kindness, opinions, outward, within
Half Dead

There are two ways to look at relationships and what is defined as kind or unconditional will depend on which side you are standing upon.

Most of my old relationships had the relationship as the ruler and I as its servant.

Now I arrive in each relationship as the ruler and the relationship serves me or doesn’t.

In the past, I was a martyr in relationships.

I looked up the meaning of Martyr.

1. somebody put to death: somebody who chooses to die rather than deny a strongly held belief, especially a religious belief

2. somebody who makes sacrifices: somebody who makes sacrifices or suffers greatly in order to advance a cause or principle.

Wow, is that right on or what. I definitely was a martyr in my relationships…I made sacrifices of my self, my feelings and my truth to remain in relationships. I suffered greatly to advance the cause…the family.

I may not be adequately framing this, but in my old relationships it required me to be dead in order for me to be there.

An aware, alive and responding me shattered the relationship. I no longer suffered for the cause.

It was kind to the relationship for me to remain dead and unresponsive, yet very unkind to me. I have now reversed that order.

I also feel that a thriving whole relationship requires two alive people…

Otherwise it is half dead.

July 16, 2011

alive, dead, denial, expression, lies, martyrs, relationship, self
Your Art

Between The Artist’s Way writings and exercises as well as pondering a Bio for myself, it came to me that Life and Art mirror each other, perfectly.

My Art has changed along with me, or me along with my Art, at times it gets confusing as to who is leading who.

I used to live life following a pattern, steering close within the lines, feeling secure that if I lived a certain way, I would know how life would go and where I would be in the end.

My life style matched my quilting and crafts, I followed patterns and felt daring when I did not.

One of my first attempts at Art was working in clay, and I made button covers and bolo ties and necklaces, all very bohemian, triangles and swirls. When I brought them to a Gallery, the lady replied upon seeing them, “that’s not Art.”

I remember feeling the blow, but still stood by the ‘art’…and signed up for a local Art Fair, had a tent and sold quite a few necklaces and bolo ties. In a booth to my left was the lady from the Art Gallery, she watched as folks walked away with my ‘not’ Art.

For some reason, even against criticism I followed my Art…for it felt like Art to me. And while I wasn’t good at standing up for my self at that time, I stood resolute behind my creations.

Another Bright idea I had was to make coffin quilts. They rest gently on the coffin and have a drape that hangs down to cover your lower half. These quilts spoke of the things the person loved while living. I felt they were a memory quilt of sorts, a remembrance of what their Spirit enjoyed while living. Yet they were misunderstood by the funeral home director how deals with dead bodies and the grieving.

He said they were too full of ego. I was shocked and horrified, for they were the complete opposite.

This was my first glimpse of the confusion between Art/Spirit and ego.

My art had more spirit in it than I myself did, which is why I felt so strongly aligned with it, a part of me was in each piece, perhaps more of me than was living in my life at that time.

And the folks talking about my art were saying more about themselves than about my art.

While I was trying to find the definition between Art and Craft, I should have been looking closer at the people who were looking at me.

Today my life is much more in sync with my spirit, with my truth and my integrity, so my art bleeds the same, it echoes me, and I fully understand when folks don’t understand my art, they more or less will not understand me.

The lady from the Gallery dresses very different, her clothes shouting Artist, and it seems to me she is trying to be an artist backwards. That she is believes if she looks the part, art will come.

I feel that my Art is taunting me and hollering to me to be more like it, to add color and loosen up, to catch up…to dare to stand unique and it seems I am living precariously through my art…or using it to let my self run wild.

My art makes me an Artist; I don’t make art to be an Artist.

My quilts are much further ahead of me in life; it takes months sometimes for me to understand the meanings or messages they bring.

Similar to my life story and how looking closely at my life’s events, I needed each one to create who I am today.

Perhaps each day or moment in our lives are little works of Art, expressions of Spirit…your Art.

June 21, 2011

art, Artist’s, Cameron, expression, gallery, Julia, life, quilts, self, way
Self Love

If you held a woman’s vagina sacred, if you held a woman sacred, you couldn’t murder her or rape her or mutilate her or hurt her. Eve Ensler

I just listened to the Vagina Monologues.

What an incredible and insightful look at the one body part that has been used and abused to take our spirits and how sad most often it occurs in young childhood, before we even know it intimately ourselves.

The heart of a woman, the place where we can experience and express the wild nature of women, is captured and raped before we even connect, stolen before we find our own worth.

Eve Ensler opens the dialogue in how detached and unowning we are to our own body parts after they are misused.

We walk away from the wound too.

We treat ourselves as others treated us, without care or feeling, we turn ourselves off.

In one part she mentions a group of young girls who just returned from Rape Camp and how they lined up with their mothers to have a picture taken, and not one of the girls looked at the camera, all heads down in shame.

Looking down in shame for being raped.

It is how they see themselves now, through the eyes of their abused vagina.

Their sense of being a woman has completely changed by the treatment their vaginas received.

The treatment they received is now the ruler of self worth.

What a journey into regaining your power back, to hold yourself worthy, to find the specialness, to feel again after the most sensitive and sensual part has been brutally treated.

By looking at abuse from the body part which abuse occurred is to see the difference between a sacred and loved vagina to one who has been ravaged by abuse.

Again, the saddest part to me is that very young girls are being abused before they even know what it is, how it works, that it is sacred, that it is an expression of love, a tool for pleasure not pain, and they are driven away from the most intimate part of themselves.

This disconnect creates frozen or careless owners, where they are ‘ice maidens’ or floozies. The swing from one pole to the next shows how out of control of their bodies they are.

Learning to love and hold sacred our own bodies is a huge part of the healing process, to reclaim them from the abusers, redefining them once again, returning them back to their innocence.

Because it is such an intimate part of ourselves, when abused, we lose our sense of intimacy, a personal loving relationship with self.

This loss of self intimacy is our greatest loss…we lose reverence and sacredness of self, we lose our own self love.

May 12, 2011

abuse, abused, Ensler, Eve, expression, intimacy, loss, love, Monologues, regaining, sacred, self, speaking, Vagina, woman
We Play!

“When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?” ~Howard Ikemoto

Imagine a world where we didn’t forget to be a child, to have the childlike wonder of the world, a sense of knowing we know how to do anything without fear and lack of self-confidence?

Where we didn’t have to take classes to learn how ‘draw correctly’ or write perfectly, but instead do what feels right for you.

It seems at times we are taught so much, we are taught how not to be ourselves.

We learn until we lose our way back to our self.

Perhaps the class we need the most is an open class without rules or expectations, a class where we go to unlearn all the fears and lacks that have been preached to us, a safe zone where we shed the years and layers of all the things that are not us.

A shedding room, a fleecing space where we can get back to the childlike place, where we are the center of the Universe, where we can do anything and we admire ourselves and all that we accomplish, where we affix stars to all that we do each day, where there is an unlimited amount of energy and things we want to see and do, where the world is wide open and we are free.

How do we take off the heavy cloaks of doubt, fear, and lack that we drag around each day? How do we quiet the voices that have trained us to be motionless in fear?

We wiggle free by doing things no adult in their ‘right’ mind would do… we play!

February 17, 2011

adults, art, child, classes, expression, fear, lack, lost, play, regulations, rules, self
A Life Review of Feelings

While in yoga yesterday, I wondered if the body could express itself without a head, is there a way to vent your feelings below the neck?

It seems to me that the head holds all the valves of release.

Our tears are shed through our eyes, our mouths speak words, our beliefs and thoughts either match our feelings or deny them, but all the expressions are done above the neck, yet the feelings seem to be below.

We feel deeply with our heart, our gut has instincts and intuitively knows, we feel ‘something’ deeply in our bones, and the truth of our experiences seems to reside in the torso.

Yet the head is where we can articulate what the body feels.

It is like the head needs to tune into the body, open a line, and form a connection.

When the two are joined as one, we can live a life that is steered by feelings and emotions allowing us to express specifically our needs, wants and desires.

Living totally in the head leaves you separated from feelings and emotions.

I am not certain you can release emotions with out a head.

The vents are in the head as far as I can tell.

If a body is detached from the head, it just fills up with unexpressed emotions, which grows into rage, rage that explodes and subsides all without ever delving into their formation. I believe the root of disease.

A head that is detached from the body, is a senseless head.

A head that is making choices based on whims of others, for it has no roots, nothing to anchor it down, it is not grounded in feelings or emotions connected to your life, it floats a few feet ahead of your body.

Amazing to witness this, live this way and then get the opportunity to experience the rejoining of head to body, to feel feelings that have long been stuffed down, to go back in a life review of feelings.

December 28, 2010

body, detached, disease, emotions, expressed, expression, feelings, head, life, mind, unemotional, Unexpressed, venting