Recently, my young hairdresser, just entering a new relationship, told me about an article that
spoke about marriage. It was about hard reasons for divorce, and soft reasons. You can guess that the hard reasons had to do with forms of abuse, substance abuse, addictions, and infidelity. The soft reasons were more like, he doesn’t understand me, we are not where we used to be, he’s not a good listener, etc. She was saying, as a young unmarried woman, that the commitment was very important, and at times we leave without looking at our need to change ourselves.
Perhaps, relationship is God’s way of giving us opportunity for open heartedness. Do we really need what we think we need from others or do we need to stretch, to go inside and find our own inner resources.
I love when painting for process, takes me to a place where I can stretch more, see things from an expanded awareness, the wholeness of any situation or conflict. The expanded feeling allows our eyes to be opened anew, to how we can give, what love and friendship mean.
We get disappointed that things aren’t what we think they should be.Isn’t this the purpose of living, to surprise us, ask us togo further, to accept, or at least be aware?
I’ve come across a new book, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. He gives guidelines of how energy fluctuates according to how we respond, when things don’t go our way. It happens often enough that maybe we can find ways to with the journey of life that open the heart, relax the defenses, and the expectations. Can we relax into what is?

On my return from a month in India recently,
I was able to see what for a few days, was unfamiliar.
My life was unfamiliar. Who I was before the trip was
clearly a someone who no longer existed.
We had recently moved. Our home was new, our old home in another state having been sold.
And here I was in a very foreign country, having very different experiences, just after trying to find my space in a new part of the country. The experience of being a foreigner, in a different land and culture, and when one arrives back home is very interesting.
It felt very much like that feeling when you wake up, but still don’t know who or where you are. The first response was, irritation, jet lag, too,of course.
There was so much new and disturbing in the sounds, sights and smells of India. Images abounded that were beautiful and painful. every night, outside my room , on the streets, the always stray dogs of India would yowl with pain. I wanted to run and help, but couldn’t find the courage to leave my safe room and go into a darkened street, unaccompanied.
Then there were what I call the three fates, three very elderly women,
dressed in the white of mourning. They came to me from across the way, and , talking in Hindi, kissed and hugged me, calling out the name of my spiritual teacher. Recognition of oneness. I could not tell them apart, and felt like they included me in this merger.
There was the woman in her 80’s from Dubhai who was writing a book of her mystical experiences. She had been, as she said, just a Mother. She shared these experiences and made us cry.
And then to return to the new home, mysterious, too. Why am I here, not there or there. What brings me here or there, coming and going? Is there really something in me that is constant? Maybe not so much. Maybe it is knowing this that is the anchor, the truth of living. being lived, without a point of reference. Can it be?

What painting brings with it, is a stronger sense of self.
The longer I paint the more right I feel within myself, the more connected. I may need a moment to check check is it instinct, intuition or impulsivity, but then the direction opens up, like a choice of road,at a crossroads where one just seems to be brighter.
In painting for process, we are trained to come from what feels alive.
In life, it seems more real, more invested, more a dream that is actively lived.
Can we choose or just follow, then? More and more , it seems the choices are done before they are manifest. There is some flow in life, as in creativity that moves us, and we just have to pick up the scent, the flirt as Arnie Mindell says, in his many books about the dream body.

When we are following, power then becomes alignment and flow. It is a lived experience, not an efforted one. Manipulation and assertion is no longer needed if one speaks their truth, one’s understanding without imposition, or expectation.
Painting has brought the process of letting go, and noticing what is already unfolding. It has brought participation in the divine. The will is used merely to turn one’s attention in the right direction. A little dot of color here, maybe not so important, but it sparks a wave of feeling, excitement that carries us on another wave of creativity. We want to stay buoyant, so we go with it, curious and open. Where now is there a question of power? I don’t claim it as an owned thing, just what is moving, and it has it’s own intelligence.

In the painting process, there is a lot of time spent in finishing the painting. Sometimes it seems like a painting will not let go of us. We are sure it’s over and yet it lingers, calling us back further into itself, ourselves, actually. We had no inkling of the depth the experience held, nor of the beauty waiting for us in the final moments.
My dog died recently, and although I’ve heard that from so many people, I had no idea how strong an experience it would be for me. She had been ill for many months, and every so often, I would give in to the idea of putting her to sleep. what stopped me was her gaze, her ability to stay awake to everything, and still give love.
When her last days did come, I wasn’t at home, and had a hard time believing it was really happening. And at the end, her death gave me and everyone involved enormous gifts. Later, I wondered at how I thought I was done so many times. There is a formidable cyclic quality to the way things move and unfold in nature and life. While we think we are done, the conclusion, when it appears holds it all. The act of surrender to it allows for the biggest opening.
In teaching painting last month at a workshop in Massachusetts, I saw that the finishing holds the most unfolding. In a wonderful novel about dogs, and a boy, called Edgar Sautelle, an old wise woman named Ida, says she “reads the juice”.
In painting for process, we are reading the juice, without interpreting, or entering into it, just being with it. sometimes it just takes us farther than we know. This wouldn’t have happened until that happened, or this and that came at the same time. we know these things. We just sometimes think we know more than that.