For Everything There is a Season

For Everything There is a Season 

And a time for every purpose under heaven. 

- Ecclesiastes 3:1 

Recently I have been in hospital. Not a regular hospital, but an Ayurvedic hospital in South India. After a year of rigorous travel, my husband and I needed rejuvenation to get us back into shape. The regulated life of an hour massage every day along with other personalised treatments for small discomforts plus regular meals and fresh air seemed to ease away the stress and strain and give new energy to body and mind. 

However, during the course of the treatment, I found emotions arising and one of them in particular was a recurring feeling. Last time I came for treatment it was the same experience, a feeling of loss of one of my siblings, as over time we are not so close any more...not that she has 'expired' but our relationship seems to have. 

During the massage I was face down and sobbing, and I tried to go with the feeling, not suppress it or argue with it, rationalise it or even analyse it. I told myself, "Just feel this, and accept you aren't feeling so happy and you don't understand it exactly" there was the accompaniment of extreme nausea that I felt in my left side. 

When I went to my room, the emotions and feeling ill, were still obvious, so I wanted to explore them and see what emerged. I got out my paints and just tried to channel the emotions, not judging or trying hard to make something, but exploring colour, texture, shape, line and hue. The results are below. Over time I was able to write some kind of documentation to send to my supervisor, to get feedback on my process. 

 I tried to stay with the emotion, acknowledging the bodily felt sensation. As I painted, the nausea diminished. I was going from Loss to Greif painting a bit here, and waiting for it to dry, and then going to the next painting, and it wasn't clear what I was painting until a crucial point and the images started to reveal themselves. It was like meeting some characters in a story book, one appearing, then another... The colours were talking to me, calling out, asking to be used. It was very intuitive, and unpretentious. Not like when I set out to draw or paint something with design and intention, looking to a product, this was raw and energetic and primal. Its my representation of exploring a series of feelings. 

Loss 

Grief

Fear 

Greed 

                                                                              

what was good was a gift
what was not was a lesson
accept it as it was and step forward




The lines above came as I woke one morning a few days after the paintings. 


I still didn't understand Greed as part of the clan of feelings... a few weeks later. 


One of my friends came to visit, she had recently undergone some serious grief and loss herself. I explained how I was not resolved about Greed, and she had some reflections to share. She looked at Greed and said that if we hold on to the grief, not letting it go, there is no room to grow, or transform. I will leave you with that thought. 

Calligraphic meditation and singing the healing!

Meditation and skill with a heart to please. Work by 

Tibetan Calligrapher - Tashi Mannox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOZN2fTmcak




Themes were evoked from my consciousness such as; "integrity, purposeful, meaningful, ingenious, discipline, compassion and dedicated," while I watched this clip. An honesty in the way Tashi Mannox spoke seemed refreshing and personal and the way he showed his engagement with materials; like a meditation, as meditation, made me think a lot about how Experiential Creative Arts Therapies connects people to the age old tradition of making stuff (with one's own hands!!)...making artwork that is meaningful to oneself, even if to no one else. 


I have a theory about how our disconnect with the arts has given rise to the emotional imbalances and artificiality in people's lives, the celebration/obsession of the celebrity rather than being a creative oneself. 


His work seemed to be constructing a considered bridge between his deeply held ideals and spiritual practice, and those who may not fully embrace his lifestyle, but the onlooker could be enticed to appreciate it in the form of Tashi's aesthetic. His method to embed his inner ideals into the fabric of the work with symbols, colours, textures and intention grabbed my attention, and made me want to hear/see more. The process made me curious and a willing observer, a willing participant of his story. It resonated with my own journey, being an artist and someone with a spiritual lifestyle or lets say an 'aspirant'.


A master is one who can teach the most complicated concepts in simple language to someone inexperienced...


The presentation of Tashi's art works seemed to exemplify this statement. In ECAT terms we could call it an 'essence statement' of how he is with the world. Which is in great contrast to the next clip from the ABC News about a group of women singing a love song- But is it? 

Singing the Healing

The second piece no doubt you have seen in the news, but I thought about it in terms of using real stories, & real people to write a song, & the same voices behind the story were used to perform it. Fairly rare in our world...the untrained executing a song for 'love' (& non-profit) and excellently and the reception by the public has been overwhelming.  


Concrete moments of lived experience have been encapsulated into this lyrics of the song. Their experience is real, not like others who read about war in an article or see a documentary. Every day is the day when a message of the death of their loved one can come. The stakes are high, and these women have deep commitments to their men. 


So what is the story I am looking at, because there are so many angles to look from? 


Communication - letters to those loved ones in Afghanistan.
Communication combined into one 'letter' - a song.
Untrained women singing their hearts out - (public) performance art. 


The process is giving them an opportunity to explore those feelings, and share their love. Taking the chance to share with others one's love, one's faith in a partner, is a courageous thing, what to speak of sharing it with the world!! 


Sharing the complexities of their feelings... its an experience of combined auto-ethnographic documentation and I can benefit from listening to the stories of others, I can reflect on my own life, and love, and the vulnerability of relationships. It certainly challenged my assumptions about a myriad of topics, and this I found fresh and far from a jaded story, something with which to use as a spring board for reflection on the good in  the world and singing, together, the notion of renewal in creativity, and the Christmas spirit, which no longer belongs to Jesus, has been transformed into a spirit of giving and receiving love, perhaps in a very humanistic way, but perhaps this is the groundwork of the heralding of a new era...oops way too much thought here.
More on Autoenthographers: from Karen Scott-Hoy, (& Carol Ellis) Wording Pictures, "refers to the process as well as the product of writing about the personal and its relationship to culture. Its an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple layers of consciousness", so even though our wives-of-serving soldiers are not researching, as well as writing and performing their song, I think there is much to be drawn culturally from the moment in time. Research could be done. 


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-20/wives-of-serving-soldiers-launch-album/3739694?section=entertainment

Workshops in South America.

http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarakasticha

Here is a link to photos from a workshop I did at a Natural Therapies College in Santiago Chile. We had a great time, although we could have had more time....:)

The theme was a "Problem to Explore". Each participant chose something in their life they wanted to explore that was not too overwhelming, but something important, so they could experience the techniques of Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy.

One of the teachers from the school is a yoga practitioner and was very excited by the possibilities of ECAT being used for health improvements.

I feel that ECAT is a valuable tool for a variety of exploration and even though there may not be a a+b=c answer to individual's exploration, there is growth and opening of moments in their life to self reflection and creativity, which is often eclipsed by busy lives and technological entertainment.

More photos are available on that site for my own exploration and workshops.

exploring creativity

Previously I was using this blog for an assignment on my own creativity, and it was a closed blog. It was open to my supervisor, my tutor and two students from my cohort. Since I finished that work and now am looking outside of myself again, or outside and inside, its time to work with others in a broad way, not in an exclusively introspective way or interacting with only a select group.

I want to record various workshops that I do and processes that I use in my own life, and in the lives of those around me to share the process of creativity and self-reflection, that hopefully achieves the goal of self-awareness. That state of self-awareness means a person can really be in a position to assist others. I know someone important said that, so I will find out who....at least one anyway. I am sure there are lots of them. I will post interesting things I read and share what I find is going on in the creative problem solving world.

I have a flickr page to keep photos of my process and photographs that I take as I travel. When I am travelling its hard to keep lots of art making equipment with me, but a camera is an easy way to make a record of a date, time and place in a visual way. I often take pictures of things in themes and look at life around me with a specific focus. Please have a look at the flickr page.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarakasticha/