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.
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| Loss |
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| Grief |
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| Fear |
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| Greed |
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.
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