Who said “Remember, ultimately, it will be the artists who save us.”? I did; I said it. You’ll recognize that quote if you’ve known me any length of time. I’ve been saying it for decades, in conversations, on social media, in my writing. I mean it, too. Let me tell you why I believe it is true, and why I think history proves it.
Artists are the truest reporters of the culture they are living in. They have never fit in, and they never will. They observe subtle, often unspoken, patterns. Long before we see them in everyday life. I’m not sure why that is the case. Perhaps by the very nature of the traits that make them artists they are slow moving, intuitive, and sensitive to nonverbal communication. They find ways to communicate that will bypass the obvious, that will sneak in the backdoor of our mind and get the point across before our beliefs have had a chance to object or rationalize. Think of all of Joni Mitchell’s brilliant lyrics. “Richard got married to a figure skater and he bought a dishwasher and a coffee percolator and he drinks at home now most nights with the tv on and all the house lights left up bright.” You instinctively know exactly what is going on.
This vulnerable transparency is true of visual artists; it is certainly true of musicians, and it is true in the healing arts. Where intellect and education will stretch to conjure a solution, a cure…intuition picks up and extends a loving offer: try this. It doesn’t have to make sense. And something inside us, and our body, recognizes the truth of it.
I remember a fever induced dream. Convalescing in my bedroom during a long illness, I looked longingly out the window – and saw a horse walking down the street. Oh, dear, I thought, someone’s horse has escaped. I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the dining table and ran down the stairs and out into the street, extending my arm to lure the horse. That’s when I realized it was wild, ghost-like, not from around here. The horse smelled the apple and nodded for me to eat it, and I woke. I knew I would begin to heal now, and that apples held some nutritional element I needed for that. I’m not sure that has anything to do with being an artist; however I did get right up and eat an apple. An artist trusts their intuition. They inherently know that God, or whatever you want to call spirit or a higher power, is at play in our lives all the time. And the more we honor that the healthier we will be.
Whether history being unearthed on cave walls or Lady Gaga telling us God makes no mistakes and we were born this way, the artists carry the declaration of our existence, of our why, of our “YES, and I will not be denied.” Because as the poet David Whyte reminds, the world was made to be free in.
Yesterday’s post seemed a bit preachy about what I don’t want. I beg your patience. What I DO want, and have always wanted, is freedom. Peace of mind. That’s my measurement from here on out for the rest of this incarnation, which I hope will be many more years. As Mimi would say, “good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise.” Do I need more exercise to pull that off? I certainly do. So thank you to my dear, dear friends and family who do continue to entice me out to share in activities. I have to pick and choose wisely right now as I am still recovering from a debilitating, albeit invisible, disease. Thank you for not giving up on me.
This delicate balance I seek to find this summer includes what feels like a huge psychological shift. Now in my 7th decade I seem to be just discovering what freedom means – specifically, to think freely. To dig down into the depths of my true being and find out what it is that I really want. Who I truly am. To stop using life energy to flail against what I don’t want. To stop protesting, to stop feeling put upon and pulled at by those around me.
Two or three nights ago now I woke, as I always do, between 3 and 4 a.m. I “heard” the voice in my head, seemingly out of nowhere, stating very clearly: “THERE IS NOTHING AGAINST YOU HERE.” Intuitively I knew that by HERE it meant, in life, on earth, for all time. There is nothing against me. There never has been. And as my old mentor Jack Boland would have said, “therefore, as night follows day…” that means that everything is FOR me.
This concept may take a minute or lifetime for me to grok. I’ll have to get back to you on this…this is what I mean when I say, “on the road to enlightenment, I’m taking the local.” I mean to get it with every cell of my being. Don’t rush me.
Please indulge this idea with me: what if everything is for you? Another long time mentor is Rob Bell. Young as he is, he is onto something. Several years ago I went to listen to him speak in his home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He left the evangelical mega church he was pastor of because they wouldn’t let him teach enlightenment. There’s something I might do if you asked – I’d go to hear him speak again. He leads you out – out of the restriction of your personality into your natural state of freedom. He gets it, or as he says, there is no exit strategy here. “This is not an evacuation theology…”
It’s true that I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Because I want to be nowhere with you, as in nowhere = now here.
Years before GPS existed I drove from my home in Traverse City, Michigan to stay with friends in San Fransisco. You know, I went to the AAA office and picked up my maps and itinerary. As I was getting close, I called for directions through the maze of suburbs to their home. They instructed me to meet them at a restaurant at the highway exit. It would be easier to follow them back. We came from 3 different directions and met for dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant one friend said, “oh, I have to stop at the hardware. I need an adapter to plug 2 phones into the same phone jack.” I reached into my purse and pulled one out. “Like this? Will this work?” After the laughter died down, they said, “who are you – Mary Poppins?!”
Yes. I am the real Mary Poppins. I’m magic. When you live just a tiny bit more curious than scared, life works like that. Synchronicities abound. Daily. I have more stories like that than you have time for. Thousands. In many ways it seems I have lived a charmed life. Not an easy life, but a natural life, in accordance with the laws of nature. When I can stay out of my own way, that is…
So while we are on this subject of enlightenment (…wait. what?) let’s listen to another hour long video. I promise not to make a habit of it, but these 2 are important. Because honestly, last Sunday’s video with Liz Gilbert and this one with Kyle Cease will get us free. I WANT FREE.
When I was in high school my Mom taught me to spell guru: G-U-R-U, saying that I would never need one. But I do love these two teachers. They are readily available any hour of the day if you have access to a streaming device and internet service. Here Kyle Cease describes the life experience of our culture, across generations to today. Listen all the way through to get all the gifts – to find why youare my Mom.
Because being free now sure would feel good. That’s a joke…now and free are the same thing. Do you think I’m funny? Well, jump in, let’s get on the road to enlightenment. And we will stay in our lane, I promise. We’re taking the local…
Kyle’s 12 Principles: 1) You are loved; 2) God hears you; 3) You are love; 4) You are free now; 5) You are safe; 6) You are worthy; 7) You are abundant; 8) You are magic; 9) Others forget they are loved; 10) It’s always passing; 11) Everything is perfect; 12) You are light.
Freedom is our promised birthright. Freedom. What does that even mean? I can’t speak for you. For me it means enlightenment – a lofty, etherial sounding concept – which is exactly the same thing as mental health.
My entire 70+ years I have been in a personal battle for my mental well being. Against the insanity, the slavery, of trying to live up to so many expectations. Yours. My own. My father’s, my mother’s, my loved ones, my teachers, the adults I looked to for guidance. Religious leaders, spiritual counselors, co-workers, employers, the creditors and people I owe money (phew!)…the list goes on. And on.
When will I be enough? When will my debts be paid? Well, I’m here to tell you. This oppression stops today. Say it with me: “All my debts are paid, both seen and unseen.” ALL MY DEBTS ARE PAID. I have an eternal flame in my soul and from today forward, I am throwing anything on the fire that tugs at holding me back from absolute freedom and well-being. If you feel that I owe you anything at all, monetarily or physically or emotionally, write it off now. Stop looking for me to come through for you. It’s not going to happen. I’m spent. And I am forgiving myself TODAY.
Does this mean I won’t be paying my bills? Of course not. It isn’t a negation of any responsibility. If anything, it’s stepping up for it. Does this mean you can’t count on me to keep our agreements? Of course you can; our agreements are just that. But I will behave with integrity because I can, not because I should. No more shoulding on myself. As Liz Gilbert says here, she’s done being the orderly in her family’s mental institution. I am announcing my retirement. Consider this my two minute notice.
For church today, let’s listen to Liz Gilbert. She’s figured it out ahead of us, and it might save your life. It’s an hour long video and I highly recommend you find the time any way you can. Especially if you are tired, owe money, have a stack of paperwork or emails waiting in your inbox, feel the least bit obligated anywhere. I am telling you truly – you cannot afford to wait. You can thank me later, but you don’t owe me a thing. I free you to show up in my life any way you choose.
All the “spiritual” people are talking about jumping time lines and living in fifth dimensional reality. Since about 1980 you’ve heard me saying, “on the road to enlightenment, I’m taking the local.” So are you, btw. If you are reading this from the confines of a human body, you are very much localized. Deal with it.
In this intimate, if globally public, venue here I have written about a few of my out-of-body experiences. I have travelled through time and space all of my life, waking from sleep or meditation or deep tissue bodywork into different situations fully conscious of what is happening, senses intact. It’s what some call quantum leaping I guess. It began as early as any conscious memory I have, so before I entered grade school. It’s perfectly normal to me and you will not convince me that I am unique or special in this. (I’ve seen some of you out there.) I just happen to remember. I’m sure it serves some purpose, but I’m not sure what that is.
You don’t want to get me started talking about purpose. There is a subject. A big, fat load of colonial cultish crap rolled into one brainwashing scheme if I’ve ever heard one…but I digress…let me give you the short version: the concept of PURPOSE does not interest me a whit. Just effing drop it. You’ll be happier, I promise.
Now that we’ve established that…let me explain how unique and special YOU are. Because we all are, actually, just not for the reasons you might think. In fact, thinking might just be the problem. In a recent post I confided that I am often lonely. Today I am not, and I want to talk about the difference. The difference is a shift in consciousness, in my state of mind, if you will. In my locale. I’m present today. And I woke up this way – because it is, in fact, a state of grace. We don’t make that time line shift or quantum leap into 5th dimensional thought by willing it to happen. We make it by surrendering.
Being lonely is a form of grief. Had we not known love and companionship and true connection, we could not experience loneliness. It’s a contrast. And remember I’ve said that we must be just 10% more curious about our future than afraid of it? I didn’t invent that awareness, btw, I adopted it from author Elizabeth Gilbert. You know it’s true. Your body feels it. To put it into buzz language, it “resonates.”
And herein lies the path, the local highway to enlightenment, to lightening up: my body. I cannot be fully present without being acutely aware of my body. It’s my barometer. And I was born this way. And there we have it – nothing needs to be done or learned or gotten. We were born this way.
Were each and every one of us born in exactly the right time and place? Could it possibly be otherwise? If so, you’ll need to prove that to me. Seventy plus years of life on earth have shown no evidence that it could possibly be any other way.
So, get out of the express lane. Travel with me on the local highway and let’s take every exit that looks interesting. You will lose your loneliness, your separateness, your pain, your grief. The way out is through, it’s local. It’s here now; we ride today. Come along on this adventure…this sacred, perfect now. HERE WE GO:
In my efforts of late to get myself organized and live more simply, I’ve been cleaning out old notebooks. I came across a journal entry from years ago explaining polychronic time. I just this week discovered that many cultures around the world, especially indigenous cultures, still practice polychronic time. Here in our western society, and the (eh-hmmm) more advanced cultures, we live according to monochronic time.
Anthropologists tell us that cultures such as the Inuits of Alaska, that use polychronic time, tend to value relationships over schedules. They understand that time is unpredictable. For instance, they might go to work according to the tides, so their schedule changes regularly. The scientific term chronemics is used to describe how time is perceived; it’s considered a sub-genre in the study of nonverbal communication.
This is fascinating to me. Let’s just say that I have always had a loosey-goosey relationship with time. Oh – I mean fluid…yeah – that’s the word I’m looking for. Full disclosure, I often time travel while my body is sleeping, but I’ve had it happen during meditation, and even during bodywork sessions. I don’t know how it happens, don’t know why, don’t care. I visit other countries, even other planets, telepathically communicate with other species. Do we all do this as children and I’ve just never outgrown it? No idea. I do know, sure as I am sitting at the keyboard writing this today, that time and gravity are the same thing. Or intricately interdependent. Blur the limitations of one and you blur the limitations of both. Time and space are false concepts we were indoctrinated with here in this cult where we temporarily reside. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
It was a psychologist I was seeing in my 30’s who taught me the difference between this phenomena and fantasy. Because I will close my eyes in one place and time and open them in another, fully present, all 5 senses fully intact. It took years of practice not to panic when this happened, so that I could stay with the experience and not jolt myself back. The first thing I learned was to look down at my hands and focus on my breath. This allowed for a few seconds at least to listen, smell, maybe look around if I felt it was safe to do so, and try to grasp the situation I was in. This was precluded, of course, by the belief that it must be happening for a reason. I had slipped into another time and space for a reason, somehow to be of service there, even if for a few seconds. Now I trust it. It might be something as seemingly innocuous as speaking the right sentence, something the stranger I was with may not have known to say. I never know.
Most of the time this experience is random and happens to me. Every once in awhile I can initiate it for my own intent, usually because I want to gather information when I know a loved one is in trouble. Or locate a lost pet. A few times I’ve had close friends ask me about some concern of theirs and I managed to make it work. I saw Elisabeth Smart in an underground bunker this way and assured my distraught friend that she was alive, and, that she would be recognized on the street by a passerby one day soon. I once located a missing man who had drowned, tangled in a pile of junk at the bottom of a lake, stuck in the torn webbing of an old lawn chair. He asked me not to disclose his location; he preferred not to be found. I’ve woken early after spending the night in a city during an earthquake. I knew I was in Asia by looking at the people around me, and so turned the news on the television to discover an earthquake had hit Kobe, Japan during the night. Apparently I’d volunteered as a rescue worker.
This shit happens to me all the time. If I say I’m tired, believe me; I worked all night. It used to freak me out. As a young child I’d run screaming to my parents, thinking I was dying. I must have been a fun kid. I remember the first time I saw the television show Quantum Leap, first feeling validated and relieved that other people were having these experiences also, and then thinking, no, they didn’t get that right. I certainly had no sidekick or homing device (other than my body.)
But I’ve gone off on a tangent here. The point, if there is one, is that time has never made sense to me. All through my working life I barely managed to keep to a schedule. I will probably never know if any of this serves any kind of useful purpose, but I am 100% certain that the reality we know through our five senses is but the tip of the iceberg. Our existence is so much larger and richer than what this obvious, or gross, reality would have us believe.
I’ve long revered the teacher Carolyn Myss, who says that “intuition is organic divinity – God in your blood and bones.” I know this is true. And decades ago, when she first published Anatomy of the Spirit, she inadvertently taught me an invaluable tool for protecting myself: “I command my spirit into my body in full at this time.” It’s all I’ve ever needed. Well, that and the Lord’s Prayer. I learned that in high school from reading the Gnostic Gospels. Christ predicates it in the Sermon on the Mount by telling us it’s the only prayer we will ever need, and I accepted that as truth with a capital T. It has served me in some some mighty scary encounters.
So where does this leave us today? It leaves me thinking about art, creativity, imagination, the intuitive workings of life. I’ve always joked, “all’s fair in love, war, and art.” That pretty much covers everything. Art is any thought, word, or action that is expansive or constructive. Art is alchemy.
Artists are natural alchemists, and time and space are their mediums. We think it’s paint or paper or metal or film, but those are merely convenient materials at hand. Artists instinctively know that we are eternal beings of light and vibrating energy. The wizard Maurice Sendak knew. By the way – he never wrote a children’s book in his life. He says he wouldn’t know how. That statement alone opens a continuous hallway of portals to explore…
Maurice Sendak, Where The Wild Things Are, from my Amazon affiliate link, which may result in a commission: https://amzn.to/45MCnle and Wild Things Are Happening, The Art of Maurice Sendak, https://amzn.to/3VHSuMe
A Painterly Home 