I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.
ADDED NOTE: Mister Linky is acting kind of funny and not loading properly and slowing down the loading of my blog, so for now we’re doing this the old-fashioned way and posting the poems and links in the comments section. Thanks!
Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog if you have one and encourage others to come join the party! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)
This week’s theme is in honor of my dear friend lucy with whom I co-facilitate a monthly supervision group using the expressive arts. For our session last week she invited the participants to go on a little photographic journey exploring shadow and light.
I decided to take some of the time to engage in the exercise myself. It was a brilliant day and so shadows abounded. It was fascinating to follow each invitation to the next, noticing where my attention was being drawn. I took a lot of photos of shadows of various things (and I’ll post some of those later in the week) but the image to the right remains my favorite. My own shadow image holding my camera and a beautiful tree. I continue to sit with what I notice about these two shadows in relationship to each other and the illuminated space between us. Summer shadows have a darker intensity and can reveal the shape of things.
In the brilliant light of days growing longer, what do we encounter in the shadows that may have been hidden to us before? What do you discover in the interplay between shadow and light? You can write your poem directly in response to the image, or allow it to be a jumping off point for your own musings on the theme.
I went on a journey to the Seattle Aquarium yesterday and in addition to my favorites of sea otters and moon jellies, I found myself captivated by reflections and children pressed up against the glass to see more clearly.
The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity.
-Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
These mountains — Mount Baker and the Sisters and Shuksan, the Canadian Coastal Range and the Olympics on the peninsula — are surely the edge of the known and comprehended world…. That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to see plain, makes them, as Chesterton said of the Eucharist, only the more mysterious by their very visibility and absence of secrecy.
-Annie Dillard
As Betsey and I left Seattle and sailed across the water by ferry to get to the retreat center where we were leading the Awakening the Creative Spirit program, Mount Rainier greeted us, rising above the Sound. She is a sacred mountain here, mostly shrouded by cloud cover or fog. When she is revealed, especially in her full glory, it is an occasion for wonder and delight. She was visible on our return trip as well — we have had a long streak of sunny and clear weather here in the Northwest– an invitation to me to pay attention to the grandeur of the work and the mystery of the process. From our retreat center we had a view of the Olympic mountain range and so I was aware of the sacred presence of mountains all week long.
During our week, one of our participants offered some essential oil she had brought for the journey to share. It was called Sacred Mountain and contained the essence of fir and pine. As we shared our stories one evening, our hands were then anointed by this oil in a spontaneous act of honoring and extending healing.
As a child, my family would go to the Tyrolean mountains in my father’s native Austria. I remember with such fondness the preparation of gear, putting on the proper socks and boots, packing a rucksack with lunch and drink, and carrying my hiking stick. At each summit we reached, a new medallion would be attached to it. I loved the collection that spanned my stick and indicated those places to which I had taken the difficult journey.
Mountains appear again and again in sacred texts as places of theophany, where the voice of God is heard in a particular way. They are places of pilgrimage, where those seeking sacred depths ascend higher and higher in a paradoxical journey. They are indeed Saints, as Merton writes, expressing the fullness of what they were created to be with no holding back.
I heard God’s voice many times over the week, mostly in whispers and gentle moments, through laughter and tears and stillness. But as I savored the time upon my return, I saw in my heart a swelling up that mirrored this grand mountain. I discovered a powerful rising of hope within me, even larger than any earthly mountain, the possibility of a world where creative expression is encouraged, uplifted, celebrated. A world where we stand in awe of a great and sacred power pulsing through the world, made visible in grand and sacred mountains as well as in a single teardrop.
What is the Sacred Mountain in your area? What does she reveal to you about the nature of the sacred?
Our next Poetry Party will be on Monday, June 1st! Blessed Sabbath to you.
In the early dawn of happiness
you gave me three kisses
so that I would wake up
to this moment of love
-Rumi, from “The Awakening”
Get up, I depend
on you utterly.
Everything you need
you had
the moment before
you were born.
-David Whyte, from “Waking”
Spring is the season when the earth awakens after her long slumber. It is the season associated with the element of air and breath. That moment of inhale, of breathing in the fullness of divine life, is the moment of dawn when the sun scatters the long night and the day begins.
It is always such a privilege to do this work. I am so incredibly blessed to be able to offer this kind of transformative space for others, to have wonderful women with whom I work and facilitate, and to welcome in participants longing to dive deep and discover what is waiting there.
While holding that space there are always new things awakened in me. I am still tending to the movements but am grateful for many sacred moments like rolling in the grass on a sunny afternoon, laughing deeply from authentic joy, witnessing the range of feeling touched through the arts again and again, seeing the incredible freedom that comes from moving out of the longings within. Can you just imagine what happens when a group gathers together and gives each other permission to be fully exactly where they are? To each listen and respond to what is rising up within? Each time I feel like I am given a window into what church really means.
I went to see my own spiritual director today. The word I am holding closely right now is exuberance (isn’t that just a wonderful word to say?). There is a new exuberance over my work in the world as it burgeons (another great word) and I am welcoming it all in. In fact, while driving home, I was thinking that perhaps my Six Word Memoir is actually * exuberant monk bearing witness to beauty. *
So, dear readers, what is awakening within you?
Next year’s dates for the Awakening the Creative Spiritprogram are May 22-28, 2010, again at the beautiful Hood Canal. The setting alone is worth the trip, I promise.
(Sunrise Sister and lucy were both there. Click over to see what they had to say about their experience)
*Photo on top is of our participants’ masks and below is my marvelous teaching partner Betsey Beckman dancing through the grass while telling us a story on a warm spring afternoon.
I met Patricia Ariel recently online when she left a comment at one of my previous Sacred Artist Interviews. I went to her website link and discovered her beautiful artwork.
I love the sensuality and vibrancy of her images which enter the viewer into the mythical realm. I found myself exploring their inner landscape in my imagination and loved the places they took me. As always, I am so grateful to her for taking the time to respond to these questions and offer you, my dear readers, another window into the connection between creativity and spiritual practice.
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Are you rooted in a particular faith tradition?
My spiritual background is very eclectic. I consider myself a free-thinker above all and my understanding of the Divine came a long way through Spiritism, Paganism, Rosicrucianism, Oriental philosophies and symbolic arts like Astrology and Tarot. I was born and raised in a Catholic country (Brazil), where almost everybody is baptized as a catholic as a cultural tradition, although you won’t see that many devout Catholics. The country in itself is very eclectic religion-wise and a fertile ground for religions and spiritual practices of every sort. I grew up seeing the women of my family dedicating to practices like natural healing, incorporating spirits, having visions and dreams, fortune-telling. One of my aunts was of an Afro-Brazilian religion and her altar covered in images of yorubá entities is a vivid remembrance of my childhood. For my part, I’ve been always very attracted to the so called “supernatural” – divination, the occult, life after death and reincarnation. I grew up seeing all those things as part of Nature and have been always sensed the Divine very deeply inside myself, even not having exact consciousness of that. I like to say that love and beauty are my religion, and the teachings of the Christ are my guide.
What is your primary art medium?
I am primarily a drawer, so pencils and paper will always be my favorite tools. I love the texture of the graphite on paper and its energy. The drawing is the base for the other fine arts, and it contains all the primeval force of their creation, so to speak. This is why most of time I choose not to render my figures with paints.
I am also a watercolor lover. It’s not the most manageable medium to work with, but when you learn its tricks it’s a real delight. It’s sort of a magic medium, because it seems like it has a life in itself, the results most of time are unexpected and always interesting. I love the way the pigments blend and also their ethereal quality. It’s a “feminine” medium, that can be both delicate and strong, and provides the work with movement and fluidity. Since my more complex pieces take a lot of layers and pigment, I prefer to work on more resistant surfaces, and illustration boards are just the right thing to me. I plan to experience acrylics sometime in a not-so-distant future, but so far I’m very happy with my mediums of choice since they provide me with the perfect channel for what I want to express.
How do you experience the connection between spirituality and creativity?
I think that they are part of an only thing, since when you allow yourself to be creative you are actively playing your God role in a microscale. Creativity is a manifestation of your divine portion. When you open yourself to creativity, you are opening yourself to the Universe. The act of creating gives you a sense of belonging to a greater reality and when you do it on a regular basis you go through a very transformative process. Through my art I heal my wounds. I find answers. I feel joy, pleasure and I also exercise some virtues, like acceptance, persistence and patience.
What role does spiritual practice have in your art-making?
I’d say that my art-making IS my spiritual practice. Through my work I can live my beliefs at their, fullest and sense clearly my connection with the invisible wisdom. You can call it a type of meditation. No religious experience in this world would give me such feeling of completeness and shelter. I have revelations and spiritual insights when I am creating. I always finish a piece a little wiser than when I started it.
What sparked your spiritual journey?
As I said before, I came to this world with a strong sense of being bound to some higher power that in my childhood and teenage years I called it God – today it’s much more than this. I’ve been always very inquisitive about life and death, always in search of answers that could satisfy my intellect. I’ve never accepted dogmas and unreasonable concepts. I want science, chemistry, biology, physics. The answers I wanted came when, at the end of my adolescence, I discovered Spiritism, which is a blend of philosophy, science and religion, founded by a French professor named Allan Kardec in the 19th century. Spiritism today is extremely popular in my country. I may say that this was my spiritual turning point, what really opened the spiritual doors in my life. I didn’t only give me answers, but also helped me to be a better person and to understand the Christ and his words.
What sparked your artistic journey?
To be frank, as far as I can remember, I’ve always been an artist. I began to draw and tell stories at age three. I’ve been always loved comics and at an early age I already had dozens of characters and a whole world created by myself. I filled up many notebooks with my stories. As a teenager I discovered music, drama and dance. My mom was always supporting me in everything I wanted to do. The peace of the house was always being disturbed for groups of people rehearsing for music, dance and theater performances! I created my first musical group at age 15. I would sing in three more bands in the following years, more for the pleasure of music, for the urge of performing and expressing myself and my ideas, because I’m not really a great singer! Later I decided to study drama and ballet more seriously. I danced for four years and acted in the theater for 10 years. The stage is my big passion. Dance is one of the most powerful connections with the Divine that one can experience, it’s a prayer in itself.
When I was on stage, drawing became sort of secondary. At the end of my 20’s it started to get very clear to me that I had some kind of “mission” involving my art. I was feeling an urge of teaching and healing using my creativity. My writings changed. I came back to college to get a degree in Art Education because I wanted to change lives and be an inspiration. I wrote a spiritualist novel, that someday it will leave my hard drive. When I moved to US, I saw myself sort of handicapped, communication-wise. I couldn’t play or write or communicate ideas the way I’d like, due to my poor language skills. Then I started focusing on my drawings, because non-verbal languages were all I had. My style became more mature with time, more colorful and energetic. I perceive now that it worked as a reflex of all I experienced here. My adaptation to the country was like a caterpillar leaving a cocoon turned into a butterfly, and so was my art. The fact of finally having found the peace I always wanted to live in, in silence and closeness to nature, played a big role in my art blooming. I feel now a degree of freedom in my art-making that I had never experienced before. My senses began to expand fast, it’s been fantastic. Now I’m sure that I found my way of healing and inspiring. When people write me telling how they felt connected to my paintings and how they gave them a new perspective – wow, that’s the best feeling in the whole world! Such a feeling of accomplishment! I know now that I found my path.
Do you have a particular process you use when entering into your creative work?
Not really. Ideas come to me at any time no matter what I’m doing. It’s funny, but my best ones usually come when I’m doing daily life stuff, like taking a shower or washing dishes. I work the whole time, since I open my eyes in the morning until I shut them at night. When I’m not at the drawing table, I’m brainstorming. My life is filled with art. My creative process comes through my daily obligations; it’s something usually chaotic and sort of “mediumnic”. It’s common that I have an initial idea or concept and during the process that concept gets dissolved and gives place to something else. I go with the flow and remain open. Then, synchronicities start to show, like coming across pictures and texts that somehow point out directions to the work I’m into at that moment. When I’m in action I like to listen to music , mainly ethereal, ethnic or new age, it creates a perfect atmosphere and make me tune even more into the painting. But you can’t really be alone to work when you have a pre-schooler at home full time, so I had to adapt to being interrupted every moment, including when I’m in the apex of my creative process!
How does your art-making shape your image of God?
I think that all the images and ideas we can conceive of God, or the Supreme Intelligence, are still too incomplete and imperfect, as imperfect is our perception of the Whole. The more I expand my conscience through my art, the more I sense the Greatness of the Divine and the more humble and small I feel. But I feel also blessed and so full of joy for being able to establish such contact in simplicity, because in fact people don’t believe that God can be so accessible. God is not an old bearded man sitting in a throne and ready to punish people for trivialities. God is pure Love. What is not love, it’s not God. He is everything and is everywhere, talking to us constantly through the simplest things of life. Blessed are the ones that can hear it.
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Thank you so much to Patricia Ariel for sharing of her creative vision and wisdom here with us. I am resonating with much of what she has said, especially “I like to say that love and beauty are my religion, and the teachings of the Christ are my guide,” art-making as connection with “invisible wisdom,” and creativity coming through the process of living her “daily obligations.”
So have you missed the Abbey this week? I have been on an amazing journey for five days with even more amazing women. We close our time together this morning and then I will head back home to rest and renew and will return to blogging Monday. In the meantime, visit my article on Art and Spiritual Practice at Patheos, a new site offering resources to explore the gifts of different religious traditions.
When I dare to be powerful—
to use my strength in the service of my vision—
then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
-Audre Lorde
We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. God’s inscrutable love seeks our awakening.
True, since this awakening implies a kind of death to our exterior self, we will dread God’s coming in proportion as we are identified with this exterior self and attached to it.
But when we understand the dialectic of life and death we will learn to take the risks implied by faith, to make the choices that deliver us from our routine self and open to us the door of a new being, a new reality.
I am in the midst of getting ready to teach the Awakening the Creative Spirit program beginning this Sunday with my amazing teaching partner (next year’s dates will be May 23-28, 2010!). Ten women are gathering from around North America to enter into a sacred and creative learning community for five days. Together we will create a space in which we dare to be powerful, where we give each other space to allow the fullest expression of ourselves to come forth, where we discover the door of a new being within. And all of this will be in service of offering this gift to others. As I witness this beautiful work unfolding in others, I too will discover new dimensions of my own power, new doors waiting to be opened. I will dare to become even more powerful, even more beautiful. And there I will find God(de) smiling, radiating, saying yes. Hold us in your prayers as we remember you, the wider community who supports this necessary work.
This past week has been largely one of tending to interior movements, resting, healing, tending to Tune, quieting myself and centering so that I can enter into the week ahead with full presence and strength. I am planning a break from blogging these coming days, so I invite you to rest with the words above during the coming week and let me know what they evoke in you.
Where is your invitation to be powerful? What is the vision which calls upon your strength? What are the parts of self you can now let go of? What are the new ways of being you are invited to embrace? What would you dare to do if fear were no longer an obstacle?
And for the same message as the quotes above in visual form, watch this (I am not one to generally post advertisements, but found this one quite powerful and empowering in just a minute and a half — the music is Vivaldi’s “Summer” from Four Seasons)
I will be back to this space by Monday, May 25th with another Sacred Artist Interview, this time with the lovely Patricia Ariel. In the meantime, blessings dear readers. Thank you for your presence in this space and offering me a community where my own gifts are received with such grace.
(Photo taken at the Rock of Cashel in Ireland, 2007)
Thank you for all the incredible submissions. Amazing what happens when you have 30+ poets break open a theme together. Go visit this week’s Poetry Party to see what I mean.
The next Poetry Party will be on Monday, June 1st so you do have to wait an extra week, but it is always worth the anticipation!
This week’s theme is in honor of my dear friend lucy with whom I co-facilitate a monthly supervision group using the expressive arts. For our session last week she invited the participants to go on a little photographic journey exploring shadow and light. 
Spring is the season when the earth awakens after her long slumber. It is the season associated with the element of air and breath. That moment of inhale, of breathing in the fullness of divine life, is the moment of dawn when the sun scatters the long night and the day begins.
Are you rooted in a particular faith tradition?
How do you experience the connection between spirituality and creativity?
What sparked your artistic journey?
We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. God’s inscrutable love seeks our awakening.
