3 posts tagged “buddha”

Today I had no idea what I would write about in this blog.  And then one of my children asked me to help them decipher a Tarot card layout they had made for themselves.  It was in essence a reading. And my child needed my assistance.

On helping them understand the nature of the layout—three cards from left to right and representing past, present and future, I was drawn back into a world that I had not visited in a quite a while.

 
I entered graduate school to study psychology in the early stages of pregnancy with this particular child who had asked for my assistance. I took my first class in Jungian psychology as this child gestated inside me—embarked upon my dream—that of learning about and coming to understand the inner workings of the human mind. 

After their birth and for the next four years I moved through my graduate program—a wife and mother of two studying what was at that time my passion. During this time I entered into my own process of healing, that of allowing myself to go back and explore areas of the human psyche and soul—mine—that I had always relished the idea of exploring.

In addition to studying dreams and images, I began to work with the Tarot as one of my attempts to heal while ascertaining the skills to  become a psychotherapist--one who would assist others in their desire to heal. Carl Jung utilized astrology and Tarot with his clients. And so one summer, when this child was little more than three years old, I ventured on an experience of learning to swim—a major feat for someone who lost his or her only sibling to drowning. Once learning to swim I swam every day. After showering and drying I would then return home, and there each afternoon following my hour in the pool I gave myself a Tarot reading. This is how I came to understand Tarot.

All that I had learned and discovered during that summer and the years that followed, came flooding back when my child—that child who had been only three and who now stands taller than me—laid before me the three cards their fingers had pulled from the Tarot deck, and asked for my assistance in helping them decipher what the cards meant in the scheme of their life. 

It has been over ten years since that summer when I swam each day and gave myself readings.  Over ensuing years I began process painting, an experience that for many years followed an hour after again swimming.  Swimming, exerting my body safely through the water, something my deceased brother never learned to do, and engaging in the breathing that swimming requires, has always, and still remains a very healing experience for me. Incidentally, while my father was an experienced swimmer, my mother remained terrified of the water throughout her life.

My learning to swim was a major part of my individuation process toward becoming the person I was destined to be, my experience of connecting with the person inside me that I had hidden for over three decades. That my child felt the freedom and the safety to ask me to assist them in their attempt to come to know who they are, uncover their identity—that child who is now a teenager—touched me immensely.

Upon sharing my knowledge with them—what I knew of the meanings each card held and symbolized, we then together referred to the book that accompanied this set of Tarot cards.  And so the learning began again. But this time with a knowledge and wisdom I did not possess a decade and a half ago.

 While examining the cards, and then the two of us reading the meanings the accompanying text attached to each card, I began to see my child in a whole new light—not one that shattered or threatening our past, rather a here-and-now experience adding substance and stature, and grounding our relationship, as my child moves into young adulthood.

It was a creative moment. One in which I, having surrendered to a child’s request, came to not only see that child in greater depth and emotional texture, but also wherein my own past and present came into clearer view.

For that I am thankful. And also for the fodder of real life experience that gave me a subject and focus for writing this blog.

The artist, while committed to her or his mission of creating, must never remain so focused on their work that she or he forgets the existence of those closest to them. We must never lose the ability to surrender to the needs of those living with with us and in our care--individuals whose very lives attach purpose and meaning to our life and work as artists whose work mirrors life, hopes and dreams.

For in these persons—our friends and family—lay the greatest of ideas and the inspiration for what we will create.

 

Today was one of those days when I didn’t feel well--inside or out.

Yesterday, after arriving home and while removing groceries from the car I my head on the garage door while walking onto the garage.  It hadn’t lifted all the way and for some strange reason I didn’t see it.  That strange reason was that I was in a hurry.

I’m always in a hurry.  As a wife, and mother to 3, time is in short supply for me.
Add to that that I’m a published author, painter and psychotherapist—well let’s just say, “It gets crazy.”

I woke up this morning to a dull headache, despite the two 8 hr Tylenol I took.  That was probably due to having stayed up—past midnight—to watch the movie, Onegin, based on Pushkin’s book, Evgenii Onegin.  

All this took place after working for hours on my computer.  As a writer I’m always writing—that is when I’m not picking up children, helping with homework, counseling them on peer issues—and then there’s cooking, washing clothes—you name it I’m doing it.  And let’s not forget I still have my book that I’m working hard along with my publisher to publicized and market.

It’s a lot.

I was tired when sitting down to write this blog despite having slept until 2pm.

My husband was glad that he can provide a life wherein I can do it.

I still don’t feel I’ve done enough.

There’s so much to do.

I had no ideas on what to write.

They headache is still with me.

Oh, and let me add, I’m observing Ramadan.

And then I thought of this prayer—for accepting our humanity.

I had read it three nights ago when assisting my 9th grader with their religion assignment.  

My heart warmed while re-typing it.  

I’ve listed it below.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Prayer for Accepting Our Humanity

I am a person like no one else in
 the world.

I am the people I have met.
I am the mistakes I have made
   and the wisdom I have gained
I am the lessons I have learned
  and the good ones I have given.
I am the good times in my life
   and the bad ones too.
I am the emotions I have felt
  And the thoughts I have
     thought.
   
God I am the life I have lived.
Although it’s not a perfect one,
understand that I’m doing the best
      I can
      With what you have given me.
Because all that I have to work
     with…is me.
      
                     (Tom Moore
                     Dreams Alive, p. 24
                     and
                     The Catholic Faith Handbook
                     For Youth, p. 52)
 

Last evening while helping my child with their homework I was called to read a re-interpretation of the Creation Story presented in Genesis.  The assignment focused on Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden—a result of both Adam and Eve having eaten fruit of the tree of knowledge.

The interesting thing about this book’s interpretation was that it saw the results of Adam and Eve’s act of eating of the tree of knowledge as bestowing them with not only an awareness of pain, death, and of shame, but a stark awareness of these factors that rendered them so naked and vulnerable as to destroy their ability to interact with divinity face-to-face. For some divinity is truth. For others it is a static or transforming deity governing one’s reality—Christ, Oya, Siva, Yahweh, Allah, The Buddha.

Many artists perceive God in and through the works we create. We interact with divinity when painting, writing, shaping poems or glass we blow into being with our breaths. Whatever the material, our work as artists is both an extension and expression of all that we cannot see, but know and sense present in this life.

The experience of creating is in essence a way, our attempt at touching upon, if not re-entering the Garden of Eden, if only for but a moment as when we give that last touch of color to an acrylic painting on canvas, write the final word of a novel or poem we have revised for the 5oth time, or simply stretch out a note on the piano or cello—take it into the unknown where sound meets with silence, and one absorbs the other.

Whatever our conduit for touching upon this blissful part of life and living that exists through, in and around us—the ultimate reality that bestows meaning upon our lives, we owe it to ourselves to let nothing stand in between our ability to return and sup from the brim of its overflowing cup.

We must remain committed not just to the act of creating that so brings us joy, but also to the truth that emanates through, and about the works of our artistry.  

We must acknowledge the breath of life moving in and out of us engendering the life force that directs our brush, guides our fingers in typing, our hands in writing, our voice in singing.  We must remain honest with ourselves, and follow the lead of our hearts. We must not fall in the search for certainty, and lose grip with its ever-present and evolving beat.

The heart knows what God desires, what we need, what we must create and how to accomplish it.  In our hearts dwells truth--that of the eternity of the ages. It lives in each moment we take a breath.