Had the Experience But Missed the Meaning - T.S. Elliot

In time I was able to use the pointer finger on each hand.  So I was able to type with two fingers for short periods.

I began to type out what kinds of experiences for me frequently induced a sense of wonderment when I participated in them.  I needed this list to help address the despair that was constantly gnawing.  I wrote a list out over a week and noticed that all the activities fell into five broad groups:

Nature

Friends

Books

Creativity

Walking

One morning I woke up remembering an experience I had had when I was young, elementary school age.  I was outside in nature, alone sitting by a running river.  I had in my hands a small garter snake and in an instant my small personal viewpoint disappeared.  I don't know how long this experience went on for but when the sense of 'me' came back everything was shimmering in light and I knew that everything was One and that that Oneness was Love.

I was so happy about this I jumped up to go and tell my parents.  As I made my way to the house I could feel energy moving through everything, and heart felt:  How wonderful!  There is a beautiful, bright energy underlying everything!

As I put my hand on the screen door to open it and saw my parents inside the thought hit me, "I can't tell them this, they will think I am crazy."  I continued inside and said nothing.

I think all of us, when we are young have some experience, by Grace, that informs us of Oneness.  People call this experience by many names: God, Spirit, Light, Love, and many other words.

Einstein, before discovering his unified field theory maintained an underlying presumption that, "whatever reality is, it would show itself to be simple and beautiful."

Within a couple days of having this experience I doubted and then forgot it though the memory of it would surface at different times throughout my life, often when what I called 'Oneness' would again break through my personal point of view and fill me with wonder and mystery.

Though I had experienced knowing that we are all truly One, the profound meaning of these experiences had yet to truly penetrate my sense of reality.

Where You Stumble and Fall, There You Find Pure Gold - C.G. Jung

Fabric Weaving as taught by Jude Hill

 

I was facing something I did not want to see or acknowledge.  While I was saying " I do art for the love of art" I was clearly not doing this.  I intuited the truth and beauty of doing art or truly any activity as an expression of love and yet once again was faced with a realization that below these words I was ego-driven and not heart lead.

I had experienced this realization before and yet here I was, painfully visiting it again.

I have learned over time that life does not progress in any kind of straight line forward and yet wondered: do lessons ever get learned in some final way?

I also cannot deny that human and non-human suffering goes on everyday.  Suffering is a very evident part of life.  Any person who I have gotten to know below their 'surface' has dealt with suffering.  No one escapes it.  And having done animal rescue and rehabilitation work for years the suffering of the non humans goes without saying.  So I could not feel sorry for myself or blame anyone for the use of my hands being taken away.

I felt, deeply that I would use any activity egoically, insisting on uniqueness of self rather than trusting and following the Mysterious Creative Process.

I clearly felt how in general I was moved by anxiety and fear and not trust in something greater than my ego. 

Yet I also whole bodily knew, that there was something so much greater than the egoic self.  I knew that both stillness and movement could be done in love not egoity and that when anything was done from this place beyond the ego that true Beauty occurred.  

I was clearly obstructing Light from coming in.

I felt both emotionally and physically frozen.

I had stumbled and fallen.

A Journey of Mystery

Experimenting with fabric weaving as taught by Jude Hill

I could not have understood at my core what I had come to believe about 'art' and specifically drawing if I had not lost my ability to draw.  And, like any belief, these beliefs directed how I interacted with myself and others.  Of even more importance I was able to understand how these deeply held beliefs once known, actually were preventing me from growing in artistic expression as I had seen a number of my friends grow and flower.

I realized that 'art' for me had become linked with my understanding of and expression of "me".

I had developed strong convictions that the ability to draw was equivalent to being an artist and I had spent years working to develop this skill. 

After understandably grieving this loss it became obvious to me that I was looking to my ability to produce 'art' as a way to be loved rather than as a way to express love.

How had I so unconsciously taken a form of expression that had once been a source of joy and turned it into something that had to provide my life with meaning?

Carl Jung has written:  " The greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally unsolvable.  They can never be solved but only out grown."