Ocean Woman - Creative Space

“That is the point of the night sea journey—to be born into yourself. There, you are in the amniotic fluid, in an alchemical substance once again. You are journeying toward your own life. You are preparing for your fate. The promise is exhilarating, but the dangers are extreme. You have to avoid being just one of the crowd and instead take the chance of being born an individual. Jonah” ― Thomas Moore, Dark Nights of the Soul: A Guide to Finding Your Way Through Life's Ordeals

We are being forced, at peril of causing others sick and becoming sick, ourselves.    As time goes on, and we are staying in home, there begins to come, a sense of alienation from our communities, our families, our friends.  Some of us will be tempted to enjoy it.  Fight that!  It will lead to more, conscious or unconscious, sense of withdrawing and more isolation for no reason, once this is over.  Feel the isolation.  Feel it so raw and real that it DOES create an uncomfortable emotional place.  This seems to go against our natural instinct to withdraw during this time, but we must, for our mental health, find ways to connect with others through phone, Face time ( and other face to face media), online.  Do not let yourself become estranged from our basic human need for tribal and connections. 

We are kept from our favorite places, in Nature, to go.  They have asked us not to even go camping, so I have a fervent wish for things to relax so we can load up the motorhome and go out to a favorite mountain stream where we have camped before.  Even the environmental distancing affects us in some way.  Everything is distanced, and even our future cannot be seen as something soon. 

If you are feeling like others are not obeying these new restrictions, and you are both envious and angry at others who are not, your sense of isolation deepens.  If you feel left out, in any way, it means your sense of isolation, is, of course, affecting you more. If you have had a situation, or someone you love has had a situation, where you are realizing how helpless we truly are, we move into more isolation.  Many of us will either lose interest in eating, or eating too much, because we need comfort, this is a sign of moving more into isolation.  Nightmares and sleeplessness, or oversleeping means your sense of isolation is moving towards true depression.  Just the sense of danger in being around others is heightened.  As this compounds, again and again, deeper and deeper, if we do not stall it by finding ways to comfort, to find things that give us joy and peace, our own psyche/Ego/Evil Inner Witch can have us move more into depression and then the whole world feels hopeless, empty, and it attacks our self-worth.  Those with fragile emotional stamina will take a huge hit from this isolation. So, watch for these things in yourself.  Nurture and be compassionate to Self during this time.  This is not all about Us/You, it is a world that is feeling all these things.  

 How do we recover when the dangers are over?  Bake, make, take time to sit in peace and meditate on the things we can be grateful for.  Rather than having a micro-sense of isolation, try to have a macros-sense, and find some way to make the world a better place by having you here at all.  Find your peace.  Try to not allow yourself to sit in a pool of pity.  The ether feels you.  Let it feel your prayers and blessings.

Watch how a fabulous background becomes transmuted into this art piece. Sometimes, just starting to change what needs changing, begins the creative process that allows you to move into that quietude of creation.  

I began with a really busy background and I went to work to change it up.  Simply letting go and let happen.

After getting a stirring background, I used a China Marker, in white, to draw a face within the roil and boil.

 

I squeezed my eyes, almost shut and then I could see where I wanted her and what shape she would take.  I find this an easy way to gain insight.

Then, suddenly, my muse took over and she became so quickly and so finished, that I hardly dared touch the painting again.  I use a fine brush to outline her face and give some shading.

In the end, I see the rolling, crashing waves.  I see the winds of the world blasting her by the rise of her hair.  I see her finding peace, in her features. And, I finished feeling at peace, true, unadulterated peace that comes from spending even just a short time in that space of spirit and soul that I move to when my Muse totally takes over.

I wish you this.  I wish you find your own soulful, spiritual, creative space.  xoxoxo

©Carol Desjarlais 4.8.20