Spring and Brigid on the Cusp

 

 

Finally, February is on the cusp.  This is the month of Bridgid,  She is First of First Woman, a Holy Holy ancestor of ours, and Divinely connected to the Original Creator, as we are, in being Co-creators.  She is honored with lights of every kind, bonfires, and candles in every window.     She is Patron of Poetry, for one, and this month, I will be adding more poetry, hopefully, since it will be difficult for me because poetry died in me at the death of my beloved.  I feel it whispering deep down in my soul again, so hopefully, it will come.

I will continue to blog and share tips and techniques on how I do my art.  I hope it inspires.  My blog comes right from the heart.  It is often intuitive, and comes as fast as I can type, so that I do not let ego or life intercede on what I believe; I think, I do, I feel.  I begin art with a thought and whatever comes of that art piece comes from the base of the thought I will blog about.

Rika Dehombreux will be our guest artist for the month.  We are privileged.  Be sure and add her as friend so you do not miss a post.  I am excited to be inspired by her.  Thank you, Rika, for accepting this, I know it takes a great deal of work, but have seen your posts and your intro on your FB page: “Dreamer-Intuitive Artist-Bohemian Heart-Globetrotter-Fascinated with Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales”.  She is from Belgium.  Be sure and share your art and see what she, in her unique wisdom and perspective, has to say about it. 

I am really looking forward to you this month, Rika.

https://www.facebook.com/Rika.Dehombreux

a conversation with Rika:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGXl6UCNLM8

her channels and presentations on Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rika+dehombreux

Let’s get intuitive and burst into spring with wonderful intuitive art.

Enjoy the inspiration, of the sisterfriends who are here. Make sure you add any of us as friends so you do not miss a post.  We are into a Spring’s burst of creativity.

Welcome here, all, let tomorrow be the first day we discover our intuitive soul’s expressions.  Let’s give this spring into spring a go.

 

Spring Cleaning

I am changed my spare room around;
moving one heavy trunk to replace another,
changing bookshelves, going through files,
reorganizing texts and journals by titles, this time

I am in search of evidence of you;

smell your moldy words here somewhere

have discarded your mousy little tracks,
flung far, your gritty grains
that fell behind the extra desk ~

that goddamned dried rose,
crackling in wait for discovery,
falling from Rumi

You said I would be a poet, should be,
and you left me more fodder than forever
to write about

I never completely scour out the smell of you;
I merely shuffle you about,
try to cover up the stench
with fresh air thoughts

flinging the window open,
hoping you will escape, fly out, be free,
I realize you are dead already
and every phrase I write
is about you, or for you

you have sunk into the floor cracks
and I can not move again

I always take you with me
and lug you about
trying to rearrange grief like books
on bow-shelved bones.

©Carol Desjarlais 2008

 

Freedom

 

 

 

Because of health restrictions, we are feeling that we have lost some sense of control.  Some want to blame.  Some want to make up big stories.  Some simply follow the rules.  None of us feels at ease.  How do we focus on what really counts – the peace of soul? 

We have always, in some way, resented having rules.  As we mature, we accept some rules because they make sense, because we know that life down here means there has to be rules.  Some are rooted in defiance and have done so all our lives.  Some have been non-rule followers.   Many have oppositional behaviors/disorders.  If there is some mental health issues before all this, the disorders have exacerbated.  It is of concern how far their oppositional behaviors will go.  When do such feel they have done enough?  If they continue, they live a life of constant chaos, constant anger, negative relationship behaviors, and becomes a kind of personal lock-down and it comes from a wound somewhere in the past where the trigger was flicked.  What is needed is tenderness, not mob-gathering with others who are also angry, harmful for others and ourselves, and a never-ending lack of freedom, itself, as we lock down our anger and defiance.  Such are to be pitied.

Finding a way to have tender moments with yourself.  Find some quiet moments, some quiet activities, and focus on the beauty of your life and what freedoms have brought you.  Find ways and people who help you deal with tensions; positive people, who have found ways to follow rules and have the peace knowing it is the best you can do, not the worst.

Yes, we have had times of rebellion and frustration and anger but we do not seek what is behind, below the feelings.  We have to seek, within, for our own freedoms we allow ourselves to have.  Being lovingly open, being filled with a sense of connection with all things, developing a sense of doing ‘the best’ for all things, people, places on earth, will help you become grounded in peace and hope and goodwill again.

We all have hate, fear, rebellion, anger at our fingertips.  These last two years are telling to each of us.  Yes, we will have our moments, but it is best not to dwell in the physical and intellectual, right now.  It is best to deal with the right side of the brain where emotion and spirit resides.  Nothing in creation has ever run smoothly.  We have both sides of the coin; the rebellious and the denier.  We can not deny there are plenty of reasons to feel negative.  Our goal should be to work hard to find the positives.  The angry wolf the loving wolf anecdote applies here; what you feed, you become. 

It is hard to not have others, even ones you love dearly, take the lesser road.  It is hard not to defend what you think is right.  It is hard to accept we all have opinions, some of them strong.  It is difficult to understand how on earth a loved one can believe conspiracy theories and theorists.  It takes a great deal of love to accept that they can feel as right as they want to.  It is not okay for us to give up our stance either.  Accepting tht we allow others their own beliefs is huge.  Then, when face to face with the rebellion, all we can do is acknowledge that they feel that way, try not to let it hurt us, make sure we do not cave.  Sometimes our very strength comes from allowing others to think totally differently than we do and not get into the battle of wits and bits with them.  Find love and love on the brink of war.  It is the only win win situation.  This will all end.  Rebellious ones will find something new to rebel over.  That’s life.  We have to maintain our soulful work of being peace, love, compassion, and care IN SPITE of differences.

I have difficulties with this when I am so convinced that they are wrong.  The are right according to their own beliefs and convictions and wounds.  We are right for ourselves and no one else.  Freedom is that state of staying calm and soulful in the midst of societal chaos.  We cannot ignore it.  It is in our face ever moment of every day through many many medias and fronts.  We need to say we agree or do not agree, but not get into their play to manipulate and sway you from your authentic beliefs and love them in spite of it all.  Do Know Harm!

©Carol Desjarlais 1.30.22

 When I need to calm my heart, nurture msyelf, be compassionate with self, I turn to my art.  These days, I so much more than ever before.  It is my space of succor and comfort amid this chaos.

The moment I put pencil to papr, I enter that spiritual space.

I decided on pastels since I get such satistfying results from using them.

I used a charcoal pencil to get an outlines.  I smudged it with a q-tip.

One of my favorite art tools is my pot of flesh-colored pastel.  I use it on its own or over top of other mediums to smoothen out the portrait face.  

I used my soft pastel sticks, as well.

It is all so soft and beautiful to me.

using the red ocher and the pot of flesh, I start to get some depth, some highlights, starting to show up better.

I hae a package of pastel chalk pencils.  I love using them.

playing with the hair, I use the pastel sticks/blocks to being fetting some color in the painting.

Blowing or using an art vaccum, getting the excess chalk dust off shows a delicate finish starting to come.

I use Mod Podge clear acylic sealant to set the chalk.  

I, carefully, cut her out and collaged her on to some beautiful background paper.

Discarding the Masks

 

 

 

None of us survive our childhood without at least one or two masks.  We knew defensive mechanisms when we drew our first breath.  No wonder we gasp.  We knew we had to get right at manipulation or we would not be fed, changed, our every need cared for, loved, unless we demanded it.  We got a fuzzy look at the world, sought the faces of The Others around us, and let out an angry danged cry and sought the face of the easiest one to manipulate;  and, there it was, the face of The Mother, weakened by birth, easily manipulated.  We could smell her, taste her, yes, it was her, first to manipulate and we put on our first mask and set to work to consciously and unconsciously demon security and safety.  Some never grow up from demanding these original needs by wearing many masks that get us what we need, what we think we need, and what we simply demand.  We might have been wounded, by not having great needs filled, and we got hurt in spite of our demands. We learned to put on masks and that became our coping mechanism for everything; some things very emergent, and some simply demands, and sometimes simply our ‘throwing a fit in the corner store because we want everything” mask.  The more masks we accumulated, the more inauthentic our relationships will be.  We are all mask wearers.

We continue wearing masks until the day we die:  We use them to get through uncomfortable situations.  We wear them for positive and negative reasons.  We hide behind them.  We gain from them.  We manipulate and deceive others through wearing them.  It is a part of human nature.  Managing the masks is where maturation and coping skills comes in.  We all want to be liked.  We all want to hide pain.  We all want to pretend we might be otherwise.  We may want to hide our happiness or our sadness.  We might want to hide one of our many many fears and all the branches that lead to that naming.  We wear masks to hide truths and deceptions.  We wear masks to hide strengths or weaknesses; excitement or vulnerability.  We wear mask to hide all sorts of emotions.  We wear masks to get what we want, using the birthright skill of manipulation.  

When I think about my many masks, and going bare-faced into life, I recognize my many universal masks and what one I am not conscious of, or do not ever wear.

First of all:  I plop on my over-achiever, perfectionist mask, thinking that, if I did things perfectly, my world would not fall apart.  I did it to the best of my ability by slapping on an early childhood smiling mask and it stuck there through thick and thin. I do not know why I did not give it up when I got so little rewards from it, in fact, it often became my nemesis – “Oh, but you looked so happy all the time!  You were always smiling!”  The constant anxiety, stubbornness and obsessiveness of wearing a mask that said all was well, nearly peeled my whole identity when I took off that mask.  I never gained a sense of being able to trust others.

Because of this mask, I never felt enough, I never showed that I felt unworthy, openly.  Sometimes, of course, the mask slipped and people got a glimpse of the woman behind the mask.  I work hard not to portray a negative, sad, ungrateful person.  There were times that I bashed myself in order to feel the pain I thought I deserved.  No more.  I removed that mask.  I word I am working on, this year, on “Soulnections” – building and risking intimacy at soul level with others. 

Last year’s work on FEAR and all its implications and connotations (and wasn’t THAT a revelation!), I have become less of a people pleaser.  I do not need any one else’s approval.  I approve of myself.  I need no one to validate.  I am a survivor, an overcomer, and a thriver. 

Many think I have it ‘all together”, I have been far from it, as is een when I drop a mask or two.  I have begun to gain more composure as I age.  I steer clear of drama and chaos and know more peace than I ever have.  I have become more of an introvert, rather than the extrovert, I had been most of my life.  I am less lonely because I have learned to love being by myself with the occasional foray out into social events. My life has more meaning and I love looking back at what I thought were weaknesses, that I realize, now, were my strengths.  I have been a brave, courageous, compassionate human being and I am building on those attributes.

You have heard often that comediennes often are covering their sadness, grief and wounds, through humor.  We do that too. I have done that too, until 2005 when my life ended as it was and there was no sense of humor that could combat that.  I am working hard at recovering my sense of humor. My discomfort with confrontation has often had me turn to humor and wit to get through it.  It, too, was a mask I chose to help myself get past difficult things.

And, yes, I have worn the martyr’s mask as well.  I was a victim.  I, eventually, was able to take that mask off and acknowledge that I had been victimized.  I, also, through the years, learned that my wounds were a gift in working in the career I worked in.  You know:  that nurse that has never had a childbirth trying to tell a woman in hard labor that the pain is not that bad…  it was that bad and there were things in my past the had Christ weep.  But that was yesterday and I am not still being victimized.  I have to remember, often, tat I am a survivor, an overcomer and a thriver. 

I remember someone once telling me that he was afraid to take of the masks because he did not know what the real one was.  Yes, that can happen.  Yes, we might have a lot of work towards digging up our authenticity.  But, believe me, when I say, bit by bit, as we discover our masks, we can learn how to discard the negatives of such.  We can be maskless human beings that know the time to be purely authentic, and when not to give away too much.

I wish you the bald face going out into the world, 

©Carol Desjarlais 1.29.22