During my chaotic breathing session today, this phrase popped into my head:
“Feeling into the body of wood-and what it wants and needs from me.”
And it got me thinking:
As a bodyworker, I’ve developed a keen sensitivity to others’ energies and listening to what they need and have learned to establish my own boundaries, so I don’t give away the farm in the process. I have learned how to dance back and forth with the give and take of energies. In harmony and disharmony, listening to the rub and what needs to change.
It seems this will and is beginning to serve me in woodcarving and painting. Not doing just what I want to do, but listening to the spirit of the wood, or the spirit of the deity that wants to be painted and allowing the dance of communication happen between us unspoken-yet deeply felt and known through the heart.
This really started with the Lakshmi painting created in 2015 and became more prominent with the Ganesha painting in 2023. I felt his energy infusing me and directing me every step of the way. Even when I thought I totally screwed something up, he was there guiding me back onto the path to finishing it. I felt transformed in the process.
I’m finally getting to have a little understanding that allowing Creativity to work on me and through me. Soak me in its flow, its love, its peace, let it tear me up and put me back together again-Is the bigger point. For me. Not as much as what the outcome is, but the better person I become in the process. The outward result of the thing, whether hideous or gorgeous and sublime, is secondary. It’s the truth of the moment captured in a brush stroke or carving tool that creates the gravity of authenticity. And it helps me become more and more authentic in the process.
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