Tag Archives: spirituality

On Arting

26 Saturday Feb 2022

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Art is inherently scary. What the sheep does it mean, all those countless people falling prey to what is really a neurological illness—being compelled to endlessly create, whether it be Moby Dick or a hand-knitted scarf? Art makes no sense, really. Never has; I think that’s part of what the resistance to abstract painting and sculpture was all about: It swept aside the screens and forced us to seriously consider the implications of the saying, “Art for art’s sake.”

Art is the result of the universe reaching out for eternal fruition; we artists are the very tiniest tips of the Creator’s fractal. Sounds great on your resume, but actually it’s kind of a pain in the sheep. Forget all the high-minded words over What Art Means and stop agonizing over the weight of your content, you precious flower, you. Instead, create—endlessly create. Let it flow out of the parts of your body which you use as your art tools—because if you don’t, you will get sick.

Let me repeat that: You. WILL. Get sick. Physically, spiritually, psychologically. You are already fragile—a receptor made from conception to tune into the highest frequencies—and you will spend a higher amount of time than Average Joe on bodily maintenance. Sorry about that. And that’s if you are a good bunny and create, create, create.

If you don’t, you get what I will call spiritually constipated. All that untold, unsung, and unbeaded Stuff just piles up on itself, like the chocolates in Lucy Ricardo’s assembly line. Moreover, your poor little Universe Antenna is straining itself to the utmost to reconnect. This results in all sorts of nonsense. For me, it worsens my mood, causing a spiral in which it becomes harder and harder to function. It also turns up my fibromyalgia, and my ADHD batters itself against its physical cage like a frantic bird. Yuck.

Don’t spend too much time erasing and editing—that’s all very well and necessary, but unless you have a slot open for an endless slew of new art, the revision process can devolve into a comforting nanny who shields you from the nasty Universe.

Create, create, create.

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Listening to the Silence

23 Tuesday May 2017

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I have left my noisy urban home for a few days, and am now in a very quiet place. All I can hear other than my own little noises is the dripping of my friend’s cat bowl, which makes a teeny recycling fountain to keep the water fresher. Strange to tell, instead of being relaxing, all this stillness has done is underscore my own disquiet, which I tend to keep buried like a secret shame.

When I realized Things were burbling up from my inner cesspool, I opted to turn off Pandora and stay with the cat bowl and what I call “microcries:” bursts of blubbering that last about 15 to 30 seconds. It’s sort of like crying constipation–that’s all I can get out at a time, although I feel myself to be a very cistern of tears.

As previously noted, I’m a random crier at the best of times, and I’m getting closer to deciphering why, or at least a maybe-why. I think that when it’s triggered by something heartwarming, it’s because my heart is in reality feeling cold and lonely; if the trigger is heroism, I am afraid that I myself am weak and helpless.

I do many things. I sing, draw, make jewelry, mother, befriend, love. But I feel as tottery at most of it as I do when my physical therapist cajoles me into trying to stand on just my right leg. (Almost everybody is a little lopsided at this, but I’m a champ at lop.) The only thing I really have is the writing. The sheeping writing, which fails to make me any money or gain me any renown, and which will likely continue to fail to do either.

All I am is the writing. That’s what’s at the bottom, behind the tears, underneath the depression, and despite the failure.

During this quiet afternoon, I went to the extent of Asking for a Sign, first in what passes in me for silent meditation, and then just talking out loud. So many people tell confident stories of hearing a Voice, either from outside or within–why not me? Although my faith isn’t what I’d call strong, my belief in the possibility of a Higher Power is stronger than my fear that #45 will turn America into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and that’s something, isn’t it? But nobody came to my outreaching self-pity party, leaving me to confront what I have, what I know.

Perhaps all I’m really for is the writing. Maybe one or two people will be reached by the words that start at my core and ooze from my fingertips. They will laugh, cry, feel less alone or freakish; they will feel a kindred spirit. My fiction will keep them company for a bit.

What I hear, what I know, is just the writing. And sometimes it is barely enough, but it remains.

Season of Epiphany

07 Saturday Jan 2017

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I had a small heart attack a week ago, probably some little clot, and it led to the surprising discovery that my right coronary artery (that’s one of the big ones) was 95% blocked. They squooshed the clot with a balloon, and put in a teeny titanium tube to hold the artery open.

Yikes. Had to process this.

Confession:

Truth to tell, I was so ready to go, except for my being the material support of my kids. What was up with that? Feeling ready to quit. To be beaten. Life always wins, but it shouldn’t cheat that hard, and my Life seemed to hold mostly bad cards.

I wouldn’t say I was depressed, but I’d had no perceived purpose in life. Evolution was done with me, so that made the rest of it up to me. Problem was, I had no answers, just a vision of a blank wall coming closer and closer.

Now that I’ve seen the Precipice, I am ever so excited and joyous that I have been given another chance at life.

Another chance. Another life. Washed clean. My sins have been forgiven.

I feel different now. Every beat of the gelatinous sack of vibrating goo is special, sacred, valued, thanked. I love my heart now. This must mean something.

I think part of why I’m so happy is the sense that I mattered to some non-coincidental angel. I have realized that I am, actually, pretty damn cool, and that losing me would have been a Bad Thing.

Yeah, I need to get my books out, but in terms of purpose: If there’s a shortage of something on this Earth, it’s people who maximize their coolness. So why don’t I try to do that? Spread it as far and wide as I can. Try to make the world a better place, one smile at a time.

In return, I am prepared to be delighted with Life, having been shown with a tube of titanium where to look.

 

A Confession

05 Friday Aug 2016

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I read self-help books. A lot of them; I think my average is about one a week. But here’s the thing: I am not the typical reader Looking for Answers. Instead, I’m looking for bad grammar, faulty spelling, and an inability to stay on topic–i.e., I style-edit them. (How’s that for a What’s My Line? job?)

Most of them say the same things: Stop negative self-talk. Get in touch with your spirituality. You can be happier–here’s how. (Many of the suggestions are solid, but then, some Harvard professor did a lecture course and wrote a book about it, so we already know this stuff.) In fact, I’m waiting for the book entitled We Already Know This Stuff. (But maybe that’s the subtitle of this blog entry.)

Every once in a while I run into one that borders on the toxic, like the followers of gurus who are considered really sketchy, or who tout pish coming from organizations under the disapproving eye of people like QuackWatch. Sometimes it’s really hard to smush down my opinions on the material, but we’re professionals here at Nova Terra, and even the unintentionally hilarious bits go no further than my kids. But none so far have been written by haters, although there’s some unconscious naivete now and again that I squash like a bug. (It’s the 21st century–for the love of Mike, don’t have your bad guys dressed in black and your good guys in white! *facepalm*)

But most of it is a cheerful treacle of love, joy, and unconditional good stuff, and you know what? It kinda works, in that I am more conscious of the good things in my own life. I’m not so sure it’s because of the soundness of the philosophies in the texts; rather I think it’s because I’m spending time with upbeat people. You know, sorta like how you get on a bus full of Jesus freaks headed cross-country and somewhere around Idaho you get drawn into a surly chorus of Kumbaya. And then they let you play with the tambourine, and you teach them a little bit about Neo-paganism or secular humanism, and you all get off the bus giggling and hugging.

Somewhere around here I have a couple of crystals and two Tarot decks, and I think my daughter has some essential oil. Maybe I should get it all together and play and then journal, especially since I’m at T-3 days for the surgery, and I have some sort of staph which already requires this purification ritual of putting stuff up my nose and showering with surgical scrub. Some silk scarves and candles and chanting with the Buddhist rosary might make it all more . . . fun. And fun, mah brethren and sistren, is what this vale of tears is all about.

Stuck Down Here Forever?

29 Friday Jan 2016

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I sorta believe in God; i.e., more than not believing in God. It seems reasonable to me that God does wacky Godlike things, even maybe becoming Jesus, whom I follow while doubting like a Thomas who has never gotten the icky part of putting my dirty fisherman’s paws into a still-fresh wound. Aiee! Good thing Jesus didn’t stick around too long, eh?

But for all I know it’s the Flying Spaghetti Monster all along. Whatever. My point here is that I’m not nailed down (pun intended) to any particular brand of spirituality. I know that Zen monk Cheri Huber’s There is Nothing Wrong with You moved me to hysterical tears, and I no longer have a copy because I gave it away, and have bought others for very special people.

Now, here’s the cruel irony: I style-edit self-help and spiritual books. After a while. they all sound the same, with some more readable than others. It seems to my jaundiced eye that enlightenment is saved for those wealthy enough to travel the country–the world!–kneeling at one or the other pair of sandaled feet. Where, I ask, is the ultimate truth revealed while washing dishes, while caring for children? What sorts of visions of angels are received while bagging groceries at Shaw’s? (At Whole Foods, maybe.) The great teachers gave what they had for food, clothing, and shelter that would make 21st century homo sap shudder. What’s up with all this “I started my own business healing and directing souls?”

According to many of these self-proclaimed sages, we are on the cusp of a Great Awakening. Where have we heard this before? I don’t feel any perkier than I did when the Mayans came through town.

Fear not; I keep my personal beliefs to myself unless some random scrap from my personal life will reassure and make somebody bigger, instead of smaller. Because they are all beginning writers, and in a way they are kneeling before my sandals. This makes me profoundly uncomfortable, but I muddle through. I find something to praise, even if it’s only “Congratulations on your enlightenment!” and I polish with a light hand, making it sound as if paying attention to commas and sentence fragments was dirty work to be laid upon that maid-of-all-work, the proofreader/copy editor, and not part of the writing craft at all. I feel bad about that part, but it’s the only way to keep people writing. Remember that teacher? The one who didn’t get it and whose scars you still bear? The one who couldn’t see past the lumpiness to the embryo writer? I don’t ever want to be that teacher.

After all, for all we know, we are stuck down here forever, and polishing one’s craft is something to do to pass the time.

 

 

 

 

Wonder and Grace

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

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Katrina and the Waves are playing “Walking on Sunshine,” and I’m tryin’ to feel good. Not too hard to do–just got back from aqua-aerobics and it’s the First Official Day of Spring, meaning that I stuffed my sweater in my backpack and sauntered forth, tattoos all alive-o!

My dentist had the crown snapped back on in a jiffy, and we are waiting to hear whether my insurance covers bridge work. I can chew stuff, but I’m hyperaware of it. This makes eating a far more mindful experience. Jon Kabat-Zinn would be proud of me.

I went through this last week with the previous column very much in mind, albeit in the back. One of the things that is slowing down my self-inquisition is that the only definition of faith I hear in my head is not a catechism’s, but a joke my friend and former father-in-law tells: “Preacher man says faith is believin’ in what you know ain’t so.”

I know that’s how it works for a lot of people. They shrug it off as a Mystery, and go their way. But I’m just not built like that, so I’m falling back on what I closed with last time: A sense of wonder and of grace.

I’ve realized that my sense of wonder has in fact remained intact as what I consciously experience as a material thing that moves me to profound joy and sometimes tears. Perhaps the best examples of this are the Where the Hell is Matt? shorts. (Clickers, go watch if you’ve never seen them. Come back to me when you’re done with whatever Internet wondrousness you get carried away on.)

For the non-clickers: These videos are of Matt (who’s just some guy) in various locales around the world, doing what he admits to be just a little sketch of a dance, being a human bobbling his limbs in the universal symbol of celebration. Sometimes he is smack in the middle of other people’s ethnic dances. There is something compelling about them, and they went viral.

Then what I consider the real joy explosion happened: All around the world, they started to pre-announce Matt’s advent (you can sign up on his website) and groups of random people would flash mob there and start dancing too.

I imagine some alien seeing one of these announcements, and grabbing his friend and expostulating, “Come, Xpinthis. The bringer of simple joy comes. Let us go and join the worship.”

Because at its best, dance is worship–of aliveness, of movement, of humanness. Is it not a wonder, that the primal holiness of music calls us forth to move with it? And I would say that that feeling of connection, whether we have collapsed in a pile of sweat, or have just been swaying in our seats with a tear in our eye–is grace.

 

In Which Our Heroine Chews through a Strap

10 Friday Apr 2015

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Monday, April 6: I had four teeth out last Thursday afternoon. Today is Monday, and I’m dunking and gumming a danish at Au Bon Pain, having paid my $4.70 writing rent for an hour. ABP lacks Starbucks’ cave-like allure, but its brighter decor and better table selection attracts people having conversations, always a cheering milieu for me. There are only two others soloing it today, although one is goofing off on his Kindle, pen and pad neglected before him. (Yes, you. I see you.)

I am due to see my dentist in three or so hours, because the oral surgeon popped off one of my crowns during the procedure. I’d very much appreciate a little more chewing real estate right now. For the last three days I’ve had nothing but pasta (not al dente, alas), dairy in all its soft forms, and Jell-o® Instant Pudding. I thought this would be spiffy, but found something obscene in the rice bowl full of it: Treat and Dinner are two different things. On my way home I’m going to get some “nutritional replacement drinks.” More sweet stuff. Yum!

Useful Fact You Are Finding on the Internet: I thought the “several days recovery” meant “until we return to steak.” No, children. No. Maybe the nitrous oxide plays into this, but the oral surgery isn’t so much oral (as in dentist) as it is surgery (as in gaping bloody wounds needing to heal.)

I came home as perky as a mouthful of gauze could allow, my one concern being whether I would drool on the T–and then it was Saturday afternoon.  I remember my son making sympathetic noises and fixing me ramen noodles. I guess this means I sort of fasted on Good Friday for the first time in years. Do I get Jesus Points for this?

If not, I’d better have racked some up for singing two services on Easter morning. 7:50 call, y’all. I – AM – MIGHTY!

Another tip: If you are a singer and ever in this predicament, do all the dumbass face and mouth exercises your vocal peeps have ever taught you, as soon as you can without swearing. They matter.

*****

In the library now, having killed enough time and spent enough money in places lacking restrooms. I have an hour to go before hiking back up the street to find out my crown won’t go back on, I just betcha. I have been having flashes of being homeless: Lots of stuff to schlep–backpack and purse and a wet bathing suit in a plastic bag and a small parcel from the post office–and a book.

While wandering about, I went into the local spiritual bookstore, from whom I buy the shiny rocks my bestie in New Hampshire loves. This store can outfit you from tarot deck to incense, and that’s what I came for this time–incense and some pretty buttons for my cap. For some reason, they always have Anne Lamott right in front of the register: impulse chewing gum for the soul-stuff. I haven’t read her in years, not since I still had all my teeth and my faith and could chew God.

But I bought her latest on a whim, and left the store wondering, “Just what the hell was that all about?”

 *****

Once upon a time my spiritual jaws were in top form: After long and prayerful consideration, I pushed aside all the “no” and “I can’t,” and entered formal discernment in the Diocese of Baltimore to become an Episcopal priest.

Things went well enough for about half a year, and then my faith was extracted by giant pliers of Life, leaving behind bleeding caverns where I had also once had a home and family (which I admit were fragile to begin with.)

I fell down the rabbit hole: I had been battling too many stressors for too long, and this loss triggered my illness. You can accomplish great things while hypomanic, and I put together my ragged little pieces as best I could and crawled back to grad school, and after some more upheavals, at last I got well, and crawled back out of the hole. All I had left with which to chew God was a lacy bridgework of outward and physical signs criss-crossing the horrific gaps it left in my soul stuff.

I have a good life now–but now that I am comparatively well, I have been grappling with a sad and bitter question: Was my faith only a symptom of my illness, all that joy and sense of purpose just mixed up with the dreaded “religious ideation?” I have recovered from bipolar disorder I and dissociative identity disorder–have I recovered from God as well? Was that extraction not a tooth, but a tumor? Many good and kind people would say so; would congratulate me for coming to my senses. But then why do I feel so sad?

Because I do, and not even Jell-o® Instant Pudding can make it go away. I miss that life. I miss the magic of driving half an hour on a cold spring morning to light the new fire of Easter.

When my faith got pulled, tooth by tooth of it, and I was left sore and still numb in a homeless shelter in New Jersey, I ran into a wise priest who heard my story over tea and gave me permission to be angry with God. I clung to that, both the anger and the permission, and when my head told me to get my ass back to church, I did it, despite the hollowness of that cheated feeling filling my torso. So I joined choir because I knew that shaky as my soul stuff was, my Performer was intact, and it would bring me back to church,

It’s been nine years, and I have come to love that choir for its own sake. I’ve become a much better singer, but my sense of wonder, of grace, has remained cold and stiff, lying on the margin of my plate unchewed.

Dead or hibernating? And what happens if it comes back?

I’ve been dipping into Lamott, and having the feeling that something in my soul stuff has gnawed, or gummed, its way through a strap. But I don’t know what is now loose; I am both shaken and stirred, and as my tongue warily taps the forbidden places in my mouth, I am coming to face that I must do the same inside. And may God have mercy on my soul stuff, because it no longer knows where it is.