Week 8 - Uncovering a Sense of Truth

What are heavy?
sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief?
to-day and to-morrow:
What are frail?
Spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep?
the ocean and truth.
- Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song

This week we focus on tuning up our inner compass with more gentle grounding exercises to keep us on the steady path through all those things that threaten to knock us off the balance beam. Life seems to be constantly shifting between moments of my feet steady on the bar, to nearly losing my balance and catching myself with one leg and both arms flailing in the air, to gaining my balance again, to falling off all together, to getting back up again, to walking with ease and flow, to following one shaky step with another, all in constant flux. I like grounding exercises, I need them. I need to remember to do those bits of self-care, to fall back on the sensual delights of a hot bath, a foot rub with peppermint lotion, Aveda shampoo, fresh flowers in the windowsill.

I was grateful this week to read that Cameron's mental state was a bit brighter. I found myself getting frustrated with her darker chapters as I find myself susceptible to the energies of others. I'm usually able to take in what's helpful and leave the rest, but last week, I found myself annoyed. After venting about it a bit on my own blog, I realized that my annoyance might have less to do with Cameron and more to do with myself. When I get annoyed with someone, I've found that it usually relates to something going on within me. And a little reflection on this made me realize that, at least in part, my frustrations are centered around the annoyance I feel towards myself when I get depressed. There's that harsh voice in me that says to "just snap out of it!" That part of me just wants to shake myself and believes that if only I were smarter, better, something else, I would not feel so low, so sad, so useless. I think it's a combination of things, so I continue to be aware of that harsh voice and return to those self-nurturing activities and return to my art. Art is very grounding for me.

How do you ground yourself? What do you do to take care of yourself when that harsh voice makes an appearance?

"Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth."
- Pable Picasso

This week I painted a figure. It was somewhat planned in that it was inspired by a doodle in my sketchbook, but I always allow room for change in the final product. It never comes out exactly as I expect, and I like surprises. I hadn't pictured the figure as being blue when I started, I was going to make something more monochromatic in bright sunshiney colors. I painted in some blue shadows on her and added some highlights, but she remained very blue. Every time I adjusted the colors a bit, I came back to her being blue. I had imagined her being lit up by the spring's sunshine, so I was a bit confused about why she was so icey. But then I realized that she was still blue because she hadn't thawed yet. And it helped me realize that I was in a similar state, still slightly in winter-mode, still kinda blue, trying my best to soak in the sun and thaw myself out. This is one of the things I love about art, my subconscious comes to light there, it brings out of the shadows what I might have been hiding from my conscious mind (which doesn't like to admit depression factors into things). And I felt a sense of recognition and peace there, a feeling of acceptance for where I'm at in this moment. It's ok.

I keep thinking of that movie line, "You can't handle the truth!" when I read the title of this chapter. But I believe we all can handle the truth. Sometimes, it needs to come out in a more gentle format, such as in your writing, your poems, your morning pages, your collages, your paintings, your dreams and it's ok to open up and let it in.

Wishing you a week of feeling grounded and connected! I'd love to hear the ways in which you ground yourself.

-Leah, Creative Everyday