Birthing Beauty
From my journal, May 10
I dreamt recently I was in a car and someone else was driving. “Stop the car!” I exclaimed. I got out of the car. Suddenly, I was seeing in a virtual realm. I felt that I was stepping out of a chrysalis of sorts, passisng over a threshhold, and into a new dimension of life.
Shortly after this dream, I received an invitation to take part in a group show at the Bainbridge Island Art Museum. This is a longterm dream of mine.
I feel like I’m walking on water, hoping for God’s immense and immeasurable generosity and provision. This week, my friend L. also helped me to move my cheetah painting to the studio from home. I had planned to do it alone but was grateful for her support. The painting was heavier and bulkier than I expected. She suggested we put a soft blanket down for the lady in the painting to ride on. It felt like a picture of how I am feeling invited to move through the world—with support and grace—the opposite of abandonment and neglect. L. works with newborns, and it felt poetic and right that she would help me birth Cheetah painting into the world. I was reminded of the courage and vulnerability of a woman giving birth, and the importance of feeling nurtured and supported. I had a fresh awareness of the immensity of my calling to birth Beauty into the world, and the importance of letting others help me in any way they choose. I’m not meant to go it alone. God is sending help and helpers to me. I also have an awareness of a tide lifting me up and carrying me along. I wonder if this being an artist is like permaculture gardening. Does the garden begin to acquire its own unstoppable momentum?
May 15
My spiritual director told me that each time we grow, we have to break the old to become the new. If a child doesn’t grow up, it is a tragedy. But in order to grow, the old self must be partially destroyed or undone. She looked at me intently and said, “You’ve done this many times, haven’t you?”
I’m thinking about my dream of stepping out of the chrysallis. I’m daring to be known and seen. I’m opening my creative self to more exposure and visibility. I’m letting go of the need to “arrive” or be perfect and embracing the becoming.
Photo: picture of my mom with newborn Christen.