Simplicity and Inclusiveness

By Anon.

From the Class exercise;
Inner work flirts;
(1) A large, lovely reddish orange leaf gently floating to the ground. The medicine in this energy is gentleness.
(2) A bonfire … large, but contained. The medicine of this energy is of protection … keeping harmful energy away from what is hidden in the fire.

My feelings about the sculpture I created; I like its simplicity and its inclusiveness. It is simple and yet includes my body part, my pain energy and the 2 flirts from my inner-work. It includes nature and science and colors and so many things.

My “speaking” to the sculpture; Dear Sculpture…. I like your simplicity and your inclusiveness. As I experience you, I feel my appreciation for simplicity in all its forms and inclusiveness in all its forms. To include in a simple way can be poetry and beauty and genius …. Thank you!!!

What I added after others shared; tree bark … which added the medicines of more inclusiveness and more protection.

If I were medicine for the world, what might that be?? Perhaps gentleness and inclusiveness….

Sonata

By Tara

There was this tall plastic red column looking thing that I loosely tied to a board with orange curly ribbon.

It was perfect because that’s what my pain looks like, that red column with orange curls going all around it.

Then I tied to it two very scrappy pine cones because when I am agitated that’s exactly what it feels like going up and down my stomach. Fiery red column.

The curly ribbon is perfect cause the pain has that curling upward energy.Loosely tied down because it needs to know that it can go.

I also put three match sticks, actual matches, on there to represent the fire. Plus a bench of red orange beads which are kind of jetting out from it the way the pain radiates out for me.

Then surrounding it are all the medicines that come to me:

Perfect a piece of sheet music - Vivaldi, a sonata. I play Vivaldi and I love music as a soothing way to get out this energy but on the music it says aggitato. Perfect sometimes you have to go with it and be a little agitated.

I found two cool crescent shaped glass stones that formed the crescent moon that was part of my a healing imagery, part of my medicine.

Then some groups of eyes watching, one eye above, one below, that came to me as medicine too, just focusing your eye on it, watching it, and using your energy in your eyes to help with healing process. For me that is very powerful.

Then along the bottom some nature: I have a leaf, a crescent shaped tree bark, then a really neat piece of wood that kind of looks like camouflage. Nature to support. It’s a natural process. Nature is part of it.

Things falling apart,

Things coming together,

Nature in and out of everything ~

We are one in our pain and our Nature;

Accepting it all

in its

Simplicity and its Beauty!

Boat medicine

By Kara

My art work is made out of tinfoil and modeling clay and sticks, leaves and shells. It was simple to make but gives me a good feeling.

I am not sure how it works as medicine but a mixture of foil and nature works somehow.
Mixing hand made, machine made and nature made. There is a lightness in the plant seeds. A comfort in the bowl. A symbol of giving, reaching out and holding.

Picking up a flirt from another. Colors of leaves yellow and green. Want to add some colors to mine.

Adding red leaves and green sticks which reminded me of my childhood dream.

A little boat floated down the street.

Full of sweet marshmallows to eat.

A traveller slept under her shiny hat.
Reflecting the sun and dreaming of this and that.

The waves got rough the marshmallows began to melt.
Four birds flew by high in the sky. A guiding star.

The boat rocks and rolls and hits the shoals
Green tendrals bring it to the shore.

Picking up a flirt from another. I liked the shell and pieces of nature but best of all things falling out.

Pieces going everywhere at random, when they wanted, unpredictable and spontaneous.

Recycle

By Anon.

I'm dead leaves.

I'm compost.

I'm left over.

I'm all of them

containing them

with fire energy

to recycle everything we have

embracing whole.

Silver Bells

By Suzette

Witness

Me: What do you have to say to me?

Sculpture: Eat lighter, those marshmellows are light, but still the rich sugar is too much for your gall bladder.

Me: Its so hard- I want the sweetness and i crave the pastries, the bread, the sugar. YUM

Sculpture: You need to notice your level of anxiety and tension and thinking you have to get it all done at once. or it is only YOU that has to do it...Its great for you to be giving the class with Kara. She brings lightness and sweetness in her voice, and her carrying half the class and being transparent, also is a kind of lightness.

Me: I need help. i need reminders

Sculpture: Find some little bells to carry in your pocket and know that this fire in me is your creative energy burning , and balancing the energies.. Its not just the heat of pushing but the heat of cooking.

WHAT I ADDED FROM A FLIRT- RED TWIGS and EYES

Witness: What i added was tying red threads on the twigs. They are burning without so much hot heat to make compost...cooking heat to transform rather than burn out.

I added eyes for all the 4 directions, to bring attention to my illness...real loving attention.

 

Wreath

By Makiko

Harvest, autumn leaves, tree skins

Nature, nature, nature.
Long, stringy, smooth, pointy.
Centuries and centuries
Beyond time and space

Class Two

In this class we remembered a dream from childhood and made a story telling the journey of our body in pain, the energy of the most disturbing part of the pain, and a place on the earth. We used craypas, collage and folded paper to tell the story.

Lighthouse

By Kara

Once upon a time there was a thin tall fairy, who went around doing everything straight. she had rules for everything. Everything had to fit between two lines. Along came a wolf that grabbed hold of the fairy and wouldn't let her go. I'm sick of all your rules and I'm hungry.

External vs. Internal

By Anon.

Story Title; External vs. Internal


Once upon a time the character/figure “Heddy” was enjoying the beauty of Walden Pond. The pond was serene and the forest surrounding it was thick and beautiful and Heddy felt quite at home there enjoying the beauty and serenity. Heddy lies down in the soft, cool grass next to the pond and peacefully watches some big, puffy clouds slowly float across the bluest of skies.

All of a sudden the serenity is shattered by the ferocious arrival of the character/figure named “Pain”. It comes speeding out of the forest, sneaks up from behind and crashes into Heddy with such force that it actually gets inside her skin and latches on to all her nerve endings. This character “Pain” is a burning, power-hungry creature from outer space.

The invasion of this alien creature causes Heddy to abandon her peaceful reclining position, to sit up, to embrace herself and to try to comfort herself. Heddy’s focus now becomes totally internal. Her focus is no longer on the beauty of Walden Pond or on any of her surroundings. She can no longer focus on the external. The Pain creature draws all of her attention from the external world into her internal world. (end of story)

Then;

While listening to others tell their stories, what most flirted with me was a poem about “Falling to Pieces”. It brought to me the addition to my story/artwork of beautiful, colorful leaves gently floating down from the trees and creating a gorgeous carpet on the ground. Even though at the end of my story my focus was internal, the gentle floating/falling of the leaves all around me somehow softened Heddy’s experience.

In answer to the question; “ Do you notice any of these energies in your earliest childhood memory?” = Yes


And in answer to the question; “Where do you see your story happening in the world?” = Everywhere …. The entire issue of external vs internal, extrovert vs. introvert, etc…..

Gall Hatching

 

By Suzette

Witness writing

Me: that red S in the center seems to have the golden egg.

The art says and the red says: Yes, I am the red swan. I have a golden egg and a green gally egg. I have two eggs.

Me: Hatching, What will hatch out? Push out of those shells. Will it be a red blooded creature or cold green lizard?

Art: We are tangling, two energies or three - fire, water, earth. Fire is the blood.

Me, or the gall bladder says: Ouch, I am feeling that pushing in my side. It's feeling more uncomfortable. What are you doing? The point of this was not to make me hurt more. I feel bitter and full of green gall when I think I am going to hurt more.

Me: I will put my had on my side where you are and say hello.

And the gall says: I like the warmth and presence of your hand meeting me. The healing fire of your hand. That healing attention. Saying hello. I'm just meeting and hanging out with you.

Fullness, let’s just be with the fullness of the body. All that fullness of being. Red, green, blue in contact.
I just want more contact with that feeling of fullness.

Smoke

By Rosalyn 
It's just the story of the gray and black
man of old age grabbing and holding
and squeezing the little tree,
Spacious butterfly girl, she who I had
only just begun to fully appreciate
down into a hard, still
colorful lump.

How can I let go, how
stop fighting? The gray man is
just smoke, the joyful blue has
more substance.

Pieces of me - leaving them behind for others,
memories are not here in me.

Messenger

By Makiko

Once upon a time there was one airplane disappeared over the Bermuda triangle.

And in the water one arm was floating.
Then suddenly, the god of the ocean came up and he changes and shifted the dimension, in and under the water. It’s like an entangled string.
And then the arms shape shifted into the dragon and he became the messenger between the ocean and the sky.

Pieces and Peace

By Anon.

Childhood Dream
My elder brother asked me to check the temperature of hot bath. As I open the cover of the bath tub, a ghost appeared.

Witness
-Pieces-
Break into pieces
Small pieces, micro pieces
Blend with water.
Blend with the earth
Left with peace and shining light

Then Rainbow dragon manifested into the sky

Fiery Angel

By Tara

Childhood memory
One day I had gotten very angry at my mother. I don't know why. I think I was about 7 years old. For some reason, and quite out of character, I went slamming out of the house, marched down the side walk - towards my best friend's house - with my mother in close pursuit.

At one point, I stopped, turned around, put my hands on my hips, and yelled "Bitch" at her! I was not allowed to use that word. I did not know what it meant except that it was bad. My mother stood there stunned. I don't remember her saying anything. She followed me back into the house. I remember having a "sore throat" for that day. I don't remember expressing anger like that until I was an adult. (I stuffed it down).

What can I do with anger?

The fire gives further instruction

Heat process ~ yields lots of insight ~ letting the toxins out.

The fire is also the source of passion ~for your dreams ~ for your desires ~ the fire for the dance, the music, the love. But it is scary to those who want to control it - they're afraid of what it can do - what they think it will do to you - that is why they steered you away from it ~ made it clear it was not ok ~ made you pull it back in - it was okay to experience by yourself/with yourself ~ but not with others - too dangerous ~ too out of control ~ what do we do with that? ~ (Why were they needing to be responsible for it at all?)

Body Part Story Figure
Youthful feminine fiery angel.
She radiates heat, creative force, passion but does not know where to channel it ~ needs a guide, a wise spirit, to guide the fierce energies welling up inside
The place / sacred earth spot
A lovely valley between the hills ~ a cooling river running through ~ Glendalough Valley in Ireland (below Dublin). The river is a wise feminine force, the hills ancient and supportive and they beckon the fiery angel. Step into me and we will combine forces. I will not extinguish you. Together we will create a magical steam, the energy for all your creative dreams. I draw you to me so we can create together.

Rainbow connections; magical quality to the light, up lifting, inspiration, higher calling, angelic assist.

You do not have to do this alone. Not earth beings but other beings can help.

Now they both transform into a Light being that carries both/all their energies. A synthesis of great power and passion; with left over energy to share.

Riotous Stars

By Annie
The Story

The brain settled down in the earth, at rest, surrounded by soft contactful earth.
The sorcerer arrived looking for a bit of brain that loves the wind because the wind can go anywhere and heal the earth.
The brain said "no, you can’t have a bit of me that’s cruel", and stood strongly for not giving up a bit.
The sorcerer grumbled and then said "I’ll take the essence of the love of wind into me and spread that around the world."
The brain said "Yes, do that. I pass to you my love of the wind. I will stay in the soft earth with my love of the wind and think of you, as you travel around the world, spreading the love of the wind."

Witness
Zapping, I see lots of zapping. zoot, zap, zip. Straight out and also curvy all around.
Squiggle, squiggle, squiggle.
I have lots of arms and legs and heads that can go everywhere at once. No stopping. I just go.
“Yes, go, go”, says the sorcerer, “go for all your worth.”
“And then I will take you even further riding on large rolling waves, though the sky, over the earth, dancing with the constellations.”
Mixing them up, twirling them around until they spin in ecstasy loosing all sense of up down, relationship to any other known constellation. A new pattern of riotous stars rocking through the universe. Feeling themselves. Greet and move on. Gleeful in their tumbling natures. Unleashed from any forces that say, "Stay put!” At last they settle and check out their nearest neighbors giggling at the unlikely combinations.
A cosmic sigh of delight at their mischief sweeps through the universe.

Class One

In this class we explored our experience of chronic pain. Using craypas we made a sketch of the energy of the most disturbing part of our pain.

Trapped Volcano

By Anon.

Hi everyone,
After class I was motivated to complete the exercise on my own. In case you have an interest, here is a summary of what came out of it…..

First Part
Hello art work what are you wanting to tell me, what do you want to say?

I am showing a fiery volcano that is completely
enclosed and trapped.
Trapped by a thick solid impenetrable black wall
I cant get out no mater where I try to find a hole in the wall
I am trapped in here by my self
All good things are outside the wall
The greens and blues, the grass and the ocean
Things that grow and move
All movements is outside the wall

Inside my trap I move but only in a confined way
This space is much too small for me
I just go around and around
and try to get out and burn myself because the heat builds up and up and up
until it is hotter than Hades

Art, i think that the energy depicted in you is what is talking to me now.

Yes, that energy created me and it not only wants to be seen it wants to be heard
It wants to be seen as a representation of itself
Not as a picture of anything else
There is no room in here for anything else
Just heat and fire and explosions that are trapped

Do you have any other messages for me?

No! Don't try to make me into something else.
I am your pain in visual form, why cant I just be what I am
look at me and see how big I am, how definite, how simple, how full of color

Okay I am now just looking and seeing
at the moment i am relaxed and at peace with just looking and seeing.

Exercise One – Part E “Art & Community”

The first big flirt from someone else’s sharing about their artwork that captured my attention was the description of a “cat-lady”.

(1) After I added it to my artwork, I had the insight/awareness that I want to somehow get my image of the cat-lady into my trapped, volcanic pain. My image of her was someone who was very strong and could lighten any situation. That would be sooooo relieving. It was interesting to note that since I couldn’t see the artwork that included the cat-lady, I had the freedom to create my own vision of her. Perhaps my response to her would have been different if I had seen the artwork.

(2) In answer to the question “How could I use this awareness to change the world?”…. it would be to bring the cat-lady to others to help relieve their pain.

(3) “What does it suggest about who I am?” That I am someone who would like to help others alleviate their suffering in a light-yet-strong way.

(4) “What does it suggest about changes I might make?” To remember the cat-lady and bring her into my own pain & into helping others with theirs.

The second flirt was hearing how someone had poked a hole in their artwork to hang it on a door handle for better viewing. I liked the idea of being free and detached enough to just “poke a hole” in “whatever”. It feels like this would help in so many ways … not just in poking a hole in the trap that confines my pain.

It was fascinating to see/feel that I was definitely affected by the sharing of others. All the sharing was interesting and held my attention …. and I thank everyone for participating and thus enriching my own experience.

Green Grasses

By Suzette

Intention: Explore the nature of my chronic pain around my gall bladder.

Witness:

Grass: Pushing pushing, I want to push out.

Me: Push, push, push.

Like that fast train in the distance.

Pushing too fast.

Trying to get it all in.

How to live a slower push, or no push at all. I see a thin red line of pain which pushes out, makes my side plump out with pain.

Grass Art: Yes, I love pushing. I love fast strokes of green, coming faster and faster with so much force and energy...I love getting bigger and pushing out into the world.

Me: I love how the grass plumps out in the wind on the sandy beach coast, and moves, moving with that flowing,-out in fullness...not in a driven kind of way. I want to flow out, say what is needed but not forced.  I need to know more about my inner pusher...just putting my hand on my side helps....meeting that plumpness. Softer plum of skin and being.

Right Knee

By Rosalyn

You don't look powerful enough.

Shreds, you need shreds and balls of fluff.

It's not one mouth, one set of teeth,

It's the earth itself tearing life apart.

Why do we/I think life is prettier?

Fairy tales, myths - life doesn't "win".

It happens. No more. It's enough.

Dragon Hologram

By Makiko
Sleeping or injured dragon going into the black hole but the
black hole itself is in the dragon
So its like holographic
Universe in our body
 

Mud Flood / Clay

By Anon.

“What Chaos!!

Unmovable, condense

Flaming, outward.

Balancing in the extreme

Imbalancing in your body

Holding, warning.”

Grassland Savanna

By Kara

Well that isn't really what the savanna would draw. That's just you drawing it. 

I like the layers the feeling of depth and the lines that go sideways and the colors of fall, orange, brown, yellow, gray. Just before winter harvest. 

What does it say to me?

"There is so much you don't see. If you can go deeper inside. There is something hiding back there." 
There is a group of people who live there and walk slow through the field moving on to the warm place to be. They are tired, you can't see them you have to imagine them.

Contained Fire

By Tara
Session 1 " Invite the image to speak to you..."

And the fire responded...
Thank you for letting me direct the art! You captured the way I feel. You have it right there. I feel contained, boxed in, no where to go. I rumble around, caught up in the anger of it all. It starts in the center or things, gets burning hot, and then explodes up, looking for a way out.

You are right ~it touches your heart because it involves your deepest feelings. It's a reminder, a wake up hurt. It hurts, what has happened~ it burns to the core. Your heart is fine as long as you keep it open. I burn to remind you not to hang on to pain and anger. Pain to burn away the pain. Until you stop recreating the anger, there will be pain.

But I am contained, going nowhere else. Cool waters and cool breath surround me. Green health is everywhere else. Speak out the anger and then be done with it. Cool breath, cool water, green support, peace will follow.
The volcano will calm itself and lie quiet.

Fierce Cat Lady

By Annie
Fierce cat lady, you look at me intently, even angrily.
You tilt and look like you want to spin into outer space,whirling and spinning with fierce piercing vibration, that will not listen to anything, especially to anything namby pamby.

"Dear fierce cat lady, please speak to me in your outrage."

"Enough is enough, it's time.
Time to roll out all your dice. Time to spin out to fill your own outrageousness."

"You scare me, you seem so pissed."

"I'm furious."

"But that's so critical."

"No, I am outraged at anything that criticizes anyone's attempts to be creative."

When Things Are Blurry

By Kara

You don't have to be clear, you can be blurry. You can stand on one leg, lie down or sit and wonder. You can go round and round on the same spot. Let the current guide you.

Dr Seuss

By Suzette
Intention: To find a way to companion our class network, cultivate relationship and exchange.

Witness:

Nerve: I look like a Dr. Seuss figure, running through a field of connecting synapses, wanting to communicate, I hurt. Information to be carried from one nerve ending to another, amplifying the message I HURT, OUCH. I am like a light house on the coast transmitting my beam of ouch, saying danger, stay away, be careful and connecting at the speed of light, with my interconnectors. I am a messenger, a chronic ongoing unique message for you. There is a whole community of us here, interconnected and amplifying, reaching out. it's important. I am saying, PAY ATTENTION TO ME...I want your attention!

Me: You have my attention but if I pay more attention to you, will you go away. it won't make any difference to listen to what you have to say. I am afraid of you, I don't like you. Why don't you just stop hurting and bothering me? I'm stuck to you, tied to you, you grab me and don't let me go. THE NERVE OF YOU!

Nerve: Thought I understand your need to get rid of me, you must befriend me, not be against me.

Me: How do I do that? YOU MUST BE CRAZY

Nerve: Yes, I am crazy like a story figure in Dr. Seuss book, crazy wisdom...lets be wacky together and discover something new...it won't hurt you to try something new.

Me: It might hurt, you cannot promise me anything. Nothing works to get rid of your pain..

Nerve: there you go again, being so totally against me, and I have a deeper story than just the pain,Ii have many levels of information. Go deep with me, I am deep in your body already, there is a kind of treasure to be found...in the whole story.

Me: I want comfort and support.

Nerve: Maybe I can help some....