Life as Art » Creation

The Prize

Natalie — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:45:50 +0000

You know when you do things that you don’t understand why you do them? But you have to? Or when you begin to behave in an addictive manner…ie. smoking, eating, drinking, working, etc. to stop feeling something? Sometimes you can’t even identify the feelings, but you know they are there, simmering below the surface? Or when you think you aren’t afraid of something, but somehow, you can’t bring yourself to do it? Well, that is the quintessential push and a pull between our conscious minds and our unconscious minds. And whether or not we’re willing to pay attention, there’s always a subconscious agenda running your behaviour, there is always work being done in your subconscious that is going on, carrying on, sorting out, and attempting to reconcile and resolve. There are layers upon layers under there, like all those layers of the earth over the millenia, with stuff frozen in that particular time and space.

For myself, art is a simply profound and amazing way to connect with my subconscious. Art is my portal. Particularly paint. My truest art comes from that non-thinking mysterious place that just surprises me. What’s more, the work I create actually has a life of its own, it morphs, it changes and it becomes a feedback system for me to go to. Even if I’m not in the act of creating my paintings, they still ’speak’ to me. There are hidden messages in it if I am willing to be still, listen and feel. And somehow, miraculously, I created them! If I can do work purely from a feeling place, being aware of the feelings in my body and how they change, and my own areas of resistence and the thoughts that pop into my head, well, wow, this is the beauty of really communicating with myself. My subconscious becomes conscious, little by little, and I learn about myself. My deepest hurts and fears, the parts I didn’t know I even had, the memories I’d resigned as lost but most importantly, the gifts are also there. The gifts that bring me indescribable joy. The amazing unique gifts that are as unique as my fingerprints. It’s there. Just waiting to be discovered. It’s that part of me that deeply knows the answers I am looking for, the wise one. We all have a wise one within us. Every person has a sense of intuition that they can develop and learn from. It’s intangible, though, so it’s difficult to teach logically or rather, perhaps it’s only understandable to those who are exactly in the right place in the right time. It’s worth learning though, I’m telling you, this skill of communicating with our subconscious. And if you can be gentle with yourself and stay the course, it’ll be the beginning of trust. Trusting yourself. Trusting ‘timing’. Trusting that your gifts are worth knowing and that perhaps, you may inspire others to look for their own.

Olay!

Natalie — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:47:09 +0000

Thanks to the genius that resides next to Elizabeth’s pen and mouth for this helps me, helps me so much with the fwightened twisty bits in me.

Watch (link below) and be comforted….and then listen for that cute American lady at the end with her twangy Spanish.

On Nurturing Creativity

Fun Chew Toys

Natalie — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:59:39 +0000

Questions I’ve been playing with: what old limiting patterns of thought regarding the 4th dimension (ie. Time) are we still caught in? How is the illusion of time really hampering humans? Since time is an illusion, as good ol’ Einstein shows us it is, and all possibilites and all realities exist simultaneously, then what are the implications of this as we live out our lives ‘moment to moment’? It’s so freeing to not be an ‘official’ scientist and be so obedient to the ’scientific method’ and the need to prove shit before I can feel it’s truth. So freeing to be able to play and have fun with these ideas and throw them out and see what boomerangs back. I’ve been lately doing a lot of chucking lately, actually for the last decade or so, but I’ve recently done a bit of spring cleaning, gotta do some weeding every so often, y’know? Letting go of thoughts I was previously somehow identified with or ‘believed’ in. It’s funny how a collection of mental ideas soon becomes a ‘belief’ and then ‘truths’ to people. And all these beliefs do is serve to be a block between genuine feeling and understanding and very often FUN. Like how many people out there believe that their ‘reality’ still exists when they’re not there….but think about it really. Really take the time to think about these things, and push the mind to work from a much huger perspective even though we may not have any concrete answers, just realize it’s kinda FuN! Helluva lot funner than focussing on all the ‘problems’ in life, on ‘those people’ and ‘what I don’t have’. Whatever I put my attention on grows, whatever I’m interested in grows; put your attention on problems and they grow! Try it, just to experiment! It’s crazy to see how it piles up! But not so fun. The purpose of life is to have fun. The purpose of life is enjoy, stretch and grow. Focus on what is fun to you and watch it grow!

The real question is: how long does it take? Ha ha just screwin’ wit ja! Remember, there’s NO SUCH THING as time. We have as humans such a deep belief in how long things take before we get to our destination…. but this is part of the illusion of time isn’t it? I had someone say to me the other day ” I was just talking to an old elementary school friend today and saying, wow, lookit us, already in our forties with a bunch of kids,” and yeah ok i admit it, I played the game of ‘yeah yeah we’re really gettin’ old, eh, heh, heh.’ I just felt like a teeny weeny bit of an alien, frankly, because my genuine response to that was something i couldn’t say out loud without sounding like a loony (not that I believe that everyone who is considered loony is actually loony) which was ‘You actually believe in the process of “AGING”??? how charmingly prehistoric! We’re just playing being human! it’s not real! Our bodies aren’t real, we’re just a swirling collection of energy dancing to a particular cadence! This solid shit we see and feel, it’s pretend!!!!! i like my game and i know it’s pretend!!! You actually believe this shit is IT? this is ALL THERE IS?? Holy shit batman, this must be hell on earth for you!”

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could evolve to a point where we could blink like in I Dream Of Jeannie and we were in the exact place that we wanted to be in? Then each dream we ever had would be a part of our journey rather than the destination. Mmmmm may be this is already soooo….wake up!!!

So there we were, a couple of rich girls eating a rich piece a cake, savouring and enjoying the richness in our rich life.

Natalie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:27:05 +0000

Last week Lula wanted to discuss the word RICH. When I said that the “cake was rich” while doling out a tiny sliver of my dark chocolate and espresso birthday cake, Lula said, “I thought that rich meant a lot of money.”

I said, ” It’s more like a lot of good, like lots of yummy deliciousness in food, like sugar and butter, and sometimes too much can make you feel sick, so that’s why rich cake in moderation is in order, so you can really enjoy it.”

Then we rambled on about how rich in reference to people, can mean rich in spirit or life or joy or blessings… sometimes it just means a lot of goodness in their lives, often including money, but not always meaning money .

Lula, always willing to go the mile with me, started to broach the next leg of the marathon; how some people are rich with luck, like kids who are lucky to have lots of toys… seriously. And then I decided not to go down the path that she was attempting to lead me astray on. We’ll save the luck discussion for later. I muttering some lame excuse while wondering to myself, How to explain how being lucky isn’t just luck? And how to explain that some kids can become greedy entitled little bastards? Who says parenting young children turns your brain to mush from lack of intellectual stimulus? Har Har!

THANK YOU NOTE:

A THANK YOU has been welling up in my heart of late, which I need to express. Thank you to all those fabulous people who were there coaching me directly and indirectly with their energy as I howled and growled and moaned and screamed my son out of me more than a year ago. Thank you for supporting me in supporting myself. I cannot express the depth of gratitude I feel to you all. My midwives Candace and Sarah, my doula Kathy, my rock of a man Grant, my beloved friends Renuka, Carol and Tasha and last but not least, MAX, who definitely did his fair share by wiggling into the exact correct position to get through my pelvis. Thank you for being there to witness a birth, not only of Max, but a birth of myself. This was the blessing that came out of my willingness to trust and experience my body fully at that time. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments when I would have taken any kind of relief if it were offered, but I deliberately set up my home birth in such a way so that I wouldn’t have that option unless it was absolutely necessary. There were moments when I didn’t think it was possible that my ginormous baby could come out of my teeny tiny vagina, that he was completely and forever STUCK, and my mind was fahrreaking, and then there was a moment in the tub in the tiny dark bathroom when I had to choose. I had a moment when I had to choose what I was going to tell myself and the only choice that I could lean on was: I can do this. I began to chant it, over and over, over and over and people were all around me were affirming, Yes you can! You can do it, Natalie. You are doing it. But it was MY voice that I was listening to, it was MY voice telling me I CAN DO THIS that held me up. And I did, I experienced what I wanted to experience, the primal humanity of birth, how a bajillion women before me have birthed before modern obstetrics was invented in the last century. And I tapped into a power I’d never experienced before. I knew it was there, but now I KNOW it is there, and I feel like the whole world has opened up to me in a new and wondrous way born out of respect for my body, my womanhood and my humanity.

So thank you again to all the lovers and supporters that were in this house with me last November 10th and 11th 2008. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Love,

Natalie

Life as Art

Natalie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:15:55 +0000

All my life, since I was a small girl, I’ve examined anything I saw as beautiful and I’ve studied art. Alone for hours in my parents’ lounge, I’d pore over the few Chinese paintings that were hung on the walls. I’d stare and stare and look at the expressions on the painted faces, make stories up about why that old guy with the wispy long beard had that sad look on his face. I’d examine what direction the paint strokes were laid and how colours were blended on the canvas. To this day I still look at paintings in this way. I’m that horrifying gal at galleries who crosses the red line with print above it, ‘PLEASE STAND BEHIND THE LINE’; standing so close to paintings, I could lick them. I’ve been tempted to caress paintings, but when that urge hits me, I usually have some panicked security guard ready to pounce on me, voice close to a shout, ‘Step back from the painting, miss, miss, maaam, please STEP BACK.’

Van Gogh’s work is a huge inspiration for me as a painter. I’d done my own versions of his paintings, copying his strokes, learning from him. The first time I saw an original Van Gogh in the flesh, I wept from the beauty of it. People in the gallery were streaming by this piece, giving it a glance, moving through the exhibit as though it were some obstacle course, while I stood there mesmerized, feet rooted like tree trunks, leaking eyes locked on this portrait of a yellow haired girl. This is the power of art, if you allow it. It just busts open your chest and makes you feel.

Recently I read one of Van Gogh’s biographies, and I read something that changed my perspective about everything, but especially my being a woman and a mother. I feel so incredibly privileged to be a woman. It changed my perspective in an instant from ‘women as underdogs in a white male system’ to ‘I’m a goddess, didja know?’ Apparently Van Gogh envied women. Not many men did way back then, hell, not many men do now, but then he was not just any man. He saw the ultimate value, the intrinsic value in the creative force inherent in all women, he envied that we can experience the ultimate act of creation. We get to experience creating humans, growing them in our bellies, and raising them and witnessing metamorphosis. I’ve always seen my children as miracles of creation, which I was a part of, but learning that my absolute hero of paint envied my experience of motherhood made me look at it again. Look again at my life. Zoom out big time. And I had this moment where I saw the totality of my life of as a giant piece of art work. My work. I wonder if this is what happens when people see their life flash before their eyes when they near death. I now see everything from this perspective from above, like a bird in the sky looking down at my adorable house, seeing my exquisite children, my gorgeous man, my phenomenal family of friends and all the inspiration I’ve surrounded myself with and almost every day I now weep with gratitude just like I wept when I saw that painting, at the sheer beauty in my life, and the ability to see my life as the work of art that it is. I can’t shake this vision of beauty, and I don’t want to. Thanks Vincent!