TRANSFORMATIONAL TRAVELING

The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking 

new landscapes but in having new eyes. 

                                                      Marcel Proust

Evolving Edges

As in dreams, images in my paintings reflect how the psyche is very often several steps ahead of us. That is to say, you can know something even if it is not-yet-speech-ripe. I am still catching up to the edge of growth from my last large abstract paintings. They relate to the practice of Direct Awakening and preparation for the Transformational Painting Retreat in Costa Rica taking place in Montezuma Beach on the Nicoya Peninsula, July 23-August 3, 2017.

This retreat was conceived in the wake of the last election, in response to the question of what can we do in the face of our unsettling political climate and the various crises in the world. The underlying current in our painting circles at the studio for the last year has reflected the events in the larger collective, a sense of apprehension, adrift as to how to respond. The societal uncertainty has affected our work and image-making confirming that where we are now in this country, on this planet, can most possibly not be resolved through the systems that got us here.

Emerging Skyline

From our limited human perspective of life, we have tried to conceptualize our understanding of the Universe. We identify the Big Bang as the point of origin, finding ourselves near its periphery, possibly endpoint. The environment we have consumed and degraded so efficiently, poses our largest, most obstinate, existential threat. It is within this frame of reference, we note that only our own consciousness and actions can alter our personal and collective trajectory in a positive way. It requires, however, we sense ourselves, our relationship with each other, and the world anew. We don’t yet know what this is, but we do know that how we are doing things needs to change. Very possibly our limited behavior aligned with our limited perspective.

Our painting circles, workshops and retreats at Studio Anavami use archetypal stories to explore mythic blueprints. Fundamental to this work is cultivating a greater awareness of awareness or Presence. The Costa Rica retreat draws from several innovative thinkers, Otto Scharmer of U Theory and Jeff Carriera and Craig Hamilton from Cultural Evolution of Integral Enlightenment. It is remarkable that, Scharmer, MIT professor of evolutionary methods of learning and leadership uses the word Presencing as key to the shift needed to start thinking differently. He talks also about Absencing, the deer caught in the headlights, as an apt description for rationalizing, self-delusion and reactionary behavior in an effort to preserve old beliefs.

Gathering Impetus

The archetypal journey for this Transformational Painting Retreat is the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her companions are aspects of the self in need of cultivation, including the Wizard, trickster-ego. It is interesting that all Scharmer’s methodological schemas center on the imperative to open the mind, heart and will, Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion, in order to Presence aspects of reality that are in our Blind Spots. This is where the creative process generates new ways of perceiving and creating.

How can 10-days in Costa Rica relate to evolution of consciousness? First, it begins locally, that place inside ourselves, our individual self or identity. How we perceive and define ourselves and how we participate and contribute in the world is integral to how we create. Taking time outside our regular habits and ways of perceiving sets new possibilities in motion.

The second perspective takes even more imagination because it is outside of our established mode of thinking, perhaps beyond current language. In this retreat our on-going exercise in imagination is to suspend the hierarchy of acquired beliefs that everything outside the boundary of our self we discern as something augments or diminishes us. The exercise is to not perceive in terms of self/other. Martin Buber puts it as I-Thou, to sense the bond or relationship. It requires a leap of imagination to shift from centralized self to one based on connection, or field of flow, rather than a point inside-me. It is radical, but common in spiritual text.

History demonstrates how artists of all disciplines have been in the vanguard of change agents reflecting political processes underway, anticipating and guiding the direction of social response. Our Costa Rican quest is to shed some the social weights and expectations that attach us so rigidly to our habits of thought, action and emotions. This is not intended, in any way, to disrupt our deep connection to the objects of our lives, only to be able to catch sufficient glimpse of those attachments, and constraints, and thereby liberate or enable the creative impulse those attachments block from our view.

These exercises, to suspend ingrained beliefs, is not easy, however daily Qi Kung, Contact Improv and a particular approach to drawing and painting will be used to support this experiment while we engender to expand how we perceive self on the Emerald Peninsula. It is an endeavor to experience and possibly cultivate the transformation of our personal worlds from ego-centric to eco-centric .  

Duck/Rabbit Illusion in the Studio Part II

Duck/Rabbit Illusion in the Studio Part II (continued from Part I)

The cultural arts of Japan distinguish between a repetitive practice to gain technique for a later time and the practice of being. The Japanese word practice, shugyo, means a deep mind-body integrative activity cultivating a deeper level of consciousness, innate in us all. Proficiency in skill sets is not at the heart of creating. As in the Duck/Rabbit image dichotomy because we are not trained to see the whole, we see the either/or. You could say we have learned separation.

What is the intention of the painter? Entertainment? Fulfillment of personal story? For me painting is a way to return to the source. It is possibly, the first time in the evolution of the cosmos we as human

Which one do you see?

beings choose our direction. In the duality of everyday life, we need the practice of being, in order to perceive beyond the conditioned mind. I am particularly interested in how this relates to developing a visual syntax in painting. As the focus shifts to process rather than outcome or product, spontaneity and authenticity also emerge.

We all have been struck dumb by works of art. Recognizing it is the beginning of going beyond the determined categories of language or thinking. Rupert Spira has said, “that instead of attention traveling along lines of language to an object creating more separation, in art it returns to the source.” When we receive the beauty or truth in art, this is the return. In the realm of an artist, to be wholly present in who we are, is more important than more knowledge, experience, or technique. Because it is a matter of being, not doing, it accesses the universal through the individual.

If we assume as the first step in this process the premise that we are not really separate, but indeed a part of the Whole, we open to the Duck in the Rabbit or the old woman in the young woman. As we expose new understandings we may develop new functions of the eye brain connection. Knowing that the image Rabbit/Duck can be integral to each other softens the either/or schism, inviting inclusion.

Like the Zen koan, the Duck/Rabbit drawing oscillates back and forth begging our awareness to find another entry. We began by acknowledging the leap of understanding beyond our learned patterns. In the next step it is essential to know and connect to our most expansive motives. If we are counting rabbits then ducks are not seen. Thus, technique is never enough, it is the cultivation of being that we must achieve.

The third component in setting up this kind of practice of accessessing another level of consciousness is to practice in the moment. We tend to turn immediately to developing skill sets for later results. Accessibility is not improved if we hang on to these experiences or build systems to capture them. Like the koan practice some attitudes support the possibility of an ‘embrace’ which instigates another kind of knowing. It is critical not to aim for those moments or try to re-create them. Something will come through the painting that is delightful beyond what you can orchestrate. Stay in being rather than simply doing. There are no goals, no failure or success. There is only the intention of awareness.

These practices can be gathered and implemented in other aspects of our lives. The shift in approach provides a broader understanding of what is swirling around us.  In our modern world, for example, nationalism vs globalism, may not be a contradiction but instead requires an integrative way of looking at them both. A way of addressing motives and finding common truths. It is a radical idea, even though it is fundamental to many mystical traditions. If you consider implementing it, it is revolutionary, not only to our self but our community and to the evolutionary edge of our planet.

Below are some attitudes to painting, which can be applied to other activities that invite artistry beyond fundamental skill. They are inspired from my work using large format acrylic painting as practice, experience in temples in Korea and Japan, meditation practice and most recently working on-line with Craig Hamilton.

·                  Presence in the Moment:  This means being aware, not lost in your head in past or future. It is holding the entire painting even as you work on different parts without thinking about it. Without being thinking-centered it is a practice of concentration and engagement. All kinds of perceptions, information and insights arise through this kind of activity with materials.

·                  Not Knowing: As mentioned above this kind of curiosity allows your materials to guide you. It takes strong intention to sustain, often leading into exciting, even thrilling places. I don’t know or care to know what is going on in the process. It happens while I am painting, then letting it go into the unknowable is an important part of the process. There is no trying to get back there or marking success somehow.

·                  Allowing: Allowing as a kind of surrender, a trusting. There is not a subtle negotiation but accepting how things are in this moment.

·                  All is included: In this attitude, nothing is excluded. That means there is no judgment. Everything that is there is right, even if it is not right. There is an acceptance that allows everything to keep moving.

·                  Release identity as…..artist: Let go of any attachment that what you paint will add or diminish who you are. Respond in the moment, then let go. You may not even know to what you are responding.

                                                                                                      Majio

Duck/Rabbit in the Studio

Duck/Rabbit in the Studio Part I

Remember that drawing of a duck, which is also a rabbit? We can see one or the other, but not both at the same time because our brain has been taught to organize information in a certain way. In our culture it is hard to tolerate what we perceive as mutually exclusive. It makes you wonder how many rabbits are concealed in our life by the ducks that we passionately define. As we evolve, our ability to perceive and overcome old wiring grants us access to new levels of consciousness enabling transcendence of old dichotomies   

To understand this Duck/Rabbit dichotomy I am reminded of the Zen koan study that I practiced in Japan. It is the experience of being asked to respond to a question that seemingly cannot be answered. In the contemplation of the question and in the intense milieu of the asking, a response can spontaneously arise naming a truth beyond Duck or Rabbit. Yet, you could say, their distinction is honored in the experience of accessing a whole. 

There are ways to support this leap beyond the habitual separation and patterns of brain organization in the spiritual practice of the koan and more broadly in the practice of Direct Enlightenment. From a Western consciousness this leap is harder because we stand firmly on one or the other. In Japanese language, for example, dichotomies are more easily accommodated. Duck could also be Rabbit, and if that is true then it does not undermine the duckness of duck, nor the rabbitness of rabbit.

We tend to create an absolute which is not absolute. This week in an events publication (Good Times, Santa Cruz 1.18.17) there is an article about a local woman, who is the first in the nation to receive an intersex birth certificate. Kelly Keenan did not fit into the category of male or female when she was born. Unbeknownst to most of us, for decades doctors, as a matter of common practice, have been surgically forcing newborns into one of the only two available boxes, male or female, by altering their genitals. When Kelly was born her father would not allow the operation and now 50 years later she is recognized as being born intersex. We are not comfortable acknowledging possibilities outside the boxes we have set up. The space between male and female, which has apparently always been there, is now being voiced, and reflecting a much larger shift in our cultural and social beliefs. Increasingly, with the growing understanding and empathy from caregivers to honor their choice more young children are refusing the gender box that has been checked for them.

The space of duck/rabbit is beyond language, but not beyond cognition. We recognize it in works of art because we connect to the source of the work beyond the parts. In the studio it comes up for me continually and allows me to go beyond checked ‘boxes’ that only constrain our creative thought and perceptions but it requires vigilant attentiveness.

The arts provide many examples of the exploration beyond binary choices that metaphorically fill our days and nights. Think of John Cage’s concert of silence or the Expressionists departure from academic painting of objects to the painting of light. Then there is the leap to paintings of no recognizable object, or abstract paintings of an inner world.   In the performing arts there is Samuel Beckett or other artistic movements that barely fit in the category of fine art, but effectively change our consciousness, like Pop-Art.  The arts know how to spin the card with the cage on one side and the bird on the other to give us the image that is more than the two alone yet still allows for both at the same time-creating something new.

  

The paradox of the koan, seemingly a nonsensical question, primes the pump of a deeper truth beyond consensus reality. The question ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’, is an ontological investigation. Practice in the studio can also access meaning on various levels. We all have experienced those paintings, pieces of music, literature, performances or experiences in nature of the sound of one hand clapping. It is a direct insight that has no words on which to hang the experience. Just as the occurrence of the leap in koan study can be nurtured, so can transcending the small rational mind in practice of art. The arena of my life where access to truth beyond what seems to be categorically oppositional is available.                                        

                                              Majio