Skeleton Woman Part 4 & 5 UNDEFENDED LOVE & EMOTIONAL PRESENCE

Skeleton Woman Story
as Metaphor for Creative Process:

In the Inuit story the fisherman has snagged Skeleton Woman from the depths and inadvertently brought her back home with him. He has untangled and ordered her bones, wrapped her in furs and fallen asleep. She creeps closely and drinks from the single tear forming in his eyes as he sleeps.

  Part 4 UNDEFENDED LOVE, Surrender

In this stage in creative process we must surrender our innocence to be renewed. Sleep in fairy tales represents trusting in the deeper meaning. Things change in sleep. We can rest assured that things take care of themselves; we do not have to track and translate anything. Sleep is a practice for death, the place of no time, dreamtime. It is a return to innocence or to the deepest level of being. In the process it is a turning off of the conscious mind to be present in another way. Sleep is rebirth. You can not fall into sleep on demand but must release unto it. This stage of the story calls for letting go to what may be. Slumber, bound up with innocence, requires trust to sleep in someone's presence. It is the same in love, without surrender there is holding back and being held back. This is an important aspect of the creative process. In our invocation and meditation in painting circles we call forth this sacred place of resource.

The Latin word, intimus, means about one's nature. True essence of who you are is what is required for Transformational Painting to be transformational. Undefended is vulnerable and intimate. We can only remain there with an open heart. We are asked to let go of mental ideas of what we want to create and draw from our a deeper experience. Only then will the painting paint itself, not in a trite or secondhand way but with personal power. As the fisherman begins to trust in who he is and who she may be, he invites a genuine exchange.

This part is essential for the engagement in the story and also in painting. It is not so much a labor, but surrender, letting go. It is the opening to release the traditional control of painting or poetry, believing in the birth/death/birth cycle. It is a learning to trust our imagination, our hands and our heart. Trust is the muscle that develops as you continue to return again and again to call forth images of the psyche and then surrender to whatever shows up.

  Surrender is necessary for emotional presence. When our commitment to knowing and revealing ourselves is greater than the call to hide or defend, then what keeps us isolated and disconnected falls away. Surrendering the attitudes of self-defense is making space for creative encounters. Authentic emotional freedom is to no longer need validation and agreement from another to be who we are. We have such profound yearnings for closeness and yet hesitate to be closer to ourselves. Painting is a way to open to that love of self that is the deepest core of who we are. How we love our self is how we love others. Painting is a way of loving self.

Part 5 EMOTIONAL PRESENCE, Realizing wounds to call forth New Vision 

  

Wearing our personalities lightly, we experience everything more directly, more profoundly, and more intensely.                                                                              

Jett Psaris and Marlena Lyons

In myth and fairytale, the tear holds creative power. Tears heal, reunite, bring nurturance and call in spirit. It is the tear that begins skeleton woman's transformation. So in our painting it is not enough to engage with full presence, riding out the cycles of disgust and delight, something deeper is called for here. The act of external creating is not enough, for the wounded cannot be bandaged from the outside. We are required to put our true longing on the table, naked and raw. It is being vulnerable, not only in the creative process but also with the lens of the group. There is a safety net in that we can decide how far to go, but unless we are willing to not defend our self in the face of Skeleton Woman and shed the tear, the transformation will wait until another time.

The Quest for Vision is a way to practice emotional presence; to develop as Psaris and Lyons say in their book Undefended Love, "the capacity to be non judgmental and motiveless..."Most of us did not have this modeled by our parents. We may have tried as parents with our children to just be there for them without making things all better or judging them, but most of us have not experienced it our selves. 

Painting in a safe environment to feel what is going on inside and yet still stay in relationship to the process is a challenging practice that is supported by the group. So often participants that have been traumatized around art find total release and confidence with others who are in the same process. The buoyancy of the painting circle brings delight and confidence initially, which is sometimes followed by judgment of self, others and facilitator. The empowering experience can quickly become a disaster. Good! We are moving into the real work. We are beginning to develop the muscles that we came here to use, that of emotional presence.

It is the willingness to stay with what is going on, that is, not dramatize it or amplify it, but witness it against the backdrop of being. When the mood of the class is successful there is an over all texture of being in a greater framework that allows the small self to feel what comes up and let it flow through.

When we can release to the thirst of our own pain and passion in our creative process something ALCHEMIC TAKES PLACE. Tears are magical in myths and fairytales. In Skeleton Woman the fisherman is feeling his loneliness, his acute sickness for that psychic place, for that wild knowing. Our healing tears come natural when we step into the creative process we have felt bared from.