http://www.amyjackson.cc/paintings/vietnamjungle6.html
So after so many days of not having the visual or emotional stability to face this painting, this afternoon I HAD it. I picked up the tiniest round brush, opened both palettes (the one for the sky and the master) and went to the sky detailing. This went marvelously well, meaning, I had the confidence straight off, to dot and stroke with ease.
You never know where this comes from, and you just have to flow with it and thank your good graces, eh? This is not to say that you are not capable of making grand mistakes at the same time — you do have to watch for overconfidence. But it’s good to be on that side of things for a change, after so much fear for so many days.
I went blue and white, white and blue, until I felt that the sky was completely balanced. Then I added white strokes and smears, rather unexpectedly, to the ground.
Next, I added a bit of bright jewel-like placements of brightest yellows to the ground to warm it up and intensify it. Done.
I turned to the foliage then, and used the brightest lime first, again with the tiniest round brush, to add details of light and fairy-like placements here and there, starting on the right, completely bringing several areas forward. I rethought that section and magic happened. We can thank the jungle fairies for this, for I listened to them, I did, and followed them in the left section with the bright lime brush.
Then I rinsed the brush thoroughly, dried it, and my hands, completely (a pet peeve of mine, I must have completely dry hands to paint). I switched to the dark green and added vines and depth to the jungle. Now, it really seems like Vietnam and jungle to me. It really seems to pop to me as well. I’m not sure if you can see that detail in the image above. You may need to click the web link to see the larger image on my website. Not sure.
What an incredible relief it is to have a) finished this painting and b) to love it so. And to have had help from the fairies. Wow. Who could have anticipated that Magic would have entered the room, as Bono is fond of saying. Magic does still happen in the world. Don’t ever forget it. Sometimes we do.
…
Especially when we get upper respiratory viruses, yes? We forget everything but the dratted dastardly congestion. Blech.
Speaking of which, I wish I could say we were both all better. We are better to a degree. I can stand and walk for longer periods of time. Witness that I volunteered from 3-7:30 pm Wednesday night and yesterday from 3-5:30 successfully and without having major inner grumpies. Yes. In fact with inner peace and delightful conversation with others. Wow. No, really, wow.
The rest of the time I’ve been down in bed breathing it out and meditating to the best of my ability. And blowing my nose. and coughing. and drinking lots of tea from the chocolate glazed pot from the National Cathedral I bought many many years lo ago now.
We were blessed to have a stunning turnout for the art opening on Wednesday night, and I was safe within the jewelry counter. It was fun letting folks know that earrings matched their eyes and called out their names … we did a lot of business, and sold one painting to a couple celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary.
Yesterday was exceedingly slow, however, so we talked amongst ourselves, about how to let the piece of art do its own thing, how it will take over, anyway, that sort of thing.
I’ve had a lot of trouble conversing when it’s my turn to talk, though. I’ve been very loopy, and very apologetic. Words don’t come, and when they do, they bump into each other more than usual. Bah. I’ve had to have a good sense of humor, and I sound like a frog. I’m looking forward to not.
Counseling went very well today, and was sort of fascinating, actually. We talked about how I’m compartmentalized, unlike as they call people who are not multiple personalities. Singletons. I don’t really like that word, but there you are, you all who are not. It sounds rather plain, and you are all rather outstanding in your wholeness, don’t you think? Whole persons. How about that, shall we say?
Remember when I first had started the heart meditation and I found that I had associations or identities with each of my names? Amy/Malinda/Jackson? Well we went into that and it’s deeper than I had realized, really.
We started with Jackson. Turns out she is the one who holds any of my aggression, i.e., the one who thinks the word “slap”. She is any part of me who is the small letter “p” perpetrator of me. Thankfully, my counselor says, I did not allow her to be a big letter “P” Perpetrator and act out on anyone for real or be a larger part of my identity. She only happens when I get a cold or get grumpy. Now my serious rage/anger is more volcanic and adult. Also, Jackson is differentiated from Cat, who is adult and sexual. Interesting, huh? Jackson is not sexual.
Jackson is young, is the one who was, well, who experienced a particular series of violent abuse by two abusers in second and third grade and before that, in preschool, sodomy in particular, but more in second and third grade which I won’t go into, which is why she is violent. She is very proud of her name, is confident and self assured, and is also, sadly, fond of saying negative things about other people that I can’t yet stop her from saying, that she learned growing up. She refuses to change her name, and feels like, damnit, she earned her freaking last name, the hardest ways possible. There is more to her, and she is located in the furthest right side of my deep right brain. She could be sitting there in the corner in a chair, arms folded, yelling curse words, for all she cares.
Now, Malinda, is quite the opposite, and is in the center. Not in the left. She’s not a feeling person, but is very passive, not passive aggressive, but completely passive. She is almost the most spiritual. But not quite. She is kind of a conduit for the Observer Mind, but not quite. A segue. She learned early on, from what we believe but were told otherwise, to be her namesake, Grandmother J Malinda McCormick, Daddy’s Mother, that we have to “button our lip” to survive. She grotesquely would imagine a hole in her lower lip and a button sewn to her upper, and threading the button through the lower lip to make that happen for Grandma J, especially after she died in second grade, when things got so bad. That’s how quiet the silent code got. How very serious Malinda is. Malinda waited to be picked up after the abuser the babysitter was done and she was cleaned up, for hours after it got dark in the place she was supposed to wait on the couch by the window and watched and watched. For hours and hours. Like no one wanted her, and apparently. And after high school reading and reading and writing and writing. And for mother’s doctor appointments with Dr. Ridley. and for shopping with Mother for hours in the car. She learned to prefer it. and while Mother visited with her friends in white clapboard houses on the eternal way home. the inside of the car and the books. Wuthering Heights. Lorna Doone’s whirlpool. The Three Musketeers. The tall tall oak trees and the sky and the clouds and birds and the passing cars. Like a prisoner that eventually would be set free. She waits and waited.
Now Amy is the one with all the masks, the one with the face and the body who does stuff. She said today, If anyone is going to get slapped, it’s Amy. If anyone is going to feel pain, it’s Amy. Make good grades, be accountable, do something? It’s Amy.
My counselor asked if Amy is a host. No, she said. I said? Who knows. Ha.
No. She is a doer. Where is she, my counselor asked.
Front and center, I said. In the frontal lobe, doing everything.
So, is it like a triangle, then, not a circle like we had mapped before, not like a cloud of clouds, a circle of floating circles?
More like a square, I said, correcting her triangle.
The left side has the blue feelings. All the sad. When I would black out to black, it was to the left, during the babysitter’s sodomy, and the anger, the red, was to the right.
Wow. We sat back and looked at the new diagram.
Before all of that we had talked about how good this new book I’m reading, and the heart meditation, meditation in general, is for me. Meditation for the Love of It, by Sally Kempton. (I repeat that title in case anyone is reading my blog for the first time — it’s that important to me.) Why? Because this sitting back inside myself and having distance from the emotions and the pain, the flashbacks and abuse, the identities, the rape(s), and sigh, all the stuff that is “me” is good for me — to find distance — I repeat — and find Spirit — the Self as Sally calls it (oddly to me, for the Self seems personal to me, I prefer the Spirit, the Godness) — so that I can for once, and at times — experience goodness in my life.
It is apparently something that meditators all experience briefly, not just me. Thankfully this is what I’m experiencing as I meditate. Brief blips of niceness and goodness are increasing even with this cold, through the irritability and congestion. I’m remembering bliss and peace, and then a flashback will come and knock me off, but I have a choice whether to comfort that or let it pass. It all depends on me. Sometimes I whirl with and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I am capable of choosing and sometimes I’m too tired mentally and get caught up in the whirl of the flashback/alter/whatever it is emotion/what have you.
But the practice of meditation is so good for me. a) it gives me something to do that is fulfilling for my good spirit. b) it contributes to my personal sense of peace on
Earth, since I do have Jackson to mend, right? etc. and my internal world to clean. and c) I might actually end up with a lot more bliss in the end. Who can say?
It is absolutely Spring out there. Chipper and I have been going on lovely long walkies each day, he sharing his grin and me my smiles and waves and nods with folks as we go. I’ve been able to wear dresses again! Yay! Flip-flops, even.
Well, time for bed, you all. Time for the IPod and settling down the mind. I’ve been approved for Sun salutations again and will be doing my yoga poses momentarily pre-bedtime. Yay! Namaste. Thanks again, as always, for listening, and I wish you well!
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