June: The Gift of Ruins

June is here. Summer sun, creating in my studio in Savannah, daydreaming and designing my new life and wondering where it will lead...where I will live ...and how it will impact my work.
I am not fearful...well maybe just a little. I am excited by the potential and possibilities of it all.I am ridding of the guilt associated with letting go of my old life.

My niece shared this with me: “A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It’s called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it along with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome’s first true great emperor...how could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It’s one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured – the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic, it’s just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation.” Elizabeth Gilbert

Ruin is a gift. June is here. Change will come.

Chaotic Bliss

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." A. Cohen
...but one must preserve order and some respect in the midst of all that adventure and change.A little dignity is important to me as well, although it seems many people easily dispense with much of it in the name of living a regret free life. In the end we have to be who we are and live with ourselves. Our reality, self imposed rules and boundaries are not necessarily shared. I recently asked a friend, "What would it actually be like if we all dared to live our dreams?"...his response, "chaotic bliss."
I considered this and realized I grew up amid "chaos" minus the bliss. I learned many things from the frenzy.
I teach Art to 700 energetic,hugging,questioning,needing,pleading,mess-making, beautiful Kindergartners. I get some of my best ideas and inspiration in the midst of all the mess but more than anything it makes me appreciate the quiet.My best work however, is created when my head and heart are least silent.Go figure! :)
I am simultaneously working on 5 paintings. To onlookers, my process and workspace might appear to be a messy madness. I prefer to think of it as "chaotic BLISS." :)
“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.”
Deepak Chopra