Critical Space

I began working on re-parenting myself a while back. The piece you see is a metaphor of that process.

I read somewhere that bears, like humans and other animals, have a “critical space” —an area around them that they will defend. Once you enter a bear’s critical space, you may force the bear to act—and even become aggressive. The size of the critical space is different for every bear and every situation.

During my re-parenting process I learned from God that I had to become my own mama bear. After years of mothering and giving to others what I didn’t even own or contain inside myself, I began to disintegrate at a sub atomic level. My identity had become defined by my circumstances. I moved and lived in the “critical space” of other people’s lives, but I became much like a phantom and was very resentful of the solid folks around me. 

Since then, my bear-like God has continued to consolidate and re-inform every part of my existence. My healing has allowed me to develop new connections and protect my own “critical space”.

Flow

I Am Always Beginning the World

In the beginning there was a tree. It had endured two and a half centuries of blustery winter gales and scorching summers.  25 years ago some dude decided to build a house in the shade of this magnificent elm.  2 years ago he got sick of raking leaves and convinced himself this behemoth was blocking his view. So he cut it down. Ouch!....

I winced every time I rode by the stump on my bike. But a few days ago I noticed something weird. That tree refused to die. In fact it's growing a whole new tree out of it's dead looking stump. That was Groot's super power in "Guardians of the Galaxy". No matter how obliterated he got, he just kept coming back. Well that, and he was super cute.

And look below at these pussy willows. They were just sticks with puffy white pollen balls. Water, sun, time, and Voila!    Same thing for cactus leaves. You just break em off and assume since they're rootless and just sitting on the ground they're goners. Nope....new roots and a whole new cactus from the stump of the leaf.

I'm in a tough spot right now and my default is right back to all those childhood messages. "You're nothing, you'll never amount to anything, you're dirt." The shame bleeds into my dreams and haunts me through the day. My Alanon programs tells me this is the time for me to do self care. In my world that means take lots of naps. Lo and behold, by the next day, or sometimes even that evening... my self worth is replenished and I can see a way out.  I didn't pray or stick my feet in water, I just took a nap. Somehow I am mysteriously replenished. What is that secret, invisible force that brings hope and renewal into that stump, those sticks, and me?

Existence

 I find this whole "ProofofGod" thing rather amusing.  Can there be a more futile effort than trying to prove to ourselves that God exists, when we are totally surrounded--nature, friends, war, peace, ice cream, microbes, galaxies, spiders--by insurmountable evidence of His overwhelming majesty and power?  This evidence does not readily tell of His nature and intent, but His handiwork is, literally, unavoidable and everywhere.  That's why I find this site so amusing..  We are analogous to a tiny cluster of ants crawling around on the backside of a Persian carpet trying to describe its patter to each other.

But if I had to choose one dot above all others as proof of God, it would be simply this:  Existence.  My logical mind tells me there should be nothing at all.  I/We wouldn't be here to know that, but it still seems to make the most sense.  How can there "be" something?  It is impossible.  When I think through the idea of something "being," my head begins to hurt, sort of like when I try to think of the distances in space.  About a couple of universes out it all gets fuzzy, and I give up, find the remote, and watch a rerun of Gilligan's Island.  At least I think that's what I'm doing.  If I'm really here, that is.

The Miracle Reason

I woke up Saturday morning recently to rush to a 9am - end semester examination. This I was sure I was going to excel and wanted to reach school early before there was some traffic. I ran towards the stage and oops! I found only one bus and there was no one in it yet so you could tell they weren't going to leave for some time. I decided to take a boda boda (motorcycle taxi ). The bike guy was young and full of energy.  He jovially greeted me and asked me sit on the bike. He rode for some miles smoothly then accelerated at a high speed,  I got jittery and pleaded with him to slow down but he would not listen, instead kept singing to some R&B on the radio. By that time I am so angry at him. We got to a super highway and he decided to show off his skill of swerving. I yelled to him to stop the bike but he laughed and told me that I was such a woose. Then a huge truck came our way. The guy lost control and all I remember is how I was in the middle of the road lying on my stomach and heard a loud sound of brakes of a vehicle. I pleaded God for life, my heart racing so fast and my nerves so tense. I opened my eyes and saw the truck a few meters from me and a police officer rushing to help me up. My whole body was in pain but with only few bruises on my left arm. Then a sudden joy overwhelmed me. I forgot about the pain for some minutes and started giving thanks to God for the gift of life.

Foundling Takes Flight

I have always seen the world very differently than most people. I first noticed it when I was little girl around 5 or 6 years old. I began saving food crumbs, scraps of paper, small pieces of string and dust bunnies. I kept them in a shoebox and made tiny toilet paper beds all along the walls. These insignificant and unnoticed weightless little scraps became fully embodied tangible beings to me. In the same way, i felt insignificant and unseen. I now understand this childhood perception is a spiritual principle I see at work in my life today as God puts me together piece by piece.

I see beauty in broken things and make them into Art. I take found objects and relics, the left over scraps and the second hand junk of life, and rework the disparate pieces into a fresh works of art. The process of giving new meaning, perspective, and purpose to what I create is of primary scope to my vision as an artist and seeker of truth.

A couple of weeks ago, I was leaving my art class and my teacher pulled me aside. She described, how earlier in the day she had been setting up a showcase of our class projects for the art center’s end of the year gala. When she carried my piece, seen below, composed from a very old rivet tool, a doll head, an embroidery hoop and a wire kitchen utensil, a young man with autism who had been sitting quietly in his own world suddenly sprang towards her in soul clapping glee to get a closer look at the flying girl.

“He got it!”, she said.

A found connection in the a world of disparate pieces. 

Going to the Infinite

I work in Hospice with patients facing the end of their lives. They are dangling over the abyss searching for meaning and reassurance. It is a task that overwhelms. It seems that we are neurologically designed to perceive our world in the finite.  In our biologically restricted finite view of the world an inch is an inch. We live within a measurable and definable world. It is what works for this plane. Our biology has evolved to make it so because it is an adaptive perspective to survival in this space. Everyday however we learn that this is in fact not true. The universe that we perceive as fixed and finite is in truth a construction of energy fields and forces that are principally empty space and most importantly infinite.

When I throw myself into the infinite: the microscopic, the macroscopic, the infinite collection of all sets, and the expansive and complete idea of all things unbounded I am aligning my consciousness with God. I conceive it but it is inconceivable.

For me this is God. It is self-evident. If infinity exists, than God exists. It is how I define it. That is the universe I exist in.

The perception of the infinite is an exercise we all must practice. We may not see it easily but it is there for us in all things. It requires both focus and intent but the truth of this is on full display. As we see the truth, that which was the abyss becomes redefined as just a part of something much larger, limitless, unbound, God.

Is Heaven Up or Down?

When I was a young kid we used to spin ourselves around really fast, then someone would grab us from behind and squeeze us really hard while we held our breath. Just before we'd lose consciousness the world would flip and there was a moment when you didn't know which way was up or down. That was the last thing you remembered as you startled wide-eyed back awake, sucking in a huge breath and wondering, "What just happened, how did I get here, flat on your back looking up at the sky !?" Complete disorientation.

We were too young for drugs so it was as close as we could get to an encounter with the great beyond. Strange way to seek out the supernatural. Guess it was the best we could come up with at the time. But I loved the "not knowing" what was up or down, what am I doing here, what just happened to me??

I still love it when nature gives me the same opportunity for total dis-orientation. This morning I was staring off into space from a bridge in Rhode Island.

Click on the word vimeo in the lower right. Then on the arrows in the lower right > fullscreen. Stare at the middle of the picture and try figure out which way is up or down.