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It was 7:20 A.M., and again an engaging dream wanted my recall—most unusual because long weeks have passed with no dream stories that glimpse the milieu of my psyche, no cues that still needed work for my transition. This morning’s glimpse goes like this:
I’ve traveled to the Southwest for the weekend gathering of artists, their handcrafted ware displayed beneath tents in a grassy meadow. Adjacent to this area are classes offered in the crafting of the displayed articles: weaving, pottery, cooking, leather working, jewelry, especially turquoise, drawing and painting. I join the hundreds moving slowly among the exhibits. I’m itching to try something new and find myself welcomed by the weaver, a Native American with strong knowing hands. The final evening, she informs the students which of their works they can take with them.
In my perception, the Southwest represents a centuries-old world of warmth, intimate with nature: like an incubator, it served its primitive people with rich imaginations who storied their gods, then etched them upon cave and rock drawings. Such icons still breathe fierceness. There’s much to learn here.
The seasoned artists at this gathering who have mastered their craft, suggest submersion into the waters of Life. To express their passion, they’ve overcame obstacles, endured ridicule, and scrimped and saved to support themselves. Their hand-crafted ware triggers potential artists to do similarly. And because of this self-imposed discipline, they’re willing to teach others.
The weaver, a Native American with strong knowing hands, suggests God in disguise, a critical life teacher who will help me weave together the final version of my odds and ends, still to be incorporated into the Elizabeth of my birthright.
I’m a work in progress …
This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
So proclaims the Psalmist in verse, 118:24
Of special importance is the day, the last one in January and time to change the wall calendar in my kitchen.
This year, the print of Van Gogh’s 1890 Houses at Auvers graces February and mirrors the world of Auvers, northwest of Paris, with its thatched and tiled roofs and summer gardens. Broad strokes of pigment suggest his elusive emotional stability.
But obsessed to co-create with his Creator, his tormented psyche pushed him beyond exhaustion, beyond the minutes in any hour, and toward eventual suicide in July, two months later.
Perhaps an extreme use of time, but one from which Van Gogh’s six hundred or more oil paintings emerged and which still inspire viewers around the world. I have to think he glimpsed the whirlwind of colors while in his mystic fury, simultaneously filled with bliss.
So, what are we doing with this new day, no matter how quickly the seconds collapse into mill-seconds like mixing cups of flour into the liquid ingredients?
Only when very young and in the convent did I learn the significance of the Psalmist’s wisdom to rejoice in each day, a gift. And now, even more…
Classics in whatever genre—words, notes, pigment, marble, metal—require the artist to dig for inspiration into his/her psyche, realm of the Sacred. Facilitating the process is a servant heart, a willingness to change direction, and a letting go of the work—it never being finished. Indeed, the artist is co-creating with the Creator of the universe and learning a new way of being-inside-and-outside of the world. Fortunately for us, there have always been such individuals who embraced this sacrifice of arduous becoming.
Aaron Copland is one of these artists whose music invariably opens me to the Beautiful where interludes of stillness speak. Appalachian Spring (1944), commissioned for the dancer Martha Graham and company and interwoven between the 1848 tune, Shaker Gifts, evokes such gentle hushes. Its war-weary audiences flocked to performances, their psyches uplifted by this new vision-in-sound that was awarded the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
War-weary myself this afternoon, I turned away from the news and listened to Appalachian Spring, scored for a chamber orchestra of thirteen instruments; its barely audible opening notes excised my scrambled psyche of turmoil and pried open my imagination. Immediately, I was in another world, deeply soothed, until twenty-five minutes later, again muted notes brought closure to the piece, and with it, an aching within me.
But the memory remains…
Heart Whisperings 