Friday 14 March 2014

Can We Celebrate The Stains of Being........?


In all the years that I have lived, from when I started becoming aware of and trying to understand life – the last thirty years or thereabouts, I have realised that life is not about getting anywhere. There is no destination; there is nowhere that one needs to get to. It is about the journey and that journey is a rich tapestry woven through the way that we experience people, places and things and as such a tapestry of our emotions.

For me the sense of joy is a great feeling but, the things that have kept me more than fully occupied are those uncomfortable feelings - when someone has angered me and when I have felt insecure or upset. These feelings have been the ones that have taken me deeper and deeper into myself, compelling questions that have been impossible to answer. And, in a bid to understand and share my dilemmas and wanting to know how others around me experience life, has arisen the need for creative expression.

Stains, for me, were some of those thoughts and feelings that did not allow me to share freely. And in exploring the idea of stains for the last 4-5 years now, in various ways, I have realised - and it seems really silly when I say it as simply as this because in just saying it so, the profundity of the realization is diminished. But the truth is that for years, feeling uncomfortable and carrying around this burden and with it anger and resentment and more, wanting to find that pristine space where I felt good about being, I began realising that the stains of being were inevitable.

I have started looking at these as the marks of experience that are proof of having lived. And the larger the gamut of emotions, the more full one’s life has been. They were the marks of winning and losing and of falling and failing.

And the other day, just thinking about the stains in my tea-cup which had encouraged this exploration, I suddenly had a thought:  when I look at the saucer with the spilled tea and the cup with the dregs inside it, I am fascinated by the marks but when I look at my life, there are regrets, there is a sense of loss and also a need to erase some experiences from my mind - I want to be rid of them and there is a sense of shame for experiencing those uncomfortable feelings. 


The saint-poets advocate non-judgement. The new age teachers suggest controlling the mind by putting an impenetrable shield around yourself of happy memories, gratitude and acceptance. All of this, at some level, seems to suggest that one should endeavour to shut out the experiences and their emotions so that we can live at a level of such power to create our lives consciously - to be what we want it to be. While the idea intrigues and tempts, it also bothers me.
 

Don’t get me wrong. I am a great learner of all of this and feast on this kind of literature - fascinated with the power of the mind that one can harness with the wealth of techniques out there. But as an artist and writer, I feel that there is such richness in our human feelings and wonder, what would the world really be like without the arts – the poetry of love and longing, of separation. And, what about those films depicting terror and violence - of battles men have fought since time immemorial? What would we do without these and other reminders of what people in ages before us have thought, felt and experienced – the solace of it all - the inspiration and more that emerges from knowing what life has been and can be?


 If you really think about it, then trying to work upon things - this whole concept of control and re-programming of the subconscious mind, would make us all into sages.  And what a monotonous, self-righteous world that would be!  I don’t disagree entirely with the concept and do a lot of this work myself, daily. But as an artist, I revel in the colour of emotions. And difficult as some of them are, they are what I have as proof of the extent I have lived. They mark my experience, my foot-falls towards that pinnacle of self –realization.
 

Much like watching one’s thoughts through the process of meditation, the creative process is also such a mirror. It reveals the inner reflections and feeling and thoughts. Which then also makes this a way towards achieving the same goal  - of finding the capacity to see and understand what the mind is computing and desiring, to  create our lives with greater consciousness.

For me this is a rich and sensual process that embodies words and images. And ironically, greater connectivity with the spirit/soul has led me to find greater acceptance of this as the way that I choose to watch my thoughts and feelings – through expression, rather than control. Transcending those that create emotional blocks by experiencing them fully. This in effect, leads to transformation through the very process of expressing. But, having also learned many of  the techniques advocated by spiritual masters, I find myself doing so with greater awareness.
 
My embroideries and my writings, become a tapestry of threads that I have chosen not as a tool to narrate,  but to live my life through. And with this understanding, the stains have taken on an altogether different meaning.

They may well be the means by which I grieve but, in giving them another life  through these embroideries - expressing and sharing, it seems that we can celebrate the stains of being........

For they also represent experiences, which when distilled, that give us the wisdom to live each day.... happier and more fulfilled....