Resisting the journey but wanting the results.
Blog Overview: Resistance // Pessimism // Cycles
Blank page journeys lend to an eruption of the soul’s essence, the spaciousness of the void containing infinite possibilities, and yet…
As a practice, where discipline is required, the arts can become an in-your-face realization that so much of original creation is actually regurgitation with a twist. Then, that enticing blank page/canvas becomes inconsequential…to the cynic.
So, why bother? Why entertain ourselves with writing novels, painting, singing, and dancing when every single “novel” idea, brush stroke, lyric, and movement has been done before by some other artist in another space and time?
Why do anything at all if it’s all been done before?
For most of my life, I’ve considered myself an optimist and I certainly still identify with that particular personality trait. At the root, there is a deep sense of trust, but for many chapters that optimism was clouded with passivity, a kind of acceptance that denied the possibility of MORE! Navigating life passively without questioning my purpose, without acting in service to something higher than myself, do I not just spiral into the comforts of the material realms?
In that stream of disheartened thought, my soul cripples, my heart cries, and reality itself becomes dry, like a forgotten house-plant looking through the stained window at the steady trickle of rain that splatters on the vibrantly green leaves of the outdoor plants...where it’s meant to be, its roots longing for more space to venture, its leaves and branches yearning to cast a bigger shadow, burst flowers and fruit as a symbol of new life, serving as a continuation. But instead, the house-plant is contained in a pot in the dark corner of a room, its only hope is to die, hoping the horrible plant mom or dad will finally recognize their negligence and cast it outside to decompose as an offering to another life form.
Instead of false hope, wanting to be elsewhere, this forgotten plant continues to just be, accepting death as its fate.
This outlook is my way of coping with the underlying currents of optimism. Ultimately, I know I am here for a purpose and that it was a choice to navigate this physical plane, evolving consciousness along the way, but the negative outlook helps ridicule the nature of this dense existence. The intention: to simply laugh at it all knowing there is no escaping it when I reject it.
The question continues to linger nonetheless. How does one transcend the material and merge with the spiritual?
ART! Living with the understanding that life itself is pure creative God energy.
(My eyes roll.)
There is so much suffering in the artistic process. How is that “merging with the spiritual”? In my faint glimpses, feelings, and conceptualizations of the higher dimensional spiritual realities, there is no suffering. So, how would art lead me there? How could I possibly have another more fulfilling existence while still existing where the laws of duality are at play? Do I just surrender to the journey? Surely.
Do I lean into trust. Well, duh.
But still, how do I get there….when I am here?
I see where this is going…
Have mercy, God, bring me home. I’ve been through these cycles for countless lives. I’ve met my partner, Saora, in many forms, her gazes helping me find more of myself. I’ve met myself in paintings, taught so many kids, humbled myself before my Elders. I’ve cried and celebrated, worshiped and belittled, begged and stolen. I’ve been a mother, father, King and Queen, pilferer and prophet. I’ve done it all. So, why must I do it again and what more must I learn? If time is eternal, and karma is not (according to the Bhagavad Gita), then why can I not choose to end this suffering? If in essence I am God, then why can I not will myself complete? Why must it endure?
I understand that acceptance lends itself to forgiveness and therein one may venture into the next stage of evolution. But I’ve done this countless times!! I am an infinite soul of infinite incarnations. Must I always forget my lessons with each new body? Must I die and continue to choose another material makeup? Do I not have a say in the matter? God, have mercy on my resistance.
In my egoic identification as an “artist”, I find it challenging to see the perfect uniqueness of it all, because I have these ideas that art must be for something…to get somewhere….to finally finish the creation.
My inner-optimist congratulates and celebrates artistic expression. But in lieu of my train of pessimism, I scoff at humanity’s incessant attempts to innovate from their limited mindsets and attachments to the material. Very quickly, the narrative of comparison surfaces because I recognize that nothing humanity creates will ever match God’s creation. Hope diminishes, even though I understand that I am not separate from God and that pure, creative energy is God-energy.
As artists, our egos get highs from our art. That quickly wears off and we are left feeling low. We must endure the creation cycles, all the seasons. Birth of creation during Spring, expansion in the Summer, shedding, the Fall of what once was, and finally Winter, a time of death and decay. Ego death after ego death. Death, death, death. Such a theme.
I guess I’m feeling sensitive around the coming of the Winter season?
ART BY RAFAL OBLINSKI
The pendulum sways from resistance to acceptance, and my guidance reminds me of an ‘Olelo (Hawaiian) word, ahonui, meaning patient perseverance. Vision, having the ability to see beyond your current timeline, begs for acceptance of the current and a willingness to persevere.
Why is it that artists must suffer the most and yet offer the greatest inspiration to the world?
Well, it’s because they have Vision.
I want you readers to know that I too suffer. I endure the vibration of resistance, but choose transcendence, knowing in my bones that there is more. All of this is leading home.
For now, I enjoy the tenderness my cat’s purr against my heart, the heat of her body on my chest, the rain’s song, and the dreary, grey sky. The Full Moon energy is strong, promising of a Vision.
I am tempted to sway into pessimism, but my nature is that of an optimist. So, I lean into the discomfort, feeling relaxed in the unknown, powerful with the choice to accept myself and all my doubts and resistances.
I wish you all a powerful Full Moon. May your prayers align with God’s Will.
Love, Riddlez
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