Waiting

"This hexagram shows the clouds in the heavens, giving rain to refresh all that grows and to provide mankind with food and drink.
The rain will come in its own time.
We cannot make it come; we have to wait for it."
--Hexagram 5, I Ching Book of Changes, Wilhelm/Baynes trans.

What are you waiting for?

To finish something so you can get on to something else? For a lucky break? To find out what happens? For an ordeal to be over? For a danger to pass? To get to the head of the line?

Waiting has been on my mind. This fall I worked on a picture about the dark side of waiting. More recently, I've been waiting to find out whether something I really hope for will happen. Waiting is only a problem when my impatient mind rushes ahead trying to stack up future decisions on the shaky foundation of this unknown.

When I wait impatiently, I wheedle for insider information from the Universe--come ON! Give me a hint? My hungry mind is like a kid badgering for candy at the checkout. This is tiring and not nourishing. The I Ching reminds me to conserve my energy for later when there's something to do

"We should not worry and seek to shape the future by interfering in things before the time is ripe. We should quietly fortify the body with food and drink and the mind with gladness and good cheer. Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready."
--I Ching Hexagram 5 Wilhelm/Baynes

A Quick Way to Fortify The Body-Mind

Sometimes good cheer isn't so easily come by during a wait. Here's something that always seems to help: Instead of trying to drop impatience, simply bring attention to the space behind your back.

No matter what's filling it, there's just as much space behind as in front of you (and above and below and to the sides). Give attention to that back space, and allowing the body to settle into it instead of pressing forward and up.

Get comfortable, exactly where you are. Breathe quietly. Let me know if this works for you, too, to restore some gladness.

Waiting Patiently With Halo
(digital self portrait by Jude '10)

The saintly approach

It is also possible to wait too patiently--to put your life on hold in the hope that if you endure in limbo for long enough, passivity will somehow be rewarded and you'll get your way without ever having to do anything.

Circumstances don't often bend to fit this kind of fantasy. The antidote the I Ching advises? Self-honesty--get real.

"One is faced with a danger that has to be overcome. Weakness and impatience can do nothing....It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized. This recognition must be followed by resolute and persevering action."
--I Ching Hexagram 5 Wilhelm/Baynes

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Consult the oracle

Think of something particular that you're waiting for. If you're willing, jot down a question about handling the wait.

And pick a number between 1 and 6.

Let's play with a way of consulting one of the world's oldest advice columns (the I Ching). It won't foretell the future, but it might give you useful pointers on how to best wait in your situation.

Read the suggestion corresponding to your number and see how you can relate it to your question or situation. I'd love to hear in the comments what you discover.

• 1. A challenge is coming, but it is not yet close. Go on with your life in a simple, alert and open way. Don't waste your strength on anticipation or rehearsals. Enjoy your present.
• 2. Impending change is stirring up some insecurity. Take care not to indulge in blame (especially self-blame) or defensiveness. Remind yourself that it really is ok to not know what is going to happen yet, even if you don't like it.
• 3. Don't hold back from fully completing a needed change. Half measures will not work now. Be vigilant about not following fearful or despairing thoughts or acting from their influence. Fears can make things appear stuck or impossible.
• 4. There is nothing else you can do right now. Stop trying to force solutions or to figure anything out and remain calm, trusting in heart knowledge to get you out of danger when the time is ripe.
• 5. Even though everything isn't resolved yet, now is a good time to pause and enjoy yourself. If you are waiting for something to be over with, you may be missing the true nourishment available in the present. Everything can't happen at once.
• 6. Your good fortune may come in disguise. Question the thought, "I have to do it all" and remain alert and available to receive help in unexpected forms. All goes well in the end.

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Are you waiting to dive into your Next Big Thing until the new year? Mystery Mind Creators Colony might offer the support you need to move into real creative action with less self-sabotage this winter.

My suggestion: don't wait to check it out. This small, unique coaching group for women is already half full. If there's even a chance you might want to join us, fill out an application and let's talk about whether this fits and is timely for you. Mystery Mind Creators Colony

Retreat Report

Pond Prayer
(painted canvas and silk threads) Jude '10

I gave myself four creative retreats this past year, of 10 days each. It seems miraculous in retrospect that this was possible.

One thing I hoped to work on was a fresh way to integrate painting with the fabric collage process I worked in for 30 years. I've experimented with this plenty of times before. But even though some approaches have been satisfying, a breakthrough had eluded me.

The first 3 retreats had been pretty much a flop as far as finding this opening, though none of them felt at all like a waste of time. I wound up with more pictures of water--worshiping the pond that is one of my all-time favorite gurus. And I made the self-portrait eyes that went into the header for my new coaching website at www.selftreasuring.com .

(Actually, the first retreat had resulted in the Self Treasuring name, which came about from working on nests--you never really know what you're really making while you're making it, in a way).

The final retreat of the year, in late fall, had the earnestness (or recklessness) of endings about it, a now or never feeling. I really wanted to try something different.

But I found myself digging out something old--a piece I'd started in fabric collage 15 years ago and never finished. It was based on a drawing I'd xeroxed from a book of art created during the Holocaust--I'm still trying to track down the artist's name.

Woman Waiting sketch (artist unknown)

Here's where I'd stopped with the fabric collage 15 years ago:

Woman Waiting 1 (fabric collage)

As I went back into the piece, I felt in collaboration with two other artists--the person who'd done the drawing, and the artist I was 15 years ago--along with the energy of the woman portrayed in the sketch. I was being all of them at once as my hands picked up pieces of cloth, the iron, glue, the paintbrush.

I heard anxiety in the mix: a WhatWillPeopleThink? voice, worried about making something unpretty, not 'uplifting'--something no one will want to see. I heard a deeper thrum of the fear of the injustice, loss of control and death represented by the Holocaust. I heard the dreaded gremlin MizSpiritual trying to levitate above that fear, sometimes grousing about hadn't we evolved past Hard Stuff pictures?

And all the time, that feeling of being carried, of choice-making happening of itself, that no-self experience of giving over into a creative process which feels so profoundly at-home. How should I know what I'm to make? It was being made. There was a fullness of gratitude that can't be expressed. Making light of hard stuff without even trying to.

When I could stand back from it and let the finished piece teach me, I witnessed something fiercely beautiful after all. I saw how light just pours out of us, even when we're angry and afraid and hurting, even when terrible things are happening, and we're waiting for something worse. Every moment, everybody is just such a beacon.

Even when nothing terrible is happening, sitting in front of a screen, just witnessing and connecting--maybe like you, now. Making light.

Woman Waiting
(fabrics and paint on unprimed canvas)

I don't really make anything--making happens through me--but all I ever want to make is something about that Light. (And that's not MizSpiritual talking, it's just the facts, m'am).

Now that the paint/fabric intersection is happening in a new way, I'm ready to go back into another piece that started during the summer retreat, a portrait of Ramana Maharshi, who radiated the peace behind and around and within every beauty. I'll find a way to open time for this in the winter, when that Stillness is so palpable in the north.

Ramana Maharshi eyes and photo

This winter, I'll also be leading a coaching group for 9 self-aware women who are ready to meet the creative challenge of their Next Big Thing (even if they don't know what that is yet). Might you join us? Read about the Mystery Mind Creator's Colony here.