Procrasto Gizmo

What Does It Mean? canvas collage, fabric paint and thread, 05

Thanks to Websafe's comment on What Does Stinkwanink Mean? for the vocab enhancement of "neologism" ....

Anyway, a semi-neo one of those has emerged in my personal lexicon lately:

procrasto-gizmo (n): A network of beliefs, some of which may be convincing, that serve to keep something from happening, without the host even noticing.

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Most Recent Example:

I was really sure that I must learn how to use my web design software before I could work on the website content. I'm very visual, don't you know, and if I can't see how it's going to look and be able to mess around with that, it's hard for me to even think.

So I have tried, for two years now, to teach myself Dreamweaver from library books, and I still can't figure out how to center a table on the screen. I have unsuccessfully sought a tutor (probably any 8 year old would do) to answer the million and three idiotic questions that arise the instant I try some new technofuss like this. (The definition of technofuss is self-evident, isn't it?)

I had a membership in an on-line forum (Molly Gordon's Shaboom County) that might help me tremendously with the website content, and I hadn't used it once, though the subscription time was already half over. Hmmmmm.

Once I got started, I realized it had all just been a procrasto-gizmo, and a good one. I had been just a wee bit intimidated and confused about the content (oh, that). There's more than plenty to do without the layout yet, and now it's underway, with the support, feedback, wisdom and humor of the wonderful Shaboomers; Dreamweaver can wait.

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Please add your own examples in the comments, and tell us what other new words you've been saying lately, too.

Art First

It's happened again. The sneaky habit that puts off creative work has latched on like a leech. Days fill up with looking for bacon to bring home, and other necessities and frivolities. And in the back of the busy buzzing head drips the sad old song: when will I ever get in the studio, visit that Zone of creative flow?

So I'm taking my own good advice. (Someone has to do it!) I assigned myself 10 for 10 again--ten days of taking at least ten minutes daily for creative right-brain-led play in any medium, without focus on outcome. (For more about that read this post).

That was three days ago. Already I feel SO MUCH BETTER. I am once again amazed at how much can happen in ten minutes, how it leavens the day, how it pops the bubble of believing in Not Enough. And I know a longer session of studio work will come around at the right time, when that wave is ready to lift and carry me. I'm in no hurry--what a relief.

People Who Have to Do The Dishes
Before They Can Get to Work

Unconditional

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Double Portrait of Buddy, oil painting 8x18" '02

See the world as yourself
Have faith in the way things are
Love the world as yourself
Then you can care for all things.

--Tao de Ching , Stephen Mitchell, trans.

Fred, fabrics, 30x33 '91

Fred was three legged golden with a big heart. His person talked about him as a true mirror of God (dog spelled backwards); she found it inspiring that Fred had no idea that there was anything lacking in having 3 instead of 4 legs. It was obvious that his essence was love, he had faith in the way things are and could care for all things.We kind of expect a dog to be a mirror--knowing the cliché of people looking like their dogs--but sometimes we might forget the compliment to the human implied in that.

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Sam, the boatyard dog, was part of the same family later on. The painting was commissioned as a surprise gift, and the only photo that could be spirited away without notice was this wonderful black and white one (below) that I worked from; (Sam had died and we'd never met). A friend snuck in and stole a color snapshot off the fridge, replacing it with a color xerox, so I could study it for color hints.

Sammy, oil painting, 28x35(?) '03

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A client who loves dogs has never felt able to live with one. She said she just couldn't handle taking in that much unconditional love, it made her feel unworthy and also over-responsible somehow. And she thought she could never recover from the loss of a dog, that her heart, once opened, could simply shatter. There were other conflicts she projected on dogs, too, like seeing powerful people as "top dogs" and herself submissively slinking off with tail between legs.

She took my suggestion to watch some Dog Whisperer videos. (I see Cesar Millan as a profound spiritual teacher, almost as much so as the dogs he works with.) She was entertained by the shows, and she found some good applications of Cesar's much-repeated advice to remain calm and assertive--with herself and other people, if not with a canine. But a breakthrough came much later, by surprise.

Ayla (detail) fabrics '91?

On a trip to Mexico, at a sacred site, she was approached by a thin mother dog, with hanging teats and ribs showing.

"I was instantly afraid; if I opened to loving her there would be a whole rescue project, shots and red tape and trying to bring her back to the States," she said.

"But I couldn't close my heart. So I shared my crackers with her. Maybe I should have been scared that being a wild dog she'd bite my hand off. But at the time I didn't think of that.

She took each cracker with great delicacy. She was so present receiving them, as if she were taking communion. She enjoyed every sacred crumb. And then she gave me one grateful look in the eyes and just...left!

Later I saw her working some other tourists for their crackers. And I got it. There was no guilt trip, no rescue mission, no obligation. She knows what to do. She's held. She's fine! So I got to know what unconditional means, I got to meet it in myself."

Jingles, fabrics '90?

Later, she was working on her food issues, berating herself for eating a whole bowl of chocolate pudding.

"What would your Mexican-mother-dog-guru tell you about that?" I asked.

"She'd show me to enjoy every lick. She'd tell me that how ever much I'd had was the exact right amount. And you know, I did enjoy every morsel of that pudding. I curled up on the couch with the bowl and ate it slowly and just savoured it. It's not true that I shouldn't have!"

Holly, fabrics, '88?

Since then, Mexican-mother-dog-guru has been shortened to the obvious holy name of Dog-Ma. Dear DogMa, Bless our food. Teach us gratitude. Mirror the unconditional in our hearts. Show us Enough, here and now.

Why Do You Ask?
for Donald Hall

I can't make
any story
about my life

tonight. The house
is like an overturned
wastebasket;

the radio
is predicting
more snow.

I ask my dog
to tell me
a story, and she

never hesitates.
"Once upon
a time," she says,

"A woman lived
with a simply
wonderful dog..." and

she stops talking.
"Is that all?"
I ask her.

"Yes," she says
"Why do you ask?
Isn't it enough?"

--Kate Barnes

If you like your unconditional love in feline guise, check out Cat Love and Wilda, where I admit I gush.

And if you want more dog-love, read about Lady, the Canine Creative Life Coach

LadyStick With Love fabrics, pastel, paint 14x17" '05 (available)

Limitation

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Limitation doesn't always sound like good news.
But in the I Ching Book of Changes,
the world's oldest advice colummn,
Hexagram 60, Limitation, augurs success.

As a lake exists by containing only a limited amount of the infinite quantity of water, a person is defined by the choices they make based on integrity.

Without the structure provided by limits, creative choice would dissolve into boundless, formless mush. But too much limitation makes for the rigid control that provokes resistance and rebellion; so "it is necessary to set limits even upon limitation." (Wilheim/Baynes translation of I Ching Book of Changes).

Following the advice of this hexagram might mean trusting the integrity that tells you your project needs more work to meet your own standards. Or it might mean, don't persevere to the point of painful perfectionism: here's the deadline, it's as done as it's going to get.

Want to consult the oracle? Think of a life situation related to limitation. Take a moment to jot down a question: what would you really like to know about how you should proceed? Then pick a number 1-6 and write it down.

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OK, you have a question about a limitation, right?
And you picked a number between 1-6 ?

Bearing the question in mind, read the lines corresponding with your number.

Hold them lightly. Wait quietly until you hear your own Voice interpreting the prompt into sensible right-feeling advice for your situation.


1.You need to know when to stop. If you accept the limits set for you, great power will accumulate for decisive action when the time is right. For now, be scrupulous in minding only your own business, and don't say much.

2. It's time to move. No holding back now. Don't hesitate past the moment when the obstacles to action have been removed, or you will miss your opportunity.

3. Take full responsibility for the consequences of having resisted necessary limits in order to seek pleasure. Then you can regain your sense of integrity and learn from mistakes.

4. Go with the flow. The limitation is a natural one, like the fact that water moves only downhill. Success comes from saving energy that would be wasted in struggle and effort; that energy can now be wholly applied to the benefit of the matter at hand.

5. Walk the walk. Whatever limits you think would be good for someone else, try them yourself first, asking little from others. If they like what they see, they'll emulate your example.

6. Overly severe restrictions will always bring about rebellion. Renounce strict measures that attempt to externally control the situation, and show mercy to yourself as you remain uncompromising in adhering to your integrity.

Anger

Durga: The Goddess of Self-Affirming Anger

This sculpture was one of the biggish things that have departed in my birthday giveaway (see original post, and update). It lived on the chimney in my kitchen for many years. I made it at a workshop with the wise and gifted artist/teacher Squidge Liljeblad Davis of Starflower Farm and Studios, a beautiful arts retreat center in Maine.

Durga, The Goddess of Self-Affirming Anger is saying "No!" (can you tell?). I'm grateful that No has less fear, push and resistance in it for me now. No doesn't have to be angry--it can be kind and open-hearted (see article on Personal Freedom). Maybe anger can be open-hearted, too. It seems to take a lifetime to learn about that.

The nose snake has little garnet beads for eyes. Close up, it looks kind of cute to me. Like being an agent of transformation is a secret joke. Maybe for some beings. It's easy to miss the humor in anger when it's personal and coming at you (or out of you). Not that it's such a laugh when it's impersonally bombing someone else to smithereens, either.

Calling Durga The Goddess of Self-Affirming Anger was the inspiration of a beloved friend who died a couple years ago. Joanne was quite the agent of transformation herself. She celebrated the kind of anger that gives the courage to stand and speak up for yourself, the anger that refuses to hide and repress itself. But it's not always so easy to tell that kind from the Accusing Demon of Self-Righteous Anger, which gives off a toxic smoke, not a good, clean burn.

cloth version of Goddess of Self-Affirming Anger

Like many of her close friends, I took a ride in Joanne's hot seat once. Suddenly, instead of playing the agreeable role of trusted confidant, I found myself cast as the betrayer. Later, Joanne had the grace to respond to a heartfelt valentine's card I sent her, ending a 3 year break in our 26 year friendship. But she wasn't satisfied that I'd understood what I'd done that hurt her.

She was right: I'd never really understood, or at least, I saw it differently. From my perspective, Joanne had taken offense at something insignificant and harmless that truly had nothing to do with her. I could relate to the sensitivities that probably triggered her upset and I respected her acute bullshit-detector. Still, I couldn't honestly agree that I had done something I shouldn't have that caused her distress.

Eckhart Tolle says, "Ego takes everything personally....it cannot tell the difference between an event and its reaction to that event. Every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation." (A New Earth, p.68). An angry ego isn't receptive to the possibility that its own distorted, defensive interpretation is the cause of its pain.

In retrospect, that conflict with Joanne gave me a valuable inkling that it might be possible to investigate rather than identify with the interpretations my ego comes up with. Instead of my usual reflex of automatic guilt when someone was mad at me, it was unusually clear to me that Joanne wasn't really a victim of my behavior, but only of what she thought it meant. The same could be true for me, when I'm angry.

No matter what we believe occasioned or caused our anger, even if we're right, what "self" is really being affirmed by it? "Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defense....You are defending yourself; or rather the illusion of yourself, the mind-made substitute...." (Tolle, A New Earth p 68).

Facing It fabrics 25x30in '92? (available)

This piece is half of a double self-portrait. It shows a reaction to an abhorred reality that "shouldn't be" as it is. (More about witnessing emotional states in Art When Upset). It floats like a mask, an illusion of a self hurling unappeasable hurt and accusation outward, distress that only bounces back off the mirror to the face facing itself.

Thich Nhat Hahn, in his helpful book, Anger, advises taking good care of our anger, as we would of a crying child, by practicing mindfulness and presence with the turbulent emotion. When dealing with a crying child it is understandably tempting to give it whatever it seems to want in hopes of quieting it. The second half of this piece (below) faces the upset of the one above with a serene, compassionate acceptance. Its title, I Believe You, offers the validation that the angry one seems so hungry for.

I Believe You, fabrics 20x27in '92?

In recent years, the sympathetic agreement that sides with anger has been seeming to me like a limited kindness at best. It could be like agreeing with a crying child that there is a monster under the bed, that a nightmare is real. It could be a trick, a false comfort, even a kind of enabling--appeasing an addictive craving that only intensifies the desire--to be right.

"There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position--a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story." (Tolle, A New Earth p 67). In my experience, validating a judgment that something shouldn't be as it is can't cure distress. Neither can the most courageous artistic witnessing. What can ultimately bring relief is investigating the story that created the angry reaction.

So far, in 6 years of using The Work to inquire into stressful stories, I haven't found a single case where what happened was actually what angered me, no matter how adverse the circumstances appeared. Always it has been what I thought happened, what I thought it meant, my identification with a mental position, that caused my upset.

Nowadays, as self-inquiry has brought me so much more freedom and peace than I ever thought possible, along with the joy of a far less solid identity, I'd title that image of compassionate response to anger differently. Instead of I Believe You, it might become Is It True? the first question of The Work of Byron Katie.

Anger comes to me now sometimes as a red alert to let me know I'm believing in a mind-made interpretation and I am confused. Instead of affirming the little threatened made-up self that created the distress, anger can turn around into a wake-up call that clears up the nightmare, leaving a genuine peace in its place.

"Is it true, sweetheart?" I ask myself in Katie's loving voice when I think something or someone is wrong. "Can you be sure?" "Who would you be without that story?" Without the story I rediscover a nameless self, a love that affirms all and leaves no adversaries. I feel grateful beyond expression, starting fresh, a new moment now, utterly innocent.

Happy Birthday, Nobody!

Play Money

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It's tax time in the US. For a lot of people, just the mention of the T word is enough to pull heads down and shoulders up, ducking incoming audits. I have been blessed with an amazing professional tax guy, Frank Lehman, who encourages a humor-filled, low-stress approach to the grim task. I actually look forward to sending him a colorful decorated page of numbers each year (highly accurate, of course) and he does the rest.

A while back, I decided to levy an art tax on myself. I tithed 10% of everything that came in from art into a separate savings account. Eventually I'd cash in my Creativity Credit and spent it directly on time or materials to support art just for me--work that was private from the projected judgment of the marketplace. It didn't take long for this exercise to shift some chronic victim-headedness around that old song "It's soooo hard to make a living as an artist/writer." There really was enough, though I was well below the poverty level at the time.

I've suggested this kind of thing, with variations, to people who feel stuck around money in their creative lives. The number 10 has a powerful mojo--see post Ten Minutes, and get more in Art Love, the thank you gift for a sign up to my more or less monthly newsletter, StinkwaninkaNews). Ten percent, ten dollars, even a dime, can be used to joggle the grid of scarcity belief, to open some space and reconnect with the flow that money symbolizes.

What could you buy to support your creative life? Roses for the dancer/author/actor etc. in you, making this your opening night? A new pencil? A card of someone's work that inspires you? A book? Take yourself out to a museum. Give $10 anonymously to someone else to thank them for their creative contribution. Give away the new pencil--does that make you feel even more supported? Let us know what else you think of, do it, tell us what happened.

Papaji tells of sitting by the Ganges with a pile of coins on one side and a pile of pebbles on the other, alternately throwing one and then the other into the water until all the money he had that day was gone, including bus fare home. What could you do to practice the realization that pebble and coin are the same offering, picked up and returned into the holy river of life?

Make a dime into the moon in a sculpture. Color on a ten dollar bill, collage it, make it beautiful, put it on the wall: it's just a piece of paper, fine rag paper, with some dull green ink pattern for a background. (This exercise works best with a bill big enough to matter to you as money.)

Does this sound illegal? Like tearing off the tags on a pillow? Maybe what's really illegal to the conventional mind is the freedom of remembering that money is only a shared idea of value--it's all made up! it's numbers, paper, metal--play money to play grown-up with. However convincingly dire your financial situation is looking, can it hurt to open yourself to a comic or creative view of it?

I invite you, in the medium of your choice, to make some kind of art money. Voila! You've made money from art. Send a picture of what you created to judespacks@gmail.com (unless you tell me otherwise, I'll assume it's ok to publish it in the future). And tell us what you experienced. For more, check out Rich (how someone freed herself from hatred of the rich and what that meant) and Enough (on an artist's realisation of her own abundance).

May you prosper in every way. Kiss your tax return as you pop it in the mailbox.

Gallant Fox portrait

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I recently finished this oil portrait, commissioned by Christie Dennis, of her late husband Rodney. It was a very sweet project to do; I knew them as family friends when I was growing up, and had been warmly acquainted with them in adulthood, too--in Maine and Massachusetts.

Here's a little bit from a eulogy Christie wrote:

"Gallant Fox was a talented and charming racehorse in the thirties whose quirk was to be unpredictably diverted by something that caught his interest, and was known to stop mid-race to follow the trajectory of a bird flying overhead. As some of you know, I taught Rodney to drive--something I perhaps should not admit to--which brought us one day to the intersection of Brattle Street and Route 16, with the light turning green and Rodney at the wheel. The jockeying and turning of the cars and the fact that they didn't collide so amazed Rodney that he forgot he was driving and came more or less to a halt, to much resonant annoyance. I called him Gallant Fox. He liked that...."

Here's some earlier stages of the painting, and a close up: