ON ARTISTS AND THEIR ADVERSARIES

I spent my childhood in an environment that taught me it was not safe to be an Artist. In other words, it was not safe for me to be myself in the world. So I learnt to feel safe by hiding the real me, by keeping myself apart and holding myself at bay from the world.

I think the problem was not so much about Artistry but about expressivity. Once you express, you indicate your separateness, your self-determination and autonomy. For whatever reason, those who raised me were threatened by anything that smacked of difference. Maybe they found their own sense of safety in fusing. Two become one and that one was them - their thoughts, feelings, attitudes and unlived dreams. But people, especially Artists, come with their own dreams, insights, perceptions and desires, which those who raise them may feel have to be debilitated if not killed.

They chose to do this in any number of ways. Criticism, ridicule and ostracization are very effective on children since they still strongly believe that their survival depends on acceptance by their caretakers, experienced as approval from them. Constant criticism leaves one with a sense that what you are is not what you are supposed to be. Constant ridicule leaves one with a sense of being less than one is supposed to be. Constant ostracization leaves one feeling immaterial, intrinsically unimportant.

So what kind of a Being are we left with? A Being who believes they are not what they are supposed to be and therefore unfit for acceptance to themselves or by others. We come to believe that we are so far less that we are supposed to be, that we are not worth the bother. We hurl ourselves into the slag pit of putrefying condemnation. How then can we create works of beauty or joy? Since we are not worth the bother, it follows that what we create is not worth the bother. However, this is a deep and pernicious lie that pierces and poisons us to our very Soul leaving us hemorrhaging our life force.

But we are all divine Beings and Artists are dear to God’s heart. Who else would create his songs, stories, visions and give the world intimations of how exalted existence can be? We are not flung out here alone and left to fend for ourselves.

Through the persistent call to create, the longings and yearnings that will not leave us be, we reach down into the pain and dare to take it on. We meet the Gorgon refusing to be turned to stone using creativity as the mirror to deflect the paralysis of pain. Slowly and at first excruciatingly painful, ways of healing the pain, transforming those lies, turn up in our lives in the form of books, seminars, new activities, new people, new ways of thinking, etc. We develop a sense that there are invisible forces beneficial to us, on our side, willing to help us become aware of our intrinsic worthwhileness. Aware that we are exactly what we are supposed to be and have always been so.

We have always been worth the while. We do not have to do anything to become acceptable. We do not have to be anything other than we are. We do not have to attain deservability, worthwhileness or entitlement to life’s ‘goodies’ through performance or conforming to what others would have us be. We are born deserving, we are worth all we desire and are entitled to have, be and do all the good we desire.

We came forth able to create whatever we feel called to create AND IT IS WORTH ALL THE WHILE THERE IS. Time for us to know that being an Artist is a worthwhile pursuit. The world needs fully expressed Artists. Time to know that your deeper safety depends on our expressivity and being governed by our artistry and not your fears. Will everyone in the world accept you and your works? No. Does that make you undeserving, worthless and unfit for all you desire? DEFINITELY NOT.

Artists have an important purpose in the grand scheme of existence. Yes to beautify, yes to entertain but also to bring us into the awareness of the greater possibilities for our lives i.e. the transformative value of art. We do not have to settle for the same kind of existence of those around us. We can be transformed not only through the act of creating but also though the act of choosing the art with which we engage.

I have seen my own life’s course change radically from the direction of those who raised me. I travel the world through my work, my days are filled with acquainting myself with ideas that otherwise would not be a part of my lived reality. I meet people from different cultures and life circumstances who share the dream of creating art. And now with the internet we can dream our dreams and connect those dreams to others worldwide with a mere click.

Those who raised me experienced difference as abandonment. Ironically their painful behavior led to my leaving, which they must surely have seen as their fears of abandonment coming to pass, not realizing they were the spur.

However, let us reframe. The beauty of it all, is that because their behavior caused me pain, I would not have left and gone out into the world and experienced all the joy, beauty and healing that has come into my life - the joy of adventure and self-reliance in the Spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical realms. For that I thank them. Perhaps they were ‘noble adversaries’ forcing me to stand on my own two feet in the world, to determine the course of my life for myself and find my own way of Being in the world. They forced me to become more than they led me to believe I was.

We are not victims of others if we refuse to be governed by our fears or that of others. To remove ourselves form people, places and situations that seek to debilitate us or require that we debilitate ourselves is to be courageous. We learn to acquaint ourselves with forces greater than ourselves and we learn to know and rely on them. They lead us to people, places, situations that will give us fulsome support. We decide to walk by faith and not by sight. Our noble adversaries force us out of our cocoon selves, to take flight as butterflies or die in the shell.

The ultimate noble adversary is mortality. The full realization of mortality will either scare you to death or liberate you in fuller life. Coming to a full sense of mortality has forced me out of my learned mode of security and safety – hiding. To die without fully expressing all I came to be is not acceptable to me and it’s worth the risk of coming out of hiding. All I have to do imagine the day after my death - the sun will rise, people will go about their work, love, have babies, laugh, go the movies, this exuberance of activity we call life will continue – without me.

I now realize I no longer have time to hide only learn to live for all I’ve come to know I’m worth. I have survived criticism, ridicule and ostracization as attempted forms of control or as a reaction to sheer misunderstanding. I am ready and seasoned to step up fully into life.

For this desire to show up more fully, I thank my noble adversaries and to all those who have yet to show up to criticize, ridicule and ostracize me, I thank you in advance for causing me to show up even more fully myself.