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MuseLetter
Inspired Self-Expression
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Greetings!
The Urban Goddess MuseLetter is a bi-monthly publication providing inquiry, inspiration, community and support for all who are committed to creative, authentic and unbridled self-expression.
Exploring native intelligence, creativity, non-duality, imagination, diversity, art, love, vulnerability and other real life stuff. |
Empty Canvas
A Clean Slate or an Unknown Future?
 It is said that "a picture is worth a thousand words", but what about the stark quiet void of a blank page or an empty canvas? There is great persuasion and potential in empty space; both inviting and defying. The blank page summons the will of the writer; the barren white surface of a canvas commands the first brushstroke of the painter. Each represents an unknown future... to be trusted, unveiled and realized.
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I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it,
the dead feeling of winter. Something waits
beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.
- Andrew Wyeth |
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Life, as with art, is a synergistic process of engagement and discovery requiring both earnest surrender and plucky participation, but how often do we intentionally approach our lives in this way? Just days ago, I had no idea what I would be writing for this issue and was swimming in the push/pull tension of the creative process. In a moment of childlike spontaneity, I emailed a friend noisily expressing my agitation and exclaimed, "I'm a blank canvas!" and voila!, there it was right from the outset, contained and camouflaged in contradiction: worry, admission, trust and doubt - the unremitting creative seed.
When we cling to the artificial safety of absolutes, Paint-By-Number spiritual beliefs, or our refusal to recognize our broken parts, paradox and conundrums are bewildering notions. As Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, tells us, "The paradox is - that in order to experience our light we cannot deny the dark aspect and we cannot indulge in either".
Being deeply present with "what is" is to live with paradox: the light, the dark, the fragrant, the foul, our loves, our contempt, our triumphs and our failures; the empty crowded spaces of our humanness. |
Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.
- David Whyte
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A blank page, as with the feeling of emptiness in one's life, can be both stirring and unsetteling; a story yet to be told, a future still to come, a path not yet taken. We may question and doubt -- will our words be worthy? Will our brushstroke diminish the value of the stark clean surface? Will we muster the courage to step onto the unknown road before us?
When I turn to a fresh page in my writing tablet one word comes to mind: anticipation. There is a sense of urgency within the nothingness, yet there is also an eerily calm detachment; both are major stumbling blocks for most writers and artists -- for all of us. A blank page is the Mount Everest of the creative process.
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There's nothing to writing.
All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
- Walter Wellesley Smith
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Spiritual Lite
Though many of our current spiritual practices still reflect America's fixation with abundance, forced optimism and light, (light and more light), we are gradually moving away from 'Spiritual Lite' and integrating more substantive, balanced and inclusive principles.
In the book, The New American Spirituality, Omega Institute co-founder Elizabeth Lesser writes, "Sin-based religions have made it their mission to control the world, not to love it for what it is. The less controllable aspects of our humanness--erotic love, rage and anger, beauty and sadness--have been labeled too passionate or irrational to be trusted." But in the "new American spirituality," she explains, "everything is sacred--your body, mind, psyche, heart, and soul. The world is sacred, too, with all of its light and darkness."
..."with all of its light and darkness"
To truly honor and embrace the paradoxical nature of our humanness and the world, we need a cultural and spiritual revolution; we need to bring spirituality back to earth; we need to acknowledge our light and darkness and recognize that everyday life is a spiritual path.
Author and Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield writes, "Family life and children are a wonderful temple. In both child-rearing and love relationships, we will inevitably encounter the same hindrances as we do sitting in meditation. Spirituality has shifted from going to India or Tibet or Machu Picchu to coming home."
Consciously dancing with paradox is a spiritual discipline and a challenging discipline at that. It requires us to move beyond absolutes and ego driven ideologies and thrusts us into the very mystery of our true nature--a conundrum, in and of itself.
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Embracing Empty - Nourishing the Soul
The simple painting below is one in a series I began producing nearly two decades ago. The objective has never been to "improve technique", but rather an on-going inquiry into paradox and conundrums. I regularly integrate this
 bountiful metaphor, not only in my daily life and art, but in my coaching and authentic expression practice as well. Tangible and intangible, void and full, the Empty Bowl archetype is a powerful and poetic initiation tool during periods of change, loss and uncertainty.
We are so preoccupied with filling our "bowl" with positive thoughts and "stuff", we have a cultural disorientation with the sacred aspects of "empty", but opening to this still quiet void can be a profound vehicle for healing and integrating the body, mind, psyche, heart, and soul.
True emptiness is not empty, but contains all things. The mysterious and pregnant void creates and reflects all possibilities. From it arises individuality, which can be discovered and developed, although never possessed or fixed. -- Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart
I encourage you to clear some space for the new year, in your home, life and heart. Surrender to the void and let it speak to you ... embrace the empty.
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How will you live this New Year?
Paint-by-Number? Or an original work of art?
Wishing you an empty canvas, a fresh start and a soulful new year,
Robyn Lark Wakefield
mentor, coach, guide and muse
(Private Programs and Consultations are provided nationally via phone and internet)
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The contents of this newsletter may incite euphoria, uncertainty, heightened self-confidence and/or doubt. The author is not a Medical Doctor, Licensed Psychologist or Ordained Minister. Matter of fact, she was required to take two years of Related Math in college and still doesn't know her multiplication tables.
Urban Goddess ® is a registerd trademark and trade name. All rights reserved. © 1992-2011
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This Issue's MuseMaker
Mati Vargas-Gibson
Highly recommended!
Tell her the Urban Goddess sent you!
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It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand.
- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish philosopher
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This Issue's Inquiry
What is your relationship with empty? |
It is the constant search for answers and our reluctance to sit quietly with "empty" that we mute the wordless language of
the soul.
- Robyn Lark Wakefield
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The Tao is like an empty bowl, which in being used can never be filled up. Fathomless, it seems to be the origin of all things.
- Tao Teh Ching, Verse 4
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