Courageously persist!!! 🎨🦁🔥
On trauma healing through art, emotional alchemy, and finding forward movement when creative trust falls feel like a FLOP!
Preface: Since publishing this article, I’ve been magnetically drawn to sit and give more shape and dimension to the original story. What a handful of subscribers received in their inbox on Friday was apparently a seed of something that has been growing ever since, something that has wanted to unfurl right here within this Substack tab.
And what else has been growing, is me. Here. Stripped bare, in front of you. Because of you. Sans GPT.
It appears that, at least for right now, allowing the story threads to unfold and refine through a live format is assisting the messages in finding their way to conscious awareness, along with enhancing my own psychological integration.
So, to you, dear reader, thank you for helping me heal and grow, through your willingness to see me, and see yourself within me.
The shapeshifting nature of this writing process seems to mirror the emergence of the European Beech Tree I was painting all week at Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (as of midnight Saturday, there are 23 subscribers to this Substack. There were 23 other people in the room with me at CoSM. You are all sacred mirrors!!!)
It’s too early to define where this article/series of articles is headed, but I’m on alert for instructions, and will do my best to serve the work and serve the readers so you can welcome the inspiration with optimal lucidity, ease, and impact.
Thank you for bearing with me in this process of discovering what that gets to look like. I’d love for it to be collaborative in nature!
If you happen to be reading this message, and you happen to be drawn into the rabbit hole of creative unfoldment below, I welcome any suggestions that might serve this creative process as well as honor the amazing handful of readers who were curious and patient enough to hit subscribe. :)
Thank you for your grace and understanding, and thanks for playing along! :)
Earlier this month, I was selected as one of 22 painters to gather from around the world for a week-long Visionary Art Intensive with Alex & Allyson Grey at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (CoSM) in the Hudson Valley, a sacred community that honors the practice of art as a spiritual path to uplift global community.
While the only psychoactive I consumed all week was coffee, the experience was highly psychedelic in how the set and setting facilitated such a deeply healing, alchemical experience for me- before ever stepping foot on CoSM’s sacred ground:
In the months of preparation leading up to the intensive, breakthroughs began emerging in my EMDR sessions through the art I was creating.
(Note: the actual CoSM recap starts here. As I’ve been reworking this article post-publication, more of the backstory around the connection between trauma healing through expressive arts and the experiences that unfolded at CoSM has been shaping together in the paragraphs below. I may end up breaking this post into separate articles later on for reader convenience. I welcome your feedback on flow & format if you’re feeling generous :))
Backstory
When I submitted my application to CoSM this past Valentine’s Day, I had just completed my 8th EMDR session, and things were feeling pretty rough. It was taking weeks to feel as though I wasn’t walking around with my skin turned inside out, with every nerve exposed to the cold Northeastern air.
By the time I arrived at CoSM, I was 40 sessions strong. Aliveness, and a sense of containment, were returning to my body. Art was flowing again. The first painting I created was of a Blossoming Lotus. Every color I placed on the canvas had something discouraging to say - every color but magenta.
I had recently begun bringing paintings into my appointments as we got closer to the wound. I was astonished in realizing art was helping me heal on a level I had never before experienced.
Constellating with paintings created during the time of the trauma, along with new emerging artwork, all helped catalyze the emergence of somatic shifts- reclaiming a felt sense of agency within my body as I worked with my therapist to reprocess the original experience.
As the Visionary Art Intensive grew closer, I began to realize the agenda my ego had been holding for the week at CoSM would need to dissolve completely:
I was right in the center of the wound. The art I was creating as integrative therapy was taking months longer than I’d planned for, yet it felt like the most important work of my life. Firm in my intention to honor the wisdom and intelligence of my healing process, it humbled me in realizing I couldn’t force or rush this process even if I tried!
Some greater mystery was emerging, yet I couldn’t articulate what it was, or even comprehend what was happening.
Even still, I was rooted in a felt sense of knowing that I was right on time, and exactly where I needed to be: I belonged at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, even as my mind and body reared up in resistance within the seven-day alchemical dance that followed.
In this and future articles, I’ll be sharing more takeaways from the experiences mentioned above and below, to further my own distillation, and to allow the flow of inspiration to continue its journey in reaching other souls who, like me, have ever longed to drink, bathe, or swim in the stream of remembrance.
Thank you for walking with me in this unfolding testament to the healing power of art, nature, community, and the greater field of consciousness and sentient wisdom within and all around us. May these words benefit and inspire you on your path of creative emergence.
Please, share this article, share your insights and reflections in the comments, and/or let me know who else I should connect with on Substack (or otherwise) to further tend this field of inspiration in global community!
I. The “Flop”
II. The Alchemy
III. The Message
I. The “Flop”
All week long at the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, I danced.
Danced between flashbacks of the self-inflicted harm I experienced during art school, a visceral desire to flee/unbelong myself from the CoSM experience, right alongside iridescent waves of pique joy-bliss rippling through my body (which was receiving little to no sleep each night!): "I've finally found my place, my people, my pocket!"
One of our tasks was to create a 10 minute slide presentation where we introduced ourselves: sharing about our missions, visions, and the experiences we’ve had that have shaped our emerging worldview.
Ever since receiving my acceptance letter, I’d been searching for the language that could best describe the complex relationship I held with art in my late teens and early 20’s. How could I concisely tell the truth without sounding like a victim of my past, and also without bypassing or negating the effect this truth had on my life and relationship with creativity at that time? How could I coherently express how a practice that once triggered self-hate and harm, gradually transformed into an integral medicine for the healing, recapitulation, & restoration of my Psyche, Soul and Spirit?
At the end of the day, it felt more important to share about the people, places, practices, and archetypal energies that have been supporting my own embodied healing & empowerment than it felt to share about the actual art that has been emerging as integrative medicine.
To separate the artwork from the field that inspired its emergence felt like an impossible task of Psyche.
Even still, I did everything I possibly could to show up and “prepare” for said task: drafting pages and pages of documents, doing timed test runs, and even arranging a Sunday night peer feedback session on Zoom with elders from my Myth & Memoire group, who generously listened and offered guidance, wisdom, and insight- as I sat there squirming, flushed in embarrassment, feeling like a hot, blabbering idiot.
When all was said and done, it was obvious that life was asking me to simply let go and trust the process.
I was so connected with the part of me who knew I was right on time, and had been prepared all along - and at the same time, I was with the part of me who was absolutely horrified at my failure “to prepare” in the traditional sense.
I prayed. I trusted. I surrendered. I lept.
And as my time to speak finally arrived, I completely missed the mark. FLOPPED. Or at least, that’s how it felt to my small self.
I was too overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment to listen to anything the final artist shared after I sat back down. Everyone else’s presentations seemed so put together and clearly defined in a sense of purpose- yet it felt like as soon as I opened my mouth, divergent ideas started spewing out, over, and off of the map entirely.
I was so worried that my presentation, and even my “performance” that week in the studio, could have come across an insult to my teachers and peers, in the perceived lack of preparedness or engagement I seemed to be demonstrating.
“If only they could see beneath the surface” cried my small self.
“You’re right where you need to be. I see you. You have not failed. Stay with yourself. Fear not” whispered my Wise Self.
All my small self could think in that moment was how much she wanted to disappear- and how desperate she was for reassurance that her talk wasn’t as horrifying as her limbic brain was making it out to be.
The yearning for external validation, for confirmation that what was shared actually meant something to someone else- even if the delivery seemed scattered- felt white hot.
II. The Alchemy
With our final painting session happening in less than an hour, and the desire to flee writhing through my veins like hot lava, crescendoing into a surging ocean of emotion, the evening’s outlook appeared bleak. Yet, somewhere in this Neptunian mist, I was able to connect with an earnest desire and readiness to finally transform and liberate this Artist wound that was being reflected back all week long.
No one else could do this work for me- yet I knew I was exactly where I needed to be for the work to emerge- psychologically, spiritually, and physically. I was standing on sacred ground, surrounded by healing artwork and community so divinely designed for the exact alchemy my Soul needed- in fractalling form - and I never could have planned for it.
Rather than giving in to the parts that wanted to flee, or ignoring or shunning these parts, I asked them how we could negotiate and find forward movement.
The resolution was simple: stay with yourself, and stay in the room.
I recalled how decades earlier, I’d often engage in a similar negotiation process in the hot room on the yoga mat (and sometimes still do this to this day!) and how this very practice marked a significant turning point in my relationship with art, my body, Soul, Psyche, and my connection to the loving presence was that was bathing the figure below in an all-pervading light that felt like home.
Rather than force myself to put on a mask and perform, or flee from the experience entirely, life seemed to be asking:
How can I cultivate my capacity to stay with myself?
How deeply can I access a felt sense of the reassurance, comfort, love, compassion, and containment I’ve been yearning for externally, right here within me, within this moment?
As I humbled myself to my assignment, I noticed the tension in the soles of my feet beginning to soften. Breathing into the ground beneath my skin, I began to sense the sentient, loving-aliveness of Mother Earth reaching up in gentle contact, as she held me steady in my trembling.
Just beyond the walls of the Art Lab, a chorus of frogs serenaded us with their medicine songs echoing across the nearby lotus pond and up into the groves of maple, cedar, oak, and pine trees.
How might I meet my body in its instinctual desire to flee, with the same degree of objective observation, presence, and attunement I’d been giving to this ancient European Beech Tree, who’d been shapeshifting on the canvas in front of me all week long as this wild, wondrous, untamed, sentient mystery of majestic strength, ancient wisdom, and the deepest, subtlest, felt sense of eternally loving presence that my body had ever physically experienced in the material plane?
Placing my undivided awareness within the ever-changing scape of bodymind, I scanned with the inward eye of the Artist: observing the temperatures, textures, colors, shapes, and space within me as though I was observing the Tree before me.
Breathing deeply, I noticed the tension that had gathered in my belly and chest, gently, gently beginning to unravel, as I tenderly wrapped my awareness around it, holding it close like the soft, shimmering, rainbow mountain silk that hugged my hips- embodied, kinetic artwork that held stories within stories within stories of celebration of the great Creative Spirit, the wonder of Nature and interconnectivity, and the magic that emerges through listening to one’s dreams and allowing them permanent residency in one’s heart.
I wore that scarf that final evening as a way of physically tethering my body to the magic of possibility- reminding myself that regardless of how things appear in the moment, Inspiration is always available for those with ears turned towards its melodies, no matter how subtle.
Keeping my hand connected with my sketchbook, my pen felt like a magnetic conductor, pulling down messages from the wise, gentle, eternally-loving self within, as I sat there, breathing, in stillness.
As I continued scanning the tension in my body, tears welled up instantaneously as I arrived at my throat center. Words started flowing out of my hand and onto the page, every drop that fell from my eyes nourishing the sentient seeds of love and encouragement appearing before me in the form of an inner dialogue between my small self, and the Wise, Loving, Eternal Presence within.
It was as though the energy flow between my head and heart had become kinked in my neck, yet, through a willingness to turn my attention inward, notice, and breathe with gentle curiosity as sensations arose, all of the pressure that had been accumulating above and below my center of self-expression and truth was suddenly free to release through the salty liquid of my eyes.
The crown of my head began to tingle.
The bones of my legs began to vibrate.
My hand picked up a fine-tipped brush, and began weaving on the canvas, delicate threads of the roots of the Tree That Held Me, as I wove within my body, roots of belonging and love within me: roots that nourished and were nourished by entire root systems, held within the connective tissue of the mycelial matrix, nourished by life, decay, and renewal, and all of Her holy inhabitants.
My liquid eyes clouded over like a snake shedding her skin, senses fully intact.
While my visceral instinct was to contract when the tears first appeared (“Oh no, this could be mortifying! The last thing I want to do is look like even more of a baby or an idiot- what will people think?!”) I was relieved in realizing nobody even knew I was crying.
My attention turned outward.
Scanning the room through watery gaze, I sensed each individual in their own infinite universe, their own creative flow, their own unique connection with Cosmic Creativity, and yet simultaneously, here we were together, all a part of a greater field that we each played a unique role in tending.
We were at once the macro and the microcosm of what was happening below and above us- within and all around us.
In that moment, I heard the words of Buckminster Fuller streaming through:
“You do not have the right to eliminate yourself, you do not belong to you. You belong to the Universe."
I suddenly became aware that I was feeling safe to hold and be with myself within an emotional experience that, during my time in art school, simply felt bigger than my body knew how to handle. Back then, it felt like my only choice was to shame, collapse, or inflict harm on myself when these waves of intensely discouraging internal narratives showed up.
It was as though the tears falling from my eyes were cleansing and dissolving the reverberations of some ancient wound that somehow connected us all in our humanity- in our cell tissue, in our epigenetic memory - and ultimately, in our collective liberation.
The messages that came through my sketchbook in that final session felt like a conversation between my ego, Soul, and the Source of Universal Loving Presence:
III. The Message
For any creative being who has ever experienced the torment of self-doubt (and I didn’t observe a SINGLE artist that week who wasn’t met with this doubt):
Especially when it rears up in the aftermath of risking vulnerability, in the moments where you "trust fall”, where you take the leap of faith, and it feels like a flop…
…in the times when you do the work to prepare, give your best effort, surrender the results, and STILL it feels like what comes out of you is a total disaster…
….and you're left feeling stripped bare and alone, and maybe you start second guessing yourself, or shaming or condemning your faith…
….and you realize you're being faced with a choice: seek the way, within and through the body, or revert to the patterns you've been working so hard to liberate.
REALIZE that what looks like chaos is actually a sacred and holy part of your process, and it, too, has a hidden symmetry.
Your most important job is to learn how to stay with yourself and feel within these times, no matter how bleak things might appear.
You haven’t lost your way. You haven’t failed. You’re closer than ever before to the next breakthrough than had you never made the effort to try.
Don’t give up on yourself. You don’t belong to you. You belong to the Unvierse.
Stay in your body. Become intensely curious about the sensations arising in your bodymind. Be the witness. Breathe. Offer your loving presence to the parts of you that are frightened, lonely, bitter, or angry.
With practice, you too can develop your capacity to contain, comfort, and soothe these parts, gently guiding them into nourishment for your own roots.
And the beautiful thing about all of this is, there are so many ways that creative practice can actually help us heal the very wounds we may have initially experienced through creative practice to begin with.
My life is proof that this is possible.
And it’s my mission to share what has been helpful on my own path, not in the sense of showing “the way”, but as a means of reflecting back the way that’s unique to you. We are sacred mirrors.