Contour Drawing and the Soul

Contour drawing is a style used by the artist who studies, with her eyes, the edges of the object. Never looking away to cheat by looking down at her paper. She slowly makes marks on the page as she truly follows the lines, the curves, the angles, and the details of the object. 

Starting in the middle of the paper, I drew one flower from the center of the dried arrangement, then another and another. “Let your eyes go slowly around the outside lines. Don’t lift your pencil and don’t look down at your progress. Watch each flower deeply with the intention to truly see what is there not what you think should be there. Let go of your need to make sure it looks right or even looks recognizable.”

There is a trusting of the senses that is necessary for this kind of art. I trust what I see. I trust what I sense in the movements of my hand. I trust not to look down and that if I loose that trust momentarily, I actually start creating what isn’t there. I catch that tendency to not trust myself and start again.

The inner workings of my Soul are much the same. When I look away at something outside of myself for acceptance, reassurance, or the right answer, then I momentarily loose the trust I have in the movements of my Soul. The moment I stop noticing and watching, truly seeing the lines, the contour, the depth of who I am, I get lost in what isn’t there, what isn’t truly me. Sometimes I have to risk that what others see might not be recognizable to them. Ultimately, it is necessary to trust what I sense in me, my Soul, or I become unrecognizable to myself.

FLYING

Renee (17 year old student pilot) and Matt (instructor)

Twin Cities Aviation

Today, while out on a run, I watched two young girls out on the front steps of their house. They were standing on the top step and jumping onto the landing at the bottom of three, maybe four, steps. Luckily, their father was mowing the lawn or I bet he would have told them to stop. They were having a blast, rolling the landings to soften their falls, getting up, and doing it again.

As I continued on my run, I thought, it is such a natural part of our make-up that we should desire to experience the moment of decision to jump, the flight itself, and the impact of landing. It’s in our bodies to want to do that. It’s in our Soul’s to want to do that. Imagine and remember yourself for a moment, readying to jump, maybe jump off of the spinning merry-go-round, the jungle gym, or a huge rock. What is the experience like of anticipation and then deciding when you go?

The flight. Even if just for a brief moment, you’re flying through the air, feeling the gravitational pull but also the wind on your face. You’re watching the earth, watching your landing. Then, you experience the impact. Yes, indeed, you are still human. You assess any damages, get up, and do it again and again.

Somewhere in the developmental years, we stop flying. We stop jumping. We stop readying ourselves for the unpredictable moment of letting go, jumping off, being in the moment of flight. This natural desire and need goes underground most likely because we skinned our knees, bumped an elbow, or experienced loss of some kind. In this normal human experience of jumping off, we decide to never do that again.

Tolerance for pain, for the unpredictable, or of what someone titled “failure,” disappears. Fear sets in as a familiar guest. In fact, so familiar, we hardly notice that we are responding from a place of protection. We stopped flying long ago and didn’t even notice it.

We stop living the life that our bodies and souls yearn to live. Instead, we stay attached to the safety of the ground, the same job, the same activities, the same neighborhood, even if it doesn’t fit anymore. We unknowingly wait for an event in life to push us off, so unexpectedly that it takes our breath away. This sets in the notion that yes, indeed, life cannot be trusted. See. See what happens?

Our bodies and souls yearn to fly but fear ties them down. They will rebel for a while. You might experience the dis-ease and not know where it came from, override it, get busy with consuming and denial. But you want to fly. You really do. It’s in your nature. Try it. Try it on the front steps first and see what happens.

Human Paradox

The Soul is always moving, causing change, newness, friction, energy, and life. We are reminded that friction is necessary for energy to be created. Wind creates friction, causing movement in places on the earth so as to produce life. Human Paradox is friction and we want to choose the easy side of a duality and ignore,  resist, or bypass the difficult. To welcome both sides of the paradox means we will experience friction and life. The neglected side of paradox or one's shadow will make itself known and experienced whether we are conscious of it or unconscious of it. To bring it to the conscious level we can reap its benefit in our journey toward wholeness.

Beauty from the Dark

Beauty from the Light

We can become so ashamed of our humanness and yet it is our humanness that creates the needed friction, energy, and life. So should we not soften our responses to our humanness? And acknowledge our humanness, both sides of paradox and the Shadow? For there in the middle lies that which is whole, that which is Holy. How do we find the middle way? We get a glimpse of the middle way by practicing compassion. Robert Johnson speaks of The Miracle of Paradox, "To transfer our energy from opposition to paradox is a very large leap in evolution. To engage in opposition is to be ground to bits by the insolubility of life's problems and events. ... To transform opposition into paradox is to allow both sides of an issue, both pairs of opposites, to exist in equal dignity and worth. ... If I can stay with my conflicting impulses long enough, [through compassion] the two opposing forces will teach each other something and produce an insight that serves them both" (pg. 85-86,Owning Your Own Shadow). Johnson goes on to say, "... there can be no paradox - that sublime place of reconciliation - until one has owned one's own shadow... To own one's own shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience." Any time we have the discomfort of the opposites living together, simultaneously within us, we can know that something greater than the ego is moving us, causing life through friction. Something needs our attention. To ignore or think it possible to wrestle the uncomfortable impulse to the ground will cause a split of the self. Here is where the real danger lies. The ego will unsuccessfully try to conquer over the uncomfortable only causing it to work even harder at getting our attention. Sometimes people come to Spiritual Direction or therapy wanting, begging for quick resolution but as Johnson writes, "... they would have something even greater if they could ask for the consciousness to bear the paradox." A young woman who could no longer stand the clash of opposites within herself came to a Jungian therapist from Zurich. "She burst into tears and cried out that she could stand it no longer. "Ja, gut," replied Dr. Meyer. "Now something will happen." Jung wrote, "Find out what a person fears most and that is where he (she) will develop next" (pg. 92, Johnson). What do you fear most? What change do you fear most? How compassionate are you today with your human clash of opposites, your own Holy place of paradox? Search for the middle way, the place where all of you is welcomed and loved; where you do not split yourself and abandon parts of her/him. For there, in the middle where the friction and energy live, is a direct experience of the Holy, something beyond what your ego can control. Your creator made you human, how exciting!