Life is its own longing.

Is there to life, an inner wordless knowing? A force that holds the ultimate outcome already within its deepest not yet manifest potential? The potential that lies hidden in every seed that then unfolds and emerges like Russian nesting dolls, from seed to stem to bud to full blossom?

Is there such wordless knowing within us too? Biologically yes, of course. We emerge, grow and mature. But is there such a matrix, such a code for fulfillment in our inner being as well? An innate potential that longs to blossom? An inner drive, not random, but a crystal clear sense of direction and purpose? A force beyond choice? Or as Mark Nepo says, "beyond our wilful wanting".

So, then it is all about surrendering to that wordless knowing, succumbing to the natural forces of nature and submerging ourselves into that inner current. We surrender to "Life's longing for itself" as Kahlil Gibran so beautifully expresses it in The Prophet.  

And yet, choice does enter into this process. Life's longing for itself is innate and inevitable. Flowers can't NOT bloom. But for us it's a little different. We have to make a conscious choice to push the limits. This involves taking risks, often without knowing the final outcome.

"And then I realize that all the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can't see." -Mark Nepo

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S.Eliot

Without pushing past the limits we will never know what's possible. We have to risk going too far. There is a distinct moment, perhaps many moments along the way, where we simply have to take a leap of faith, risk going too far,  risk falling, risk hurting. 

It'll take courage,

but bloom we must.

SEASONS-Rhythms of the inner life

WINTER

Winter,
like a pregnant woman,
holds a promise.
Anticipate patiently.
Descend into the stillness
under a blanket of snow.
Be with the nothing.
It is where you will find All.
Give life time to incubate
despite the absence of visible signs.
Trust the process.

SPRING

Hold gently
the pain of a breaking bud.
Rock it slowly,
there, there.
Ride the throbbing wave.
Breathe in rhythm.
Feel the pulse
of stretching and contracting.
And then,
from a space
much too small,
a blossom emerges.

SUMMER

Celebrate abundance,
and splurge.
Dance wildly
in a circle of plenty,
drunk from too much.
Gather the harvest gratefully.
Indulge in ripened, sweet fruit.
Receive shamelessly
until your cup runneth over.
Then give it all away
like there’s no tomorrow
and melt in the heat of the sun.

AUTUMN

Allow change.
Loosen your attachments
and fall with the leaves in the autumn wind.
Flowers wilt as they go to seed.
Honor their death.
Attend the burial in silent respect.
Surrender control.
Descend like seeds
into earth’s dark womb,
only made richer
by the decay of last year's glory.


WINTER
There is stillness in winter. Colors fade. Nature is in repose. Life sleeps, as if suspended in time. Snowflakes sail through the air without a sound, covering the ground like a blanket. The earth retreats into itself. Animals rest in lairs, burrows and caves.

We too, experience times, when we seem to go into creative hibernation. We may feel as if the muse has left us, or that the well of inspiration has dried up. We feel depleted or overcome by inertia. We worry, feel defeated and lose hope.

In those moments we need to remind ourselves that our inner lives also go through the cycle of seasons. Sometimes we might have to let go of the urge to accomplish and produce and instead allow our lives to lie fallow. We need time when we do not till, sow, or harvest; a time when we descend deep into the ground of our being to be replenished and to rest.

For some it means doing absolutely nothing, staring into a crackling fire, and being silent long enough to hear the voice of the soul. For others, a walk on a windy beach can be a boost of energy. The vast, limitless sky and the endless, roaring ocean sweep us up into a healing embrace.
Whether we spend time in silence, or in the harmony and beauty of nature, music, or art, we will feel nourished and ready to emerge back into the world, restored and renewed.

Despite the absence of visible signs, winter is pregnant with possibility. Whenever we lose sight of the light, we need to remember that seeds need darkness in order to germinate and grow their roots deep. Spring will inevitably come, in due time.

SPRING
What wants to be born, cannot be held back, and what can no longer be contained, must be given space. A bud opens when a blossom unfolds and stretches as if woken from a deep sleep. A chick outgrows the confines of an egg. A butterfly hears the call of destiny and the cocoon breaks open.

When things fall apart in our lives, it hurts and we are afraid. It seems as if we have come to an end. Our circumstances may seem unbearable. This pain, however, could be a sign that birth, or a blossoming, is imminent.

We learn from this metaphor, that life can be so much more than we ever thought possible, that “death” often precedes the birth of something new, that life and great beauty often come from dark spaces, be it earth, womb, egg, or chrysalis, and that life can sometimes be messy and that’s okay.

The butterfly’s struggling to emerge from the cocoon is, in fact, a necessary part of its metamorphosis. It strengthens its unfolding fragile wings. Instead of resisting our own struggles, we can allow them to make us stronger, deeper, and wiser. We need to trust our own metamorphosis and believe in the magical force of transformation. When the time is right, we too, will emerge a new being.

We can sow the seeds of our own choosing, but we cannot make them bloom. They will bloom when they’re good and ready. Trusting the process of growth, we discover that there is something within us that will always prompt us to toward expansion and growth.

SUMMER
Spring is a time of painful breaking open and birth, but it is also a time, along with summer, when Mother Nature displays abundance with an unrestrainable audacity. She holds nothing back. The sun shines on the good and the bad alike. There is an almost shameless abundance in nature, a never ending profusion of life.

When apples ripen at the end of the season, they loosen their attachment to the branch and literally fall into our hands. The tree does not hoard and save for a rainy day. It gives all. Contrary to what people may think, giving is not more important than receiving. If no one is there to receive, giving becomes pointless. Giving and receiving become one and the same.

We often feel unworthy of receiving, or that we must be “good” in order to receive. We believe that we should be able to do without or that wanting is shameful. We often respond to the giver with a modest “oh you shouldn’t have…”

That kind of mindset only puts a “stick in the wheel”, or rather, circle, of plenty. Let’s instead enter into this perpetual cycle with all that it entails. What riches can we share? What services can we offer? What can we give? Even if it’s just a smile, a hand, or a couple of words of encouragement and comfort.

And let’s be equally excited about what we’re about to receive, joyfully anticipating, like a child on the night before Christmas. It’s never a question of whether or not we are worthy. It’s about simply participating in the pulse of life, the universal law of circulation. Blood flows into our hearts and out again. We breathe in and we breathe out. Trees produce oxygen that we breathe in and when we breathe out we provide the trees with carbon dioxide. We pour our love and creative effort into this world, and the world will pour itself into us, generously, and it’s all good. The circle is complete.

AUTUMN
We enjoy our beautiful gardens in spring and summer, when the profusion of color and the vibrancy of life are at their peak. When fall approaches and flowers wilt and die and when the leaves fall, we may feel a sense of loss and sadness.

So much suffering comes from wanting things to stay the same in a world where nothing ever does. Seasons change. Birth, death, and rebirth are part of nature’s rhythm. As flowers wilt, however, they go to seed, seeds that will one day become thousands of new flowers.

The tree loses its leaves in the fall and they stand naked and vulnerable. But even though the leaves are gone, the tree endures, and in the spring it will grow new leaves. When we experience loss, we often feel a similar sense of vulnerability and emotional nakedness. We may lose a job, an opportunity, or money, but our innate capacity to recreate it all, remains intact.

We may lose our “cool” and the ego lays shattered. In that moment we feel, perhaps, as if we’re disintegrating, but our real, inner selves is still untouched and whole. When we lose a friend or loved
one, the pain is so intense that we feel as if we can’t go on, but amazingly enough, we do, and we find within us, a deep strength we never even knew we had.

When we look back and see all the misshapen moments that have somehow found their way into our lives, we feel regret and disappointment. But maybe there is no such thing as a “perfect” life. Maybe our crazy lives are just as they are supposed to be, perfectly imperfect. Our mistakes are often our greatest teachers and life experience always take us further than borrowed wisdom

Trust the creative process.

Now this is interesting to me; the most recent piece I made, the one about seeing in the dark, almost didn't get posted on my Ann Vargas Art facebook page or on Instagram.

I really struggled making it. Nothing clicked. I wasn't "in the zone". It wasn't flowing. I tweaked it. And tweaked it some more, but still wasn't satisfied with it.

But I have received a lot of good responses to it and a dear, dear friend of mine wants to buy the original! Goes to show how much I know ha ha...

This tells me that I need to trust the creative process and that sometimes my images seem to know more about what needs to be created than I do; and that sometimes it's better to go with, rather than struggle against creative forces; and that it would be advisable to explore those promptings with openness and curiosity rather than trying to control them; and that maybe as creators, we need to understand that many ideas may actually come from a deeper place within us, a place that our finite, small self cannot always comprehend or even immediately perceive; and that maybe it would behoove me to realize that these pictures are meant for those for whom they hold meaning and less for the purpose of dazzling you with my "artiste-ness".

From my heart to yours.

Trust that even the tiniest step in the direction of your dreams will be worth it, even when you don't yet see anything that even remotely resembles an end result. Appreciate and treasure even the minutest movement. Even one little step can snowball into bigger and bigger things. Every step creates a momentum that will give you the strength to take another step. Never discard small efforts. They count. They matter.

Even when your dream seems big and overwhelming, simply start with what's in front of you right now. This will lead you to the next small step, and then the next. Don't focus on the end result because chances are it'll seem so big you won't start at all. And even when you're not sure that your dream really is THE dream, pursue it anyway. You never know to what it may lead. It's like using a GPS. Unless you actually start driving, the GPS cannot start guiding you. Just start, anywhere. You can always recalculate.

Don't worry too much about the future. Love the moment you're in right now. Take what you've been given and work with that to its fullest extent. This will open doors to new vistas, new possibilities and new ideas. Trust incremental steps. Don't over-think it. Just start. Create. Play. Experiment. Create quantity! Don't worry about the end result. Make 10 crappy pieces, if that's what it takes, and suddenly number 11 will be a master piece. Get out of your head. Get into the nitty-gritty of creation. The creative process is never neat and tidy. It's messy. Accept it and free yourself from rigid expectations.

Relax and work with what you have. Don't worry about choosing one, and one only, end goal.  It doesn't really matter. What you do right now will lead to other things. What you do right now is the bridge, the connection, to the future and things will unfold organically, petal by petal. The butterfly will emerge. Complete that which you are working on right now and don't distract yourself with doubts about whether or not it is the right choice. Climb the hill that's in front of you and when you reach the top you will see where the path continues. Not before.

Take courage. In an all-inclusive universe you can never get lost.

Pondering the creative process.

Sometimes I feel as if so much of what I write and paint is meaningless and a waste of time, and yet, if I just keep at it, eventually some really deep and meaningful stuff always comes through.

Sometimes when we turn on an old faucet all we get is rusty, dirty water. Don’t be afraid of the imperfect, the meaningless, the ugly - let it come. Allow it. Out with it! Keep the faucet turned on because eventually, water will begin to flow from the depth of the well.

Let all those ugly, imperfect, failed pictures be painted. Let all those boring, meaningless thoughts spill out on the pages. Don’t hold back, don’t censor. Don’t turn the faucet off just yet, even though the water is rusty and undrinkable - let it pour, keep it coming, and soon, clear, clean water will fill your cup.

And don’t be discouraged whenever it feels as if your muse has left you and your creative life seems dead and lifeless.

Most people think that wilted flowers are ugly and that they have now lost their value and that they’re done serving their purpose. But if that flower doesn’t wilt it cannot go to seed. The seeds can’t ripen. The seeds that will eventually grow into thousands of new beautiful flowers. And if the flower doesn’t die, there can’t be any apples, blueberries, raspberries or plums.

The wilted, dry, colorless sunflower is about to crack open, exploding with thousands of seeds that will grow into thousands of sunflowers that in turn contain thousands of seeds that will make thousands of sunflowers. If the sunflower doesn’t wilt and die, new seeds cannot fall into the ground. Even the seeds must go through a “death” of sorts. The shell of the seed must crack open for the seed to sprout and grow into a seedling.

I was inspired by the story of Persephone and Demeter. Persephone was forced to disappear into the underworld for six months and the world turned into winter and when she returned to stay with her mother it turned into spring. That’s how it is in our own lives - sometimes it’s important to disappear into a winter of the soul for a while so that we can be born anew and experience a creative spring again. 

How to break the spell of fear and inertia.

Here is some useful advice from Danielle LaPorte in the book The Desire Map.

( Find out more about this awesome book here:  http://www.daniellelaporte.com/thedesiremap/)

Daniella says, "Just do something. Motion is better than stasis. When you take action, you learn, you build skills, you get freer. When you stay still because you're afraid to move, your self-worth wanes, you're doubts fester and breed more doubts, your courage atrophies. It's not pretty. Suit up and head out."

This is so true. Sometimes when the spell of inertia immobilizes me I break the spell by doing something, anything, to get the energy flowing again. Even if it's not art related yet. I take a shower, or do a crazy dance to some loud music, or the dishes, or clean my studio, run (okay...walk) around the block or anything that involves vigorous movement. Once the paralysis of doubt and fear (or simply laziness) is dispelled and the juices are flowing then I am usually able to translate this general feeling of aliveness into more focused art making. 

Take some action this week towards that, for which you long. A thousand mile journey always starts with one, simple, tiny step. One step will create the necessary momentum to take the next, and the next. But be careful not to make your goals so extra-ordinary, so spectacular and awesome that you chicken out just thinking about them. Lower your expectations to doable, realistic goals and then go from there. My friend Gregg Levoy says in his book Vital Signs, "The only goals with any power are the little ones that you can put on tomorrow's to-do list." (learn more about this beautiful book here http://www.gregglevoy.com/vital-signs/index.html ) 

Have a wonderful, paradigm shifting, consciousness expanding and evolution propelling week everyone! 

There's artwork, and then there's art work.

Allow me to quote from a really useful and inspiring book that I'm currently reading called Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.

"When a painter talks about her 'work' she could be talking about two different things: There's the artwork, the finished piece, framed and hung on a gallery wall, and then there's the art work , all the day-to-day stuff that goes on behind the scenes in her studio: looking for inspiration, getting an idea, applying oil to a canvas, etc. There's 'painting' the noun, and there's 'painting' the verb."

The process is important. The more we focus on the process the better the product. If we are too impatient in wanting just a finished product, it will undoubtedly lack quality for sure, but even more so, it will lack depth and content. Austin, the author of the above mentioned book, also talks about how, as artists, we must accept the reality of CRAP. We must accept that until we finally produce something of real value we might have to make a lot of crappy art. Sometimes crappy art is even crucial to the process of finding our way, to knowing what it is we want to create, to refining and editing and clarifying. If we sit down, determined to create a masterpiece right away, effortlessly and swiftly, we run the risk of experiencing creative paralysis....'cause who can do that? Who can create a masterpiece the first time around???

The way our creative mind works best is to brainstorm. Just start! On a scrap piece of paper, NOT on a $40 canvas that you cannot afford to ruin with crappy art. Just draw! Or paint whatever pops into your mind! Put it down on the paper. Make yourself sign a paper, where you promise yourself that while you create the first few rough drafts, no censoring, criticizing or editing is allowed. Once you have it all there on the paper, then you can arrange, rearrange, sort, keep and toss. It's like panning for gold in a river. You're not going to find the gold right away. There is going to be a lot, a lot of gravel and rocks too.

To find out more about the awesome Austin Kleon check out his website www.austin kleon.com

Artist Bio

Today I created a new, updated Artist Bio. It tells my story. I have always felt that *my art* is the most important thing, not me and my story...but come to think of it, without me and my story there would be no *my art*. So here it is.

Artist Bio

My name is Ann Vargas. I was born in Stockholm, Sweden and came to this country in 1983. I live with my family in Puyallup, Washington.

Apart from a few art classes here and there I am mostly self-taught through the process of exploring various art forms and experimenting. I have loved making art for as long as I can remember.

I appreciate all kinds of art but feel drawn to illustrations that combine words and images conveying a message. I remember, as a teenager spending hours, losing track of time, illustrating my favorite poems.

I especially enjoy the rich textures and multi-dimensional layers of mixed media. My pictures are made with patterned, printed papers, permanent markers, pens, color pencils and acrylic paint with added cut-out images, words and phrases from old books and magazines.

I try to create mindfully, paying close attention to what wants to emerge beyond the limits of my rational mind. I often start out with an idea, only to discover that the woman in the picture seems to want to convey something else entirely.

Art is a shared experience between the viewer, the artist and something that transcends all of us. My intent is to inspire, encourage, comfort and empower, especially women in the process of coming home to their deep, authentic selves. My hope is that my pictures will resonate with and validate that rich, inner journey.

annvargasart.com

annvargasart.blogspot.com

Ann Vargas Art on facebook