The Teacher: Opening to Love
Light
Light
devoured darkness.
I was alone
inside.
Shedding
the visible dark
I
was Your target
O Lord of Caves.
[English version by A. K. Ramanujan, Original Language Kannada]
My esophagus and I have had a lovers spat. But after 3 months on a liquid diet I am happily eating solid food again. What a trying time. Some days it took more than 2 hours to drink a single cup of fluid because it simply didn’t want to go down. Each time I go through a difficult spell with my health, I know that there is divine purpose. I always come through healed in mind and soul as well as body.Though my esophageal quarrel was extremely difficult, I made it through because of painting. Painting allowed me to connect to the deep well of creativity that regenerated me even as I felt my body slipping away. Painting became my anchor to life and each time I lifted my brush I felt I was reeling myself into safe harbor. This time made crystal clear the personal value of making art and also made clear why art is so important to the world. Anyone who has read this blog will know I believe art and healing are deeply connected. As an artist is healed by the process of their work, that energy is captured. This energy resonates within their piece where it has the potential to heal its viewer. This is my highest goal, to create work that heals. I also think that is what art does at it's best. Art can do other things: educate, shock, bring beauty. But all these fall aside when measured against the sacred calling to heal and transform. This may seem a lofty goal that is not often reached but it is important to set lofty goals as Henry Moore says:
The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.-Henry Moore
I would change that quote slightly from something you cannot do to something it seems you cannot do. It is too easy to limit what we can do by dismissing goals as unattainable. Art has the ability to change people on a very deep level and therefore artists have a great responsibility. Some might say they have a responsibility to themselves or to their vision, but I would disagree. Instead, artists have a responsibility to the Light / Creativity that they shepherd into the world. It is a flickering flame that must be cradled and cherished that it may heal and guide us forward. Unfortunately, the art world and many artists have often forgotten the sacred nature of their charge. Many are trapped and blinded by history’s model of the bohemian artist shocking the world.
Today, it is almost impossible to shock anyone. We have all seen countless murders and even really war causalities on TV. We are even jaded to the point of numbness. Yet many artists still doggedly cling to this notion of shocking the establishment. No longer able to shock the public at large, artists have settled for shocking the artworld with increasingly self-reflexive works that are no longer accessible or meaningful to the average person. Works that paradoxically become more and more cerebral the less they mean.
It seems to me that as a society all we can see the darkness: the murder and crime, the wars, the destruction of our environment. When I said artist’s have a responsibility to the Light it meant it. We need to start carving a path of Light out of the darkness we are mired in. Artists have a unique opportunity to actively engage in their own healing through their work. This healing energy then spills out and effects everyone in their lives and everyone who encounters their work. We must acknowledge the darkness in ourselves and our world and transform it. We can hold the world’s darkness on our canvases along with its Light, the pain and the joy, in a way that allows the release of the pain and the movement toward joy. Being with was is, our own pain and shadow side, is an act of courage and faith that there is something more, that transformation is possible. This adds Light in the world. The more we focus on this Light and praise it rather than complain, the more we add to a movement of healing that will in time reach a tipping pointing where darkness and Light can rebalance in a healthier way. So artists, I say, be brave, be ever so brave and enter your own darkness to find your path to Light. The world is depending on us. With love,Sybil