Artist's Process Part Eighteen

Our own way,

Each a unique blossoming expression.

Expressing of our way.

Who? That isness that is me, that is your own,

Apparently united oneness collective consciousness,

But that learned philosophy, less even than in material.

I have to find of me what I can right now,

Or it must be filled by perfect circumstances

And complete acknowledgement of others.

So I begin again

Returning, Remaining.

It will be different each time.

I come here remembering happening.

I walk through a corridor of previous art works.

Do it slow. I reflect on and remember feelings when doing.

Trusting, and not able to come here any other way,

As if pushed forward walking the plank.

Because I am not whole here in thought alone.

My nature basks in connection, flow, mystery.

My death is that guide. My identity found its answer.

Art is seeing. I was enthralled.

I can’t live buying  green peppers and waving at neighbours.

I have taken care of my needs.

But just not really here whether utterly naked, or utterly diplomatic.

I, my nature, all of my experiences yearn for purpose, meaning.

Art speaks through the language of my symbols, experiences.

My first purpose, listen. Next, return. Closed eyes, feel for the pulse,

Next the breath. Stop if I am ready to stop. Contemplate if needing to.

Feel for trust, movement. First it may be tears, it may be many types of pain.

It may be, I want to dance, play guitar. Return another day

Feeling purpose without effort.

Today, I first set up my easel, as a matter of linear effort, in trust.

I felt this purpose in other arts, body movement.

Today, I want. I, speaking for some part of my nature. Mystery, exploration,

Contact, seeing, what if opening portals, possibilities.

I let the universe guide me to jump with this lure.

It is fine. I have purpose, I release myself to a dignified death.

Setting eyes on things for the first time in my own life.

Such a gift to the part of me that identified with elements of my nature.

Beyond simply social roles, and external events that produced felt acknowledgement,

I have a secret. I carry me around who fulfils all necessary social responsibilities,

Who sees futility in outer space, in rebellion. I have to stop and find wholeness

Without receiving it from another. I am or I am not.

But I cannot pretend to be me otherwise. And otherwise who is rebelling?

And what is being protected, gained?

Always I sought to make, sustain, expand my sense of self.

If I am real, why did it need constant effort beyond contributing socially,

Beyond taking care of our nuclear scope of influence, necessary collaboration.

The non stopping was then only about me.

So I stopped several times a day in between spinning plates.

IN a way that satisfied my nature.

Then I realized the plates are who I made up, defend, think of as, carry in my face as me.

So who was spinning that, what was its purpose?

First, taking care of necessities, time preservation, health and finding self sanctity.

Expression, movement, exploration for sakes outside of reason alone.

Rebellion. Let self sanctity be the first rebellion.

Rebellion, not judgement or altering others. I want the real thing.

Let society grow out of that. Billions of authentic.

Collaborating from having not following systems to hope to have.

Needs first. Have first.

The please reach the stars, meet civilizations then not as human beggars,

Aggressive consumers, with sharp teeth made of other ways of consuming others.

So, I stop, and listen while planes fly over head, rockets fly.

Whatever real I learn, awareness I gain, I know I will take with me.

Whatever further I stuff in my head as knowledge will melt with the jellyfish brain.

Plus, I have done my job today. Is it okay I ask to stop for a few minutes.

Why jot indulge, take an hour. You drank with the Hendersons all evening talking of

Politics and then once tipsy with lude jokes. It was only the laughter that had meaning.

Return to the one within the laughter, the one watching, enjoying

As the body rejoiced in the outpouring in laughter, the melt face cry laugh.

While the laugh was, there was me.

Who am I, minus cosmetic sedation. Sober in basic afternoon lighting,

or as an experiment unsupportive led lighting.

Either way, I can’t live only one evening at week at a time, then lunches,

Laundry, cleaning, duties,

and lights out in comforters 37% battery recharging for work.

I want to happen more often. I am not a social or political movement.

I want to feel, I want to be real all the time.

I imagine one activity of stopping, doing as me, flowing into the next.

The daily necessities also retaining that contact, remembering there is other hope,

Taking care of necessities, contributing without making it about me,

But really giving, and doing so from joy.

I do my daily job this way. And it is exhausting.

And it cannot fulfill all of me. And having more cannot,

And parties are not numerous enough, and they start to bore.

I listen to very successful people. I have glimpsed only,

But they speak of severe boredom, a falling of hope

When everything is attained, when many friends,

Social position and safety is had.

Being in between, established secure,

But having enough to want,

At the same time in between being a pygmy tribesman in brainstem

Of visceral pleasure, wolf pack comradery, territorial tendencies,

At the same time having sensed and felt the me inside the laughter,

Me found inside when my identity and physical body were utterly exhausted.

When I accepted the tearing apart, and there was no one to blame.

When I could not be comforted entirely living as a social tribesman,

Could not agree with cultural narcissism,

Could not laugh where my values differed subtly,

Could not feel the same that others needed to feel within a group,

But again in between,

In need of love, acceptance, camaraderie, common purpose,

At the same time wanting to correct, revisit closed chapters.

Either shutting down, in conflict or sensing myself out of place.

They are not one another.

But there is no one playing a social role entirely to meet the other.

This is why individuals seek to play roles very well,

In the doing they get to sense the nature and love the other, bond.

All movies are built this way. It is a dream.

A catastrophe, common goal. Everyone with purpose, not competing,

Demonstrating real self in heroic moments, a martyr or applause.

Then knighted, promoted. A prior identity dies, a new more glorious one is accepted,

There is a sense of loss of prior identity, some tears. There is sadness or joy that those we love

Share it also or we hope witness it from above. A warm hug of collective acceptance.

The keys to the castle. True desire in love interests, a sense of earning it,

Proof of self.

Or stop. There it all is minus the theatre. And I can still have the outer,

But I deserve better than wanting and clawing for it all day.

But there, my nature, there is something wanting to be expressed,

seen to be said other than ‘about’ being there.

Am wants to make something tangible.

In daily life, I can give from here, it cannot exist outside of the collective consciousness.

But first I have to remain, drink from this place, to know myself in acts.

It is a step further to bring into daily walking, shopping for green peppers, working.

I love my job, it comes through here.

I realized there was only my heart and doing there.

In being me, I would contemplate all threads I was being led,

Discern my best choices, using my mind on behalf of my highest nature,

Quietly continue my return in an ever entwining me doing.

Until the death of the identity I literally carry in my body is final.

Hoping to carry each little gain wherever my consciousness leads,

Since it is a known block to try to arrive there also,

Rushing to be some miracle,

rather than humbly accepting the hour or two

where I feel utterly authentic painting, dancing, reading, meditating.

I accept gradual progress, and I accept my wins,

In as far as it shows me it is good to go back and walk the plank again,

Beginning again the next opportunity I will to choose the highest good.

Wait, maybe there are others who are not only their role,

Their own way, own intelligence, own joys, perceptions,

Sensed and followed right and wrong,

Following principles when lost in ego,

But returning home, not living entirely through copying

Now happening, I peak, allow, and continue.

In awareness that the peak is a vortex out,

But a glad smile will serve me to remember me

This, not identity. Is all that was ever found.