Luminosity

reconsidering the meaning of success

I’ve been working with two colors. Transparent Indian Yellow and Celadon. These two colors, and their various mixes, are allowing me to reveal light the way I have wanted to. I’m finally getting the right viscosity on my brush! Strokes flow out of me; a response to some music of which I am not the source.

Back when the white canvas stared me in the face, and I placed oh so careful marks onto its expanse, I had the secret feeling that painting is a dance even if I didn’t yet know the steps. Finally, at least briefly, I am that dancer-moving through the gymnastics of color and space.

There are some simple truths become apparent on the canvas as in life. The light won’t be light without dark as contrast. A yin yang of forces seems to flow around us; and through us. We are caught up in this churning against our will. Sometimes I comfort myself by contemplating the yin yang, to my mind the most beautiful and deep of symbols. Two fishes swirling forever after the tail touching their noses-the circle is complete and balanced even as the life it depicts is terrifying and wondrous.

Germinal

When a person makes a great effort to bring about a change to an injustice, or bring about the awareness of a challenging problem, but fails to correct the actual situation, did that person fail or have they succeeded in the realm of spirit? In high school I read Emile Zola’s Germinal. It was a long and involved story of two classes of people whose lives and livelihoods were centered around a mine. In the end of the novel, the mine is blown up by an anarchist. There are some survivors, a lot of suffering and the town is devastated. Germinal means seed, and despite the disaster, the suggestion of the novel is that a seed of change has been planted, one with wide reaching consequences.

Last night I had a stunning dream-a very vivid one. In it, a black woman doctor was delivering a lecture that described her effort to bring about awareness of a terrible disease. She was speaking to an audience of medical students. No one had listened to her, and the disease had run rampant through the population. As I watched her speak, I felt that the woman had a saintly glow, and that glow emanated into the world around her. An odd contrast-here was a beautiful and composed woman describing a failure. I went to her after her lecture and told her how very much I valued her, and what she had done. Although I wasn’t a medical student, I had been seated among them in her audience. My heart’s message was simply to tell her that her effort had been worthwhile.

The question I woke up with was about the notion of failure. When we think of success, we tend to think of objective success. The disease is cured, or the people stop fighting, and so on and so forth. But is there another order of success that spreads like a warm breeze-simultaneous with the concrete effort? And if we were to think of success as a shift in consciousness, rather than as an objective attainment, would we feel more at peace with these great efforts that we make?

I recently learned that scientists now consider light to be both particles and waves. As I picture this, it seems to me that our efforts are similar. We are waves and particles; doings and emanations of spirit. If we were to show, in practice form, our attainments of consciousness rather than measure our successes in terms of material manifestations, would we find more peace? Objective successes are wonderful, of course, and sometimes they come about. But maybe it’s better to think of success as grounded in how you live. It is what your spirit silently speaks of to the spirits around you. As the particles crash and divide, waves of intent flow and move through the world around.

We know that children study our actions, and are quick to point out any contradictions between actions and words. This is because they learn from our actions more than they learn from our words. I think this is a verification of what I am observing. Our spirit is a teaching. If we embody our truth; if we manifest from our heart, even in silence, we are shifting the thousand waves and particles of light in the ocean of emanations in which we live. Being an example can be a quiet presence. It can be an invitation of spirit to spirit. If you measure your success objectively, you will often feel that you have failed. But if you measure it in terms of the clarity with which you live your vision, you will feel successful. Health is the alignment of actions and value. Clear spirit is the spirit which has cast away outmoded ways of being, and in doing so, found an embodiment consistent with intent.

This is one of those rare times when I feel that both my painting and my writing are in perfect alignment. In both forms my work is reaching toward luminosity. I suppose it is always the case, for every human being, that if they follow their intent, there will be an alignment between all their doings and perceptions. But this is only possible when you clear away the clutter of unhealthy patterns. Rid yourself of the things and doings that senselessly use up your time. When you are healthy, in body and psyche, your momentum will be natural. Sure, there’s a way in which an insight simply happens to you, but you have the power to prepare the ground. It’s like preparing your canvas with a wash of gold ready for the discoveries that will happen as you paint.

I suppose all paintings are about light in a way. How can they not be? There is an inner light (this is easily seen when it is gone when a being dies) and there is the light on canvas. You can’t have light on the canvas if you don’t also have some dark-unless the dark is on the walls of the room where the painting is displayed. Sometimes a dark wall sets off a painting beautifully for that reason. Then the room itself is part of the artwork.

Practice

The practice I suggest is that you deemphasize your focus on results. Instead, try to embody your intent in the fullness of your effort. You may find that this is even more powerful when you resist trying to explain yourself. Beam your truth from your entire being. It will emanate, and you will find the gold within.

All lives are about light, aren’t they?

By the way, my studio will be open again this Saturday from 12 to 5 in conjunction with the Greater Ithaca Art Trail. I’m located at 15 Oakcrest Rd. in Ithaca, NY. If you would like some gold for your wall, or your spirit, please stop by.

Monthly First Saturdays on the Greater Ithaca Art Trail are a program of the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.

To see other Art Trail studios that are open, visit www.ArtTrail.com