Thursday, May 2, 2013

let her cry...let her heal

She's been a work in progress.  She sat on my work board, on the floor, for weeks, looking up at me everyday with her quivering lips and her sad, pain filled eyes.  She called to me, told me her title with the lyrics from the song, "Let Her Cry," by Hootie and the Blowfish.  "Let her cry, let her tears fall down like rain.  Let her sing, if it eases all her pain.  Let her go..."  Patiently she waited as I painted her hair but wasn't feeling it and painted over all but her face.  She waited while I painted, resisted, painted and resisted some more.  She sat for a week or so as I enveloped myself in a state of semi-solitude, disconnecting from some, connection to others, and all the while avoiding the healing release of emotions she was to serve as.  Her patience paid off as finished her up over the last two days.

Sometimes it's interesting the things I "get" and the related things that I miss.  I am well aware of the healing affects of creativity.  I've experienced it firsthand.  I have drafts of classes I plan on teaching that use creativity and spirituality to heal.  I've taken a couple of classes myself that use creativity to heal.  The painting I pictured and wrote about in, The Healing Journey of a Painting..., is a prime example of my using creativity to shift my internal energy and heal my internal world.  Yet, somehow I missed a very important piece of the creativity as healing puzzle.  That being emotional release through the creative process.  I've experienced the release of frustration when painting, but still I missed it.  I've experienced the pure joy and euphoria of painting when I was having a not so great day, and missed it.  I've written poetry that helped my hurting heart, and still I missed it.  So I should have seen it but I didn't, I just wasn't ready for it yet.  We "get" things in the exact timing we are supposed to, when we are ready to truly start to "get" and understand something.  All the experiences we've had in which we think we missed something and should have seen something or made a connection, were merely seeds being planted that would one day help us to make the realizations in the moment we are ready to make them.    So seeds were planted as I missed how, when I turn solely to people for that emotional release, I disconnect from my creativity.  More seeds were planted as I missed out on the beauty that comes with channeling raw emotion into a creative project.

And when that finally clicked, the seeds grew into her.  She came from a place of sadness, loss, pain, and betrayal, in their rawest forms, just to name a few of the emotions she was birthed from.  She was born out of a need to channel all of those emotions in a healthy healing way.  And in doing so, she came forth from the page with more emotion than anything I've ever created.  Her face stared up at me and I could see her lips tremble and tears well up in her eyes.  She had, and has, a movement of emotion I've never before experienced in one of my creations.  While she looks so very sad, there is this beauty in her sadness that helps to remind me of what I have said numerous times, that even among the shattered pieces, there is beauty in the breath of this moment.  And as her heart explodes into tiny pieces, some falling away as they are no longer necessary, still others change into the beauty of butterflies.  While I would stay away from butterflies because of their blatant transformation symbolism, I felt the necessity of them.

She is me in every way, guiding me on how to heal while showing me that I am.  She is my hurt, my pain, my loss.  She is my blood stained tears.  She is my shattered heart.  She is my hope, my faith, my empowerment.  She is me doing what I do, taking events that appear to be destructive and turning them into growth and healing, emerging a truer more beautiful version of Who I Really Am.  She is my transformation.  She is me healing.  And she is a reminder of the powerful and healing affect of using creativity as a healthy and healing emotional release.

With love and light,
Tia