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Little did I know I would be having conversations of unpleasantness, people opening their hearts and mouths and began to tell their stories in intimate truth. I did not know I would be holding so many hands as they wrang out their tears and sang their songs. When they were soaring we glided in bliss and faith. Then there were times when the coin would flip and the air felt unpleasant.
Sometimes it is hard to be present, especially when things are unpleasant. When words create atmospheres of emotional danger, it is hard to stay present. It is easy to feel balanced and in control when things are going your way. But when life moves in its own accord and without your permission, you can quickly live in doubt. This is when we have to remember who we are. There is a need for one to examine what one is really doing.
There comes a time when life takes control and you thought you were the driver. The car is moving, you are a passenger and you thought you were driving. Sometimes you just have to sit and enjoy the ride. It is time to find the lines and paragraphs of the real story being revealed.
As I listen to the stories and the responses to my artistic graphic poems painted and collaged on the pages of the L.A. Times, I know life is living through me. I was born in Los Angeles and I give homage to my birthplace by using the pages of its paper to give my respect for my gift of life. I know the beauty of living in the now and the unexpected pain of being in the now. Life is a dream unfolding as life is knowing itself as me and sometimes it is just unpleasant. Still, we have to learn to live fearlessly, in trust and gratitude, in clear intention.
My intention for my show, “A Sacred Artist in Modern Times” was to create an atmosphere of story and intimacy. I want to create a sacred space for conversation, a place to face the reality of unpleasantness. I want to create a storyline where the mind where your mind is a tool to be used in service to the heart.
To be aware of the unpleasantness is the beginning of existing in the present sense of now. At least now, from this point on, you could maybe build something new and different. You could accept life on life’s terms and learn to go with the flow. I call it being organic. It could be time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. It could be the appropriate time to become aware and breathe life leaves breathe.
Being aware of what is unpleasant to you is being aware of yourself and all those around you without reacting in fear. If you allow the unpleasantness to be present and then turn it into a sweetness that feeds you, then the grace of understanding allows you to know peace. It is also a grace that allows you to know anger and then respond in a sweetness. The sweetness in the grace of the moment is the gift of breathing life without wishing to change the flow.
You will not be lost in the sea of words if you only just listen. So, I listened and went with the flow of the revealing human story. I became lost in the beauty of the stories and gained a larger sense of connection between our emotions and paragraphs of truth. In the joining, I did not lose myself.
The anger of unpleasantness is only a cry for the loss of oneself. It is a loss of a language that truly speaks love. The experience of speaking the language allows the conversation to unfold in order for a person to be heard as a human being. When we miss it, we remember the loss.
The reflections, the stories opened my ears and heart. I allowed the recognition of their humanness to join mine and we became one. There were also times, I recognized the feelings of being disconnected and isolated, wanting to come home to a place of belonging. I felt their lack of knowing love…their lack of having words to explain their truth, their sense of loss. I was present for your words and I heard every vowel. I heard your songs of triumph and your wails of complaints. I felt unpleasant to be aware of your feelings of unpleasantness I listened to someone struggling with their speech as they attempt to tell a long story which seems to have no end, for it has a reason for being. Just another person looking for love.
It is unpleasant to not to be able to see your own reflection in the eyes of someone who you are looking to give you the love you need. It is unpleasant to not receive.
This recollection caused me to think and be aware of my presence in the world and what will be my footprint, the brush strokes or watermarks I will leave on the heart, on the skin of this world. We are the makers and the creators of the magic of our world. Individually by ourselves, we don’t have enough power to change the world, but unified we can transform the world.
It is unpleasant to know you have caused most of your own misery because of your own habit of claiming unnecessary ownership of your ongoing state of having trauma and pain. Let it go and release the habit of holding on. Make a new story.
I listened closely to the stories of the viewers of my show, looking for similarities and footnoting the differences. I listened to the heart of the story. I continued to be aware of people’s attempts to disconnect themselves from the human herd in order to find personal safety, which only allowed them to get lost within themselves and their thoughts that allow them to feel safe within each other’s internal fears. Isolation kills the story of life and silences the language of love. It kills the art of human conversation. We need the grace of conversation.
Having pleasant, graceful conversations allows the beauty, the true essence of life to be heard, felt and seen. Feeling unpleasant may feel as if you are wasting your time unless you are aware enough to see the organic reason for the life lesson, as you learn to listen and share your story with another. I learned through this artistic expression of sharing, human unpleasantness begins to dissolve as compassion and love take its place.
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