The art of projection March 30, 2010
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a commentI have a work mate who reflects back with precision the issues I need to deal with at any one time.
For instance today she reflected my need NOT to look outside for answers. She reflected my need for patience and she reflected my pursuit of perfection – in what I contribute to the world. And she led me to think about my own thought patterns.
Now there, right there , is a no-win no brainer. We’re not meant to be perfect. The whole struggle is to cope with imperfection and change. Our thought processes change accordingly.
I’ve been depressed lately – which is a habit and a neurological reality. The co-joining of low seratonin levels, palpable fear over change were mixed in with a propensity to brace for shame. In short – a recipe for misery.
My depression manifests in tears, a great weight of grey grief and a romantic desire to end it all. So many people take that fateful step without needing to journal about it, around it or into it. They simply get on with the gig. You’ve got to admire that focus.
I’m one of those “thinkers”, “waiters” or “watchers” a procrastinator waiting for external validation or a “fix”. Wondering if I can weather the storm without the medication. Wondering whether my triggered anxiety versus free-floating anxiety equates with a certain category of depresssion (aka not so bad, realy bad, suicidal etc etc).
Paint, they tell me. Put it all out on a canvas – objectify it, look at it, as if it’s a bug you can spit up and out. Of course if you paint, you’ll realise that all you see is not a remedy but a reminder; a permanent stain to perpetuate the misery because the painting is most likely to be badly executed. So not only miserable but also a bad painter.
Last week painters competing in the Archibald prize (a prize in OZ’s artworld for portraits) put themselves in such a situation.
Visitors get to guess the portrait the judges will pick. Walking around the gallery that night, despite sculling appropriate amounts of plonk, I felt detached with absolutely no idea of what I liked.
I picked one because it was a portrait of a star gazer, light tipped glasses, childish joy against a black canvas, peppered with colourful stars. Was it good – how would I know? It was the only one that “spoke” to me. Plus the character looked quirky. He was happy and hopeful.
When the winner was announced it wasn’t the one I’d chosen. An editorial about the judging process mentioned my choice as one the judges had considered. It also mentioned that their choices exampled how these judges could either get it “really right” or “really wrong”.
Gasp! degrees of right and wrong. Sigh was mine right or wrong? And why did I care? I’d come so far away from what I liked and wanted, I couldn’t even relax in my own choice. I was looking to a random stranger (probably a rejected portrait painter) to tell me. All the stars went out right there and then!
The feelings (whatever they are) had become so externalised and externalising I didn’t even know whether they were mine or just a random guess which, alas I got “right” or “wrong”.
In hindsight guessing is as valid as any other process. The feelings, the thoughts, the choices and the activities we are in charge of (ie our own), can and should be whatever they need to be. If, for neurological reasons they don’t feel like they’re standing on solid ground then settle for sand. Likewise accept that they will or can be right, wrong, black, white, shifting, paranoid, blue, black, depressed, resolved, resilient or blank.
What they are however is ours. Not much else to claim, might as well claim those. We’re all looking at stars, some of us are seeing them from the gutter (with apologies to Oscar).
9th house work ahead March 1, 2010
Posted by Liz Mead in : Matters Blue , add a commentApparently we have a higher mind.
I don’t know whether that’s true for everyone. Sometimes I’m not sure it’s true for me and I’m damn sure it’s not true for the low-life I saw being interviewed on the pseudo news show 60 minutes on the topic of stalking children online.
Although I could have turned off the show I didn’t – maybe as witness to the children – some of whom end up dead at the hands of these sick mothers.
Now, unfortunately, I can’t forget or shake the image of this particular man. But It’s not the individual that I loathe – it’s the common man nature of them.
They are everywhere and anyone.
We spoke about one last night at a party. A random hopeless conversation about a man some of us knew who had been arrested for this same crime. A man who reminds us with waves of sickening horror, of just how close we come to evil everyday.
We have a responsibility to make sure that our own house is in order.
To that end, I’m in the process of changing the work I do. I’ve prepared all I can, and as a break I reviewed an astrological “progress” reading I had done when I was on holidays recently. A sort of QA that my choice of paid work would ultimately inform the life I’m striving to live.
A progress report means a snapshot of where the planets are placed against the planet “baggage” we carry around in our lives from the time of our birth.
For instance, my twin and I have 5 planets in the one area of the chart – the higher mind of the 9th house – which means everything we do is to encourage consciousness, Whether it’s maintaining intellectual independence and discernment whilst managing relationships to ensure that integrity of purpose, meaning and direction.
It’s also about personal power.
Higher consciousness enables and requires not not giving power away. It also means not taking power off another.
We’re all potentially on a spiritual path; the path to being a better person. To be a better person we need to take responsibility for our own growth. We need to maintain our integrity and strength of life purpose.
If we become dissociated from that centre of truth – the thing that gives us meaning – we end up doing all sorts of things – like lying, stealing, hiding, bartering, bullying. Pretending the job we do is good enough. Or bluffing our way into a new job based on the money it offers or the sense of temporal status it afford us.
Separated from our centre we’ll fail to recognise the authentic choice. We’ll be stuck in the swing between stealing power from others or giving our own away.
That’s why some find themselves at the end of February 2010 trying to rescue people buried in the tossed up grounds of an earthquake and others loot supermarkets.
Poverty, crisis, child abuse, catastrophes are the stimulus, all we can actually control is our reaction. We can’t be sure of a when an earthquake hits, or a Tsumani results. All we can be working towards is making the world better for each of us. Safe, joyous, abundant, creative and alive by the choices we make.
I would like to honour the children who are stolen before time and those in Chile who can’t be found. And wish all of us a safe year to find out what we should and could be doing right.
