(c) Cat Charissage, 2017, a.r.r.

 

Hello dear Friends,

Many blessings to you in this season of new beginnings:  the new moon, the beginning of fall (here in the northern hemisphere) on Friday’s Equinox, and the beginning of my Story Circles and fall activities.  My dreams are all pointing to my wanting something new, a new beginning of some sort.  Yours too?

With all that is going on around us on our dear earth, we seem to be living that old curse that intones “May you live in interesting times!”  In the midst of all, there is something small in me that holds an unreasonable hope.  Here in this painting I wanted to create an image of this hope in the midst of where you might least expect it to come from:  from the parts of the world, and of our own consciousnesses, that seem dispensable to those in arrogant power.  What are we taught to fear that might hold a new promise? In the painting is a small book —- remember the power of education, of reflection, of creating our own journals of thoughts, ideas, poetry.

Last week my Story Circle “A Poet’s Words” began.  Everyone was so enthusiastic and so open — it gives me hope that we can save what it is we love so deeply.  I facilitated the first meeting, sharing the poetry of Rumi and my love for the comfort, surprise, and challenge his words give me.

Here are a few lines I’m thinking of today:

“Move from within.

Don’t move the way that fear wants you to.

Begin a foolish project.

Noah did.”

or

“Run from what’s comfortable.

Forget safety,

Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation.

Be notorious.

BE NOTORIOUS. [emphasis mine]

I have tried prudent planning

long enough.  From now on,

I’ll be mad.”

Over the next few blog posts, I’ll share more of my favorite lines from Rumi, and a little about his life and times.  Did you know that for him, poetry was just part of the way he communicated with his students?  He didn’t retreat to a private room to write his lines, revising them until “perfect”.  He formulated his lines as he taught, and in the last 12 years of his life, the translator/interpreter Coleman Barks estimates that Rumi created 12 to 14 poems A DAY that his followers would write down as he spoke.    Think of the abundance of creativity available to him!  Might we be capable of that — or at least more than what we currently access?

I closed the Story Circle with this question:  “Why am I, a post Catholic, interspiritual, nonviolent feminist of the 21st century teaching about an Afghan/Turkish Muslim male of 800 years ago?  Because we can learn from surprising sources, and because I always want to challenge the stereotypes handed on to me.  Have you ever had the experience of learning something very valuable from a surprising source?  Have you ever had your stereotypes, or your culture’s stereotypes, blown open?”

Maybe our “interesting times” hold new hope, if we can access our creativity.  “Reasonable” doesn’t always get us where we need to go.

With much love and many blessings I will close with another line from Rumi:

“You were born with wings.  Why prefer to crawl through life?”

Cat

(c) Cat Charissage, 2017, a.r.r.

Dear Friends,

Greetings on this September Full Moon.  Now that the fall season has started, I intend to return to blogging regularly on the full and new moons.

Here is my most recent painting, the archetype of compassion.  There is much in the world right now that is tragic, from the rise of white supremacy groups and the immigration policies of the United States, to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and the many wildfires in the west of Canada and the United States.  Those are just in my continent; many in the world have huge challenges around them.  And many of us have huge challenges within us, of heartbreak, trauma, and physical, psychological, or spiritual pain.

At previous times in my life I was quite active in small-p politics, working for the causes I believe in.  More recently my work is quieter, including this painting and writing and working with small groups and individuals.  I often wonder what might be the best response to the tragic.  Anger energizes, resistance with others brings solidarity.   Yet always, the best response is love, and compassion.  Compassion comes from the Latin, “to suffer with”, and I think that true loving compassion comes not when we feel sorry for, or pity others, but when something in their suffering touches our own hearts where we, too, have known pain.

For almost a thousand years, the Black Madonna of Christianity, in her hundreds and hundreds of forms, has stood witness to the suffering of humanity and our earth.  She knows the dark, knows our pain, and is with us in the tragic.  She holds the idea, the possibility, of the deep compassion that is possible within us as human beings.  The energy of compassion, the archetype of compassion, is huge, dynamic, almost more than we can understand.  To love is never all sunshine and lollipops.  Roses also have thorns, and are often the color of blood.  What makes them grow is bone meal.  Blood, and bones, then the possibility of beauty coming from what has been broken.

My lady wears the colors of alchemy, the black, white, yellow and red of transformation —- the spiritual journey of our souls and psyche.  The old alchemists’ attempts to transform lead into gold is, symbolically, our own attempts to bring something beautiful, whole, and precious out of something common, dull, and harmful. Lead poisons.  Gold is the sun of photosynthesis, of life.

When I paint faces, I only have partial control of their expressions.  Here, this lady, appeared almost fully formed — turning toward us with such love and acceptance, inviting us to come to her.  Yet she knows the tragic.  She knows the suffering, has lived it.

May we all, with the help of deep compassion, alchemize the suffering within and around us into healing, wholeness, an beauty.

With much love and many blessings,

Cat