• About
  • Artist’s Statement and Creative Bio
  • CURRENT OFFERINGS
  • GALLERY
  • Work with me individually (under revision)

Mysteries Unfolding with Cat Charissage

~ Making Meaning, Making Soul

Mysteries Unfolding with Cat Charissage

Monthly Archives: August 2022

Can we talk about Overwealmth?

28 Sunday Aug 2022

Posted by mysteriesunfolding in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment


Color Mixing using top of the line acrylic Golden paints and the student grade Artist loft paints

Dear Friends,

I created each of the above color wheels with just three colors of paint, plus black and white. Interesting, isn’t it, what can come from just a few ingredients, using two different brands of paint?

Well, this is my life. And most probably, yours too.

We thought we chose (or were handed) three important things in life, say, family, work in the world, and things you love to do for fun or relaxation. Sounds easy enough to create a well-balanced life with those three elements. Wrong. Each of the three elements, or colors, in our lives have morphed into at least 24 colors, or elements, and could potentially morph into infinite elements, or colors, with just a little more of this, a little less of that — or, heaven forbid! — using a different brand of color, such as moving to a new town or new job.

We’re moving into a new school year, the perennial start of so many new things, and frankly, my dear friends, I’m deep into overwealmth! I want to know if you have any good ideas as to how to handle this, please! “Overwealmth” is a word that I made up from “overwhelm” and “wealth”, the condition of near-paralysis induced by having too many good things going on, or to choose from, or to pursue; and you don’t feel you can give up anything! It’s the sticky spot right in the middle of time management, prioritizing, clutter management, recognizing human limits of time, space and attention, discerning one’s calling(s) in life, desire to honor the gifts of the people and opportunities around one, and wanting to revolutionize the way our societies and hungry forces have shaped, limited, and killed off the creative urges of so many people throughout time, including our ancestors and often, ourselves.

Dr. Estes has sometimes referred to something similar as “raining tortillas”, a condition where, after famine or scarcity, so many opportunities, ideas, and resources come falling out of the sky, and we wear ourselves out trying to collect them all before they go bad.

Simply put, I have so many interests, so many email newsletters, so many art courses, and so many poetry groups that they could fill my nine lives as a “Cat”. The new school year is filled with new programs starting, new sales on old classes, and new in-person groups that I would love to attend. Not to mention what is already here in this life: beloved friends and family, that book I’m writing (I think I’m done with content editing; just a few more checks and then the writing of book proposals to publishers!), comfortable and productive routines, and all the maintenance tasks of cooking, laundry, cleaning (okay, so not that much cleaning). I could give more details, but each of us has our own mix, and I’m more interested right now in HOW to choose, HOW to prioritize, and HOW to go forward in a responsible, ethical, and hopefully delightful manner.

I think that for almost all of us, this is a relatively new problem — and I fully recognize the irony (blasphemy?) of calling too much of a good thing (opportunities, choices) a problem. Many of us have come from ancestors who had very few choices; they often had to move to “new” lands to escape starvation and work in oppressive conditions just to provide for their families, and those new lands were already filled with people. History has not been an uninterrupted narrative of justice and delight (oh, you noticed, did you?); we all have our stories, and many of them are nightmares. Just to have a safe enough home, health care, and enough food and sleep is something that most of our ancestors never had and many of us have had to worry about. (see http://www.thenapministry.com)

When I was younger, though there was always enough food, there weren’t nearly enough books, new ideas, creativity, art supplies. I felt “image-starved” with few art books, and no color-photocopiers. Yet now, for the price of a computer account and a mid-level color printer, I have binders and binders full of beautiful and inspiring images I’ve printed out for myself. Instead of being limited to my city’s community college offerings for art classes or poetry groups, I literally have a world full of talented others ready to sell me an art course on anything I can imagine, or membership in a group of like-minded creatives. Because of the scarcity of these extras in my growing up, I’ve developed the habit of collecting whatever resources I could find so that I’d have some resources in reserve when I had the time to enjoy them. My nervous system hasn’t adapted to the “too-much-ness” of the choices available now.

As our choices have multiplied at an exponential rate, however, the capabilities of our oh so human bodies haven’t changed. We each only have about four thousand weeks in a life (see https://www.amazon.com/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Management-Mortals/dp/0374159122), and I’m acutely aware that I’ve already used up 3, 380 of mine. Investigating these new options and figuring out how to choose among them (and writing about the overwealmth of it all) is using more of the time I have left to enjoy whatever it is that I end up choosing!

Oh, for the experience of “no-time” in ritual, the spaciousness of meditation, the flow of artistic expression! If I remember that these experiences come in the doing of the ritual, meditation, or artistic expression, and not in the gathering of the no longer scarce resources for when I might have the time to enjoy them, then things become clearer, faster. I have enough, and the time is now.

Each of us needs only three colors, plus black and white. How we mix those is our life, our contribution, and our legacy. It’s time to delete the email subscriptions, get off of instagram and amazon (fortunately, I early recognized the crack cocaine nature of Pinterest for someone like myself, and do not indulge). It’s time to just pick up the colors.

Much love and many blessings on this New Moon,

Cat

Advertisement

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recent Posts

  • First New Moon in 2023; Chinese New Year: Starting with Silence and Beauty
  • Year-end thoughts
  • Sending Out My Book to Publishers!
  • “Mission Statement” and “Strategic Plan”
  • Can we talk about Overwealmth?

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011

Categories

  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Mysteries Unfolding with Cat Charissage
    • Join 60 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Mysteries Unfolding with Cat Charissage
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...