Breathing In, Breathing Out
The practice of witness is the state of being present to our images and to each other in compassion, without voicing judgment. Not voicing judgment is different from not having judgments. Judgments are inevitable and contain important information; but our judgments are information for ourselves, not for the person whose work has elicited our judging response. My judgment is a mirror of my values, my fixed ideas. When the image of another calls forth my judgment, I have a chance to become curious. Where does the judgment come from? Can I trace its origin? Is it a valid bit of discernment, or is it due for some revisiting? When we act as witness to another person, we are acting as an embodiment of the witness consciousness that is the Creative Source. Our goal is to personify compassionate disinterest.
Like intention, witness requires stillness. For intention, our stillness calls forth our inner truth: Who are we in this moment? What are our questions, our needs, our fears? In witness, our stillness makes space for answers to arise. Intention is our human call; witness brings the divine response. The medium of exchange is the image. Sit in front of your own image, the image that has chosen to appear before you today. Allow yourself to settle into awareness of your body, your sense of fatigue or alertness. Feel your feet on the floor; notice your back against the chair. Breathe in; breathe out. Relax into what is.
Witness begins with a conscious return from the place of all possibility that is artmaking to the present moment, to this one particular image that has arrived in answer to your call. It is a return from the merger of engaged artmaking to the sense of self-awareness of you—living in this body, sitting in this chair—with this image before you. We return from that merger gently. In the studio, I usually give a warning that the artmaking time is coming to an end and gradually lower the volume of the music playing in the studio as a subtle signal. Some artists choose to clean up during the transitional time, feeling their way into witness through a grounding activity like washing paintbrushes or their hands.
In its focus on the connection between artist and image, witness shares aspects of the artmaking time of merger. As the music stops, it is as if we now meet our dancing partner and introduce ourselves and begin to learn more about the dance we and the art have just performed together. At the same time we begin to shift into our sense of separateness by stepping back, regarding this “other” that has arrived, and paying attention to what comes up as we do so. Like artmaking, witness is a practice with a number of steps. The first step is to turn our attention to the physical reality of the image. We return to our bodies with awareness by attending for several minutes to our breathing. We become able to concentrate on the image and notice simply what it looks like. We use writing both to extend the creative act as well as to record our experience of the image by focusing our attention. Moving my hand to write brings me into my body. Begin with a description of the image. To describe is to honor and to really look, really notice. Normally, our brain allows us to notice only to the point that we receive enough information to name what is before us. In our witness writing, we resist the urge to name. Even if I think the image I have painted is “me,” I describe what I see at first, not what I think I know. In my witness I write, “I see an image of a woman,” not “I see me.” Naming is a judgment that stops the transmission of information. We resist this for a while.
I see three images affixed to a gold sparkly cloth. There are eight feathers on the edge of the cloth: white, red, brown, green, beige, orange, yellow, red. Beginning on the left is an image of a tree in full leaf, bigger than the page. It has a thick, strong trunk and light behind it. The second image is a landscape, green mountains in front, brown hill behind, a sun behind the hills. The final image is a dark crescent shape against a background of yellow, purple, brown, blue and green. The words “goddess cycle” are stamped under the central landscape. The words “Virgin,” “Mother,” and “Crone” adorn each image in succession. A mixture of typefaces from rubber stamps are used in creating the words. Glitter and stars adorn the words [figure 10].
Figure 10. Goddess triptych, by Adina B. Allen. Cloth, feathers, paint.
The image I am witnessing was created by my daughter, Adina, as a gift for my birthday. This fact affects the second stage of witnessing, which is to notice my emotional response to the image. As I take time to really look, the piece begins to unfold for me. The use of multiple rubber-stamped type styles references some work that I have done. Referencing is the act of incorporating elements of another artist’s work, like a quotation in a written work. I smile at this. The subject matter, images about the feminine, is a familiar one to Adina, who grew up around my artwork. We are joined together in a common discourse. My work called out to Adina, and she responded. Referencing is the joyful secret language of artists, and I am pleased that she has used it.
The tree in the first image is full, so full it extends off the page. I realize that Adina is in the fullness of her Virgin state. Beyond the details of age or experience of sex, the Virgin state describes a woman who still belongs most fully to herself. This is a tree of Summer; she is well past the Spring state with its tender buds and tentative leaves. She is a college student, growing and learning in leaps and bounds. I feel love, pride and a trace of sadness. This image seems to clearly represent the stage of the Goddess cycle she is living. Since the tree is too big for its space I can’t help but also see that the inevitable transition to the next phase of Mother is beginning already in this image. Adina may be years away from physical motherhood but a sense of her own fecundity permeates her creative life as she absorbs information and experiences, writes papers, makes art.
What will the mother phase be like for her? Will she become a mother of actual children? Will she extend her nurturing to the world through her work in social activism and environmental studies? It is too soon to tell what the contours of the landscape of her mother image will be like. I feel the strength of life force in her images and feel happy for her, yet also apprehensive. Will she resolve the dilemma of work and family in a way that sustains her? I respond to this image from the place of mother as well as the recipient of the image as gift. I respond also as an artist receiving homage from another artist through her referencing of my work; I feel nourished by her bright exuberance. The crone image intrigues me most. The crescent shape is narrow and dark. It shows the shadow of the waxing moon without a sense that the rest of the moon’s sphere still exists. The background is more abstract and mysterious. Shapes angle upward, lifted by the lightest shape, the yellow on the bottom. I feel a sense of tension but also magic as I look at the image. This image reflects my life stage and is far in the future for Adina. At first I smile, realizing that young women at Adina’s age often see only the constrictions and limitations of aging and not its fullness.
It happens I am traveling to visit her tomorrow, and this witness feels like a preparation. I am reminded that I contain all the phases of the cycle; that is the gift of age. In the presence of Adina and her friends, I access my own possibilities, reconnect with some of the threads dropped during my Virgin days. I bask in the sense of offering them the possibility of Mother and Crone: someone still growing, learning, and creatively alive. I record this in my witness writings, but still I remain on the surface. I am telling my story about what feelings and thoughts come up for me. The image remains my birthday present, from my daughter. Now I must invite the image to speak. In order to move into the realm of the spiritual with this image, I must separate a bit further and honor the reality of the image as something autonomous, something separate from and greater than my projections. I accomplish this by inviting the image to speak and recording the dialogue in my witness writing. I write down whatever comes. If my mind judges what comes as absurd, I write that down, too. As it so happens, when I first ask the Goddess cycle triptych to speak, I receive a firm “no.” I was busy and accepted that answer, planning to resume the conversation at a later time. When I returned to the image, some weeks later, a dialogue ensued:
ME: Will you speak to me today?
CRONE MOON: You spout such false wisdom. Why do you think I am so compressed and black? Do you think it’s just Adina’s perception or that of girls her age? I am showing you the truth. You have a long way to go to own and claim and even discover the “fullness” of age. Look for signs of fullness and life in older women and bless them.
ME: I feel the truth of what you have to say. It’s a little embarrassing. I know it intellectually, how can I really know it?
At that moment, I look over at my bookshelf and my gaze alights on a volume of short stories by Grace Paley. A beautiful sepia-toned photo of her adorns the cover. Her thumbs are hooked in her pockets, and her white hair flies around her face. She stands in a soft-focus landscape in which her feet and legs seem to dissolve into the earth at the bottom of the image. A black crow stands next to her on the grass. She is an old woman. I take down the book and turn it over. I read a comment on the back cover: “People love life more because of her writing.”
CRONE MOON: YES!
I open the volume at random to a story entitled “Living.” I read it and laugh and, yes, I love life more. This is what I receive from the image when I venture into the spiritual realm. Beyond the joy of receiving a gift from my daughter, beyond sharing an exchange with another artist, lies a piece of wisdom both unique and universal that comes forward through witness. The fullness of life is a time to love life more. This gift comes with the awareness of death that the Crone brings. I resolve to seek more about this lesson. I bless Grace Paley. I ask that my work may make others love life more. The Crone Moon winks at me and I say thank you and get back to work. The world is a magical place; when we practice witness, we get to know that firsthand all the time.
I witness my work when I create alone as well as when I work in a group. In groups, however, witness has the added dimension of allowing us to share with great immediacy the kind of gifts that came to me alone witnessing the Goddess cycle triptych. If you are skeptical, try witnessing among others and see if it makes the messages feel more real. Witness is also a key element in creating communal space that is safe and allows multiple truths to unfold. Some days we are unaware of what the person next to us is creating; other days we are tuned into the chorus of messages resounding through the room. At the conclusion of the artmaking time, we always sit with our work—looking, noticing, and paying attention to what the Creative Source has washed up on the shores of our consciousness for this day. Writing time lasts from fifteen to twenty-five minutes depending on the group. Younger children can speak from their hearts without writing. Most of us, however, go through a clarifying process when we put words down on paper. The purpose of writing instead of simply speaking about one’s work is to reinforce that the words that come are primarily for the artist and image, and only secondarily for the group. The purpose of witness is not to explain our image to others. Sometimes artists compose their witness as if to instruct the group; this is an intrusion of ego and is unnecessary. The Creative Source will often convey something to another artist through your words, but it is not your job to consciously try to do so. In fact, conscious attempts to share wisdom often come across as pompous and inflated. Reading aloud is a good remedy, as usually the artist immediately feels the unmistakable warmth of hot air emanating from her words and resolves to notice and curb this tendency in the future. I speak from experience.
The image reveals its deepest truth in dialogue. My primary reference for dialoguing with images comes from Jung’s work in active imagination. Shaun McNiff (1992) and Mary Watkins (1984, 1999) have added to my understanding of dialogue as well. The nature of dialogue with the image is best captured in writing. The intention of writing is to extend the creative act, to promote the relationship between the artist and image, and to mediate the separation of the artist from the image as the artmaking time comes to a close. When most people begin to speak extemporaneously about their image, an immediate objectification takes place. They almost always begin by sharing what they tried to do, what failed, or what they meant to “say.” Art as a spiritual practice reverses this relationship from one in which the artist creates by using materials to one in which the artist receives an image as a gift from the Creative Source via direct engagement with a sacramental taking in of materials. In other forms of spiritual practice, the Divine is mediated via dreams, meditation, or prayer. For us, image making and witness writing are the vehicles. Each artist’s witness notebook becomes a personal wisdom volume that is an endless resource of personal teachings from the Divine to our particular soul. Consulting my ten years of witness writings for this book has been a humbling and invaluable lesson for me. I see how I’ve revisited the same themes over and over, how I’ve learned the same lessons in ever-deepening ways.
It is true that we share our witness writings by reading them aloud when we work together in groups, but a witness is a record of an intimate moment between you and your soul. For that reason, witness reading must never be coerced or cajoled. In fact, I would rather discourage reading until an artist feels they must read because the image demands to speak through them. As a facilitator, especially with adolescents, I feel the press of their silence and am forced to notice my own vulnerability when I read in their silent presence. Yet I violate the process if I convey that they are reading for me, to please or placate me. I must honor their silence as much as I honor their words. Otherwise I am just another adult trying to get something out of them. I have learned volumes from sitting with those who choose not to read. In a class at the School of the Art Institute, one student did not read a single witness until the last day of class. Throughout the fifteen-week semester, I watched myself and my projections as they arose in my mind: “She doesn’t get it,” “She hates the class,” “She is just coasting through.” I noticed my fears and how they evoked judgments. When she read on the last day, her witness was full of gratitude for being allowed her silence; as a very shy person, she has often been encouraged to talk. She felt accepted for herself and not forced to produce. She taught me a priceless lesson in trusting the process, and I am forever in her debt.
Those of us listening are privileged to be there, supporting the exchange between artist and image and often learning from it. Those of us listening serve as reinforcement and an external manifestation of the principle of witness consciousness. We are actually the embodiment of divine acceptance in that moment. That means we hear and receive, but do not judge or comment. We may indeed feel judgmental. We may think and feel all sorts of things like jealousy, boredom, cynicism, elation, love. But the rule is to keep it to yourself. What we feel and think rises and falls like so much mist. We remain just breathing in, breathing out, so that the artist speaking can more fully experience their own words and the words and wisdom of their image. If we were to share a strong response with an artist, it would be like naming her and saying, “This is who you are.” The artist can easily become caught in the expectation of the group and play a role for them. Instead, artists are encouraged to pay close attention to the feelings that arise in them when they regard the image and hear themselves read the witness. Often, it is in the speaking of the words in the witness that the emotion arrives or catches up to us. Those of us in attendance hold the space to support that meeting between artist and soul. As we feel boredom, for example, in hearing ourselves recite a stale half-truth, we also notice something that attracts and enlivens us in the work of another. Next time, we are free to reference that artist and follow the thread of what has new energy to revitalize our work. To witness is an act of divine service.
We may find that ideas, emotions, or the images themselves remain in our awareness long after the artist has finished speaking. What sticks around to haunt us deserves to be invited into our own process, not dumped on someone else. The practice of “sharing feelings” is highly overrated. The artist is free to write all sorts of judgmental statements about himself and his work in his witness and to read them with gusto. The object is simply to notice what comes up.
We in the group act the way the internal witness does during traditional meditation; we are present, unchanging, yet somehow subtly registering the effect as best we can, in a state of openness and compassion. It is a practice for the artist reading to be bold enough to speak the truth, no matter how full of “warts” or how tender. And it is a practice for the listening artists to recognize the experience of compassionate disinterest. We do not need to fix, correct, soften, or enhance the experience of another. Sometimes there are sighs, tears, and even laughter during a witness reading, but verbal comments are not made. In addition, the artist reading just reads; she does not digress into sidebar explanations or additional comments, even if she has written something like This is really stupid, I hate what I made, I don’t want to write about it. Her truest feelings are acceptable, along with her resistance and anything else that comes along. It is not important for us to know exact details. In fact, it is not important for us to even literally understand the words that are read. I have experienced witnesses read in languages I do not speak and have been profoundly moved by the sound of the words and the emotion they convey. I have heard witness writings sung as opera and recited in gibberish. All versions are welcome. From time to time, an artist will make a comment or when reading a witness will digress into explanation. I will gently stop her and remind her of the no-comment rule. This is as much to reassure the others that the rules have meaning as it is to guide the artist back to the practice.
There is a particular moment that stands out in my learning about this practice of no-comment when I felt the power and veracity of witness. A young woman was working through her experience of being raped. Her images were brave and heartbreaking. As she read her witness aloud to the group, all of us present were deeply moved. She spoke directly to the image of the rapist in her witness; she said she was taking back her soul, her life. A woman next to her placed what I’m sure was meant to be a comforting hand on the artist’s shoulder. She shrugged it off sharply and kept reading. That moment became an image for me. What flashed in my mind was how our choice of action defines the narrative in any moment. When we choose action, and even more so when we speak words, we violate the narrative of the artist speaking, even when we consider our intentions to be supportive. As I witnessed these two women, I heard this narrative within myself:
READER: Don’t put your hand on me as if I am the “Rape Victim” and you the “Comforter.” I will not let you freeze this moment in time with you in that role and me in this one. I am alive and moving, I take my soul back and go on. I am “warrior” in this moment and in the next. I and not you will define who I will be. Do not, with your “good will,” rape me again.
COMFORTER: I see your pain, I don’t want to think it could ever be mine. If you are the “Victim” and I can be the “Comforter,” all’s well for me, that’s the symmetry I’d like to have, thank you, you are the victim, after all.
READER: You could walk out after this group and be raped. Because it happened to me doesn’t mean it can’t happen to you. Trust me, the act itself is only one type of violation. Being defined by your fear and that of others is just as bad.
COMFORTER: I see your point, I am really helping myself, not you. I release you from my selfish desire for comfort.
Now, none of this dialogue was spoken by either party; it all occurred inside of me in a split second. I accessed it later when I wrote a witness to the feeling of agitation I experienced when I observed the images of the comforting hand and the rejecting shrug. The interaction between the two women was like an art piece that I witnessed within myself on a subtle level. Had I spoken my experience, I would have objectified both artists. In that moment for me one was “brave, honest, fierce woman,” while the other was “stupid do-gooder woman.” I was judging them both. Both are potential parts of me. Until I find out about my judgments, I can’t compassionately see either woman as a complex, multifaceted person struggling in the moment with what it means to be human. When I began to write about this incident, a witness I received in 1997 on the subject of judgment came up in my rereading and seemed very apt. It had this to say:
IMAGE OF A HEART: Judgment labels, it’s like playing freeze tag with life. Once you call it something, its hard to let it continue in its natural cycle and turn into it’s opposite.
ME: But if it isn’t named, can’t things escalate into something worse?
HEART: Judging is naming, a kind of naming, but not all naming is judgment.
ME: Heart, you sound a lot like mind.
HEART: I do, don’t I? I’ve told you that when “mind” quiets down the heart’s mind can speak.
ME: Okay, so naming isn’t necessarily judgment.
HEART: Right, funny I should say this, but naming with compassion is mercy, remember that thought creates reality so think merciful thoughts and you will name and discern rather than judge and the cycle can continue instead of getting stuck.
ME: So judgment stops process?
HEART: Compassion names each person’s highest motive instead of dividing people into good guys against bad guys. That way the kaleidoscope of life can keep turning. . . .
ME: What causes me to judge instead of discern? (Do I really want to know?)
HEART: You asked. You judge to stay out of the drama, to be safe and to try to avoid pain. See, I told you, compassion seeks out your highest motive.
Avoiding pain is very human so you don’t need to judge yourself either, that’s your fear.
ME: That if I don’t judge others I’ll be forced to judge myself? Right, the bottom line fear is that there must be a bad guy and to ensure it isn’t you, you seek to judge someone else as the bad guy. So are you saying there’s no bad guys? What about Hitler?
HEART: I’m saying that you all need to name behavior and experience but with compassion so it can continue to evolve. To not name is to assent to another’s naming, surely you’ve heard my famous saying: “silence is complicity”? If you wait too long to discern you’ll almost be forced to judge. So, my advice is name early and often, with compassion which evokes change for the better, coaxing behavior upward, redeeming the sparks of goodness in every situation. Got it?
My job is to recognize that in order to really see each of those women, I have to see what they evoke that lives in me. Otherwise, I risk turning them into objects and not seeing them as real, complicated, ever-changing people. By naming my experience internally, instead of externally, I don’t force them to be defined by my drama. I have a choice about how I relate to others at every moment. Whether I idealize or demonize someone else, when strong feelings come up I must first accept them as a mirror so that I avoid doing harm. Reflecting on this experience, I realize how often I imagine that I must shield others from how bad things are or have been for them, that I think it is my job to make it all right or to explain things and make them make sense. But most of all, I see that I was avoiding the idea that I could ever be a rape victim; I was separating myself from the impact of the artist’s narrative by creating my own. My drama was about creating an object lesson from even the worst event, leapfrogging over the emotions aroused by the event itself. My intention, however, is to become ever more mindful of providing space for experience to be authentically witnessed. Without my judgments, I can own the lesson for myself that whatever arises in me as a narrative of the event has much to teach me.
The no-comment rule is the most controversial aspect of the practice of witness. Simply stated, we refrain from making comments to others about their work. The no-comment rule is related to nonjudgment. Before we can honestly hope to get to a place of nonjudgment, we have to begin by embracing our judgments as teachings for ourselves. If we try to repress them, we will simply blurt them out at an inopportune moment. We simply notice emotional reactions of like and dislike internally or in our witness notebook. We all make judgments all the time; if we are mindful, we notice them, let them drift away, and then move on to the next thought. For those judgments that have more energy or tend to linger or even to fester and grow, we must invite them into our process and get to know what they are trying to tell us. Every judgment I have about another person tells me something about myself—what I require or what I am resisting. If I notice that I am judging Jane for using too much paint, I sit with my stinginess and inquire about its origin. Is there something I do not feel entitled to that makes me resent Jane’s seeming generosity to herself? Witnessing my judgments is an antidote to gossip, which is often the discharge of tension that our judgments generate within us. Through the practice of witness I learn to thank Jane (silently, internally) for bringing my attention to what I am lacking, rather than talking about her or berating her for her wastefulness.
Is each and every comment harmful? Isn’t it unnatural to restrict commenting? The primary reason for refraining from comment is to foster and reinforce each artist’s relationship with their own internal wisdom and guidance. We practice no-comment in our artmaking and witness to learn how to hear, to discipline ourselves to be fully present even when our own thoughts arise to distract us. This doesn’t mean we refrain from all comments in every sphere of our lives. That would be like attempting always to sit in the lotus position because we do so in meditation. The work of Marshall Rosenberg and others in the field of Nonviolent Communication suggests that human beings have a long way to go to understand how to hear one another. Mindful commentary is a great goal that often seems difficult to attain. Practicing no-comment is a wonderful way to learn discernment.
Certainly the Divine speaks to us at times through others. Few of us are discerning enough to know when the Creative Source is speaking through us and when we are, as artist Karla Riendl once put it, leaving our “mind prints,” like greasy fingerprints, on the work of another. Speaking or otherwise making evident our interpretation of an artist can be a form of violation, as the example of the woman who had experienced rape attests. We must first consider the comment we feel pressed to make as one we need to hear rather than speak. The judgment we feel inside is one that we are making, and perhaps strongly resisting, of ourselves. When we invite the judgment to our table, it will reveal the true grievance, which we can then attend to through witness or further image making.
Refraining from words is a part of learning mindfulness. Words are powerful; we create reality with them. Yet most of us use them indiscriminately. So the first challenge is to suggest that each artist take any comment she is tempted to make inside, and either release it or listen to it for herself. Images speak to all of us. It is a common occurrence for the art of another to speak loudly to me, to echo something in my witness or to show me an alternative. I gratefully accept this gift. Having shared this practice with many different people over time, I still remain challenged by and thoughtful about witness writing and the no-comment rule. The goal of the practice is not to discourage communication or to suggest that there are never appropriate times to seek or share commentary about artwork. The no-comment rule is especially important for new artists and those in the tender stages of beginning creation. I am not out to protect artists from negative comments; positive comments can be equally intrusive. It is simply that when no comments are made by others, especially close to the moment of creation, we can more easily listen to our image and the inner wisdom it has come to impart. It is especially important for the facilitator to refrain from comments, which will always seem to have extra weight. As a facilitator of artmaking in the studio, my goal is to create conditions that enable artists present to connect with their inner teacher, not to be that teacher. My direct comments would erode the sense of being fellow artists and fellow travelers on the path to awareness of the Creative Source. After a few times, most people no longer notice the lack of comments and become comfortable with the intimacy and freedom that comes from knowing no one will say, “Oh, how sad” or “You should hear what happened to me” or “You’re so good, I can’t draw at all.”
Children are the exception to the no-comment rule. Young children are still close to their uninhibited imagination and will witness quite spontaneously, engaging in dialogues with images, toys, and pets. If we join into such activity with children, our responses should be honest and not attempts to teach children a lesson from our advanced perch of knowledge. With adolescents, art as a spiritual practice is especially challenging. We all have unprocessed information and experience from our adolescent years, a time of accelerated learning that we spend much of our life unpacking. The images and witnesses of young people often bring to awareness some of our own unresolved themes. Again, our own work must remain true if we are to engage in this practice. Otherwise we are doing something else. We hold as an article of faith that the Creative Source will engage with any person who asks. To act as if we must interpret an image is a violation and deprives the young artist of claiming her truth and power.
Adolescents will often seem very self-conscious at first; we need to appreciate that the very act of deciding when to read and when to refrain is a powerful one. No one must ever be coerced into reading a witness. The nature of witness writing is that it evokes metaphorical texts, allowing us to convey great intimacy without having to spell out the details of our life—unless we choose to. What we share is our emotional reality. This enormously valuable skill—integrating emotional content with the written word—is the basis of poetry.
Participants, especially adolescents, mention the freedom they feel knowing no comments will be made. When I take this practice into the rest of my life (a big challenge for me), I find life far more peaceful. I am less likely to get caught in struggles with others, and I can avoid the depletion of churning out words when it would be better to simply listen to the comments and sit with the feelings driving them. Refraining from comments is not the same as repressing our judgments, positive or negative. Rather, it involves befriending oneself and noticing what comes up—without mindlessly letting it come out. Acting this way is utterly counter to our present culture, in which spilling one’s personal material for an audience is daily fare on television. I suspect that this is simply a phase in the development of discernment and eventually will die down.
Gradually we can begin to practice mindful commentary in special times that are planned for such an event. I have engaged in this practice with my Art Institute students, who often present a body of work as a final project and request that their fellow students witness the work. It is required that the student showing the work make an intention to receive no harm and that the students witnessing make it part of their intention to do no harm. Misguided action is another pitfall of commentary. Images often arouse strong, positive feelings of excitement and connection. It is common to mistake this invitation from the Divine and see the artist as more than an ordinary person reflecting back our own sparks.
When I was an art student in the 1970s, I saw and experienced often that when a female student presented strong, authentic work, a male instructor would typically respond with positive commentary and sexual advances. Students sometimes felt flattered at first and coerced and confused later. There seemed to be little awareness of this behavior as an act of appropriation of the student’s creative energy. In a similar vein, work that challenges a teacher might be attacked or ignored. When strong feelings arise, our task is to sit with them. We locate the internal aspect that is being touched and call it forward into our own work.
Artmaking will shine a light on our incompleteness. We witness contrasexual parts of ourselves (such as the boy who represents the artist in my story in part two) as unrealized potential asking to be activated. Strong sexual feelings, fascination, and attraction are common responses on any spiritual path. Art allows us a safe arena in which to explore these potent forces. Witness writing helps to integrate these images and their potential into our total personality without doing harm to others in the process. It is the ethical responsibility of all teachers, therapists, and anyone engaged in work with others to recognize the privilege and power that accompanies witnessing the truth of others.
Within the basic method of art as a spiritual practice, there is one exception to the no-comment rule. At the end of group artmaking time, after everyone who wants to has read his or her witness aloud, there is usually a brief time for questions about the process and expressions of gratitude. The continuous flow of energy that characterizes the creative process depends upon gratitude. The act of giving thanks creates an opening for more energy to flow into our lives. Yet this practice of expressing gratitude seems to be unfamiliar to many people. It is a common cliché that all of us, especially in the privileged West, have much to be thankful for; yet the daily practice of expressing gratitude is not common. Few people, for example, say any form of thanksgiving before or after meals. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi says that our present world suffers from being severely “underblessed.” He reminds us that Jews have a blessing for any and every occasion, and even an all-purpose one, the Shehechiyanu, for blessing the particular moment we are in.
Studio practice has been an amazing way to become conscious of the effect of saying thanks. It arises spontaneously in the studio that someone in their witness writing will express thanks for the images and words of another artist. We slowly come to realize that we are each a mirror of the Divine and that what we need to see or hear is always before us, perhaps in the guise of the very ordinary person laboring next to us to draw a tree, or in the words of a teenager reading their witness after weeks of remaining silent. Whenever I am feeling dry and uninspired, I know that I have neglected to express gratitude to someone in my life or to the manifestation of the Divine in everyday life.
Seeing gratitude as a fundamental aspect of the creative process was a great revelation. More often I tend to be aware of what is wrong. I can be very critical. By contacting abundance and recognizing its presence in our lives, we enable more to flow. Expressing gratitude is also related to being busy. Stopping to say thanks takes us out of ourselves, out of the future and past, and locates us squarely in the present moment. A special opportunity for gratitude arises when something unpleasant or disappointing happens. We make the intention to discover what it is in the experience we are to say thank you for. This is not to deny the pain of hard times but simply to acknowledge the simultaneous reality that wonders exist within disasters and our experience of life depends to a large degree upon our interpretation of events. We can exercise choice regarding our interpretation of events even when events themselves may be beyond our control.
I was devastated in 1987 when I did not receive tenure at my university teaching job. Yet without that loss the studio work of the next fifteen years might have remained a theory rather than becoming an immensely fulfilling reality in my life. I remain deeply grateful for that turn of events even as I remember the pain I felt at the time. As frustrating as the rise to war is in America to those of us who want peace, it has revitalized the exercise of free speech and our awareness of the preciousness of democracy. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa brought to light the brutal history of apartheid and helped to heal a country in the process. The witness provided by the TRC instructs the world and shows that even on a global level, there is the possibility of gratitude within tragedy. This is a gift within a dark time, one that helps us live with and be in paradox. This mystery deserves our gratitude. We need not label war “good” to be grateful for and more mindful of exercising free speech.
To receive the maximum grace and blessing from our lives, we must honor both joyous and difficult occasions. Celebration of important life passages can become real through creative acts. We receive the gift of blessing hidden in the core of tragedy when we creatively engage with the events of our lives. Tremendous energy is released when we say “Thank you.” Artmaking imbues life’s challenges with richness and potential, allows us to relax and experience life as a flow, even in difficult moments that we share with others through making and doing. I was leading a five-day workshop at the Cape Cod Institute in Nauset, Massachusetts. I arrived there in some internal turmoil and was very focused on myself and my internal conflicts. My artwork mirrored all the murky, muddy, imprisoned energy I was wallowing in to me as well as to the participants. I would gladly have traded mine for anyone else’s image. It was hard to keep breathing and just be there. And although I knew that being in a difficult place as the facilitator teaches more than if I am sailing along, I hated that stuck, murky feeling.
On the fourth morning, I received a phone call from my mother-in-law right before I left to teach. She had suffered a heart attack and survived. She was in good spirits, taking in stride a few days of pain, an emergency surgical procedure, and the fact that my husband and I were out of town during all of this. She breezily assured us she was fine and we needn’t interrupt our trip. I arrived at the workshop in a completely different frame of mind. I discussed the idea of gratitude with the group, which had so far slipped my mind because I was so caught up in trying to think my way out of my own problems. I suggested to the class that another way to use intention is to dedicate the merits of one’s work to someone who is suffering or in need and to call down the Creative Source in gratitude for that person instead of for oneself. Our witness then, tends, to focus on another person rather than our self.
Figure 11. Personal Prison, by Pat B. Allen. Aluminum foil, hot glue.
I made the intention to give thanks for Natalie’s survival and for her health and well-being. Like magic, my artmaking that day provided a breakthrough for me. I constructed a garment out of aluminum foil suggested by the imprisoning grid that had appeared in my previous drawing and paintings (figure 11). As I put it on and took it off, I experienced the joy of the creative process. My prison was of my own making, and I was free to leave it at any time. As I focused on gratitude, I experienced a shift. Other participants also experienced shifts that day. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of a week of studio work. Several people in the workshop made specific intentions or dedicated their work to family members or friends who were suffering.
I suspect that taking creative risks on behalf of someone we love is a bit easier than taking them for ourselves. I am my own obstacle far more often than someone or something else is in my way. We hold ourselves separate from suffering, thinking that will keep us feeling safe. In fact, the practice of witness teaches me that it is open recognition of pain that allows healing energy to flow into it and begin to create change. The feeling of joy was palpable in the class as we witnessed the love that poured into the images. Sharing the burden of what we carry is probably part of it as well; the love of others mixes with our own and we are less alone. When we take ourselves lightly we can see the light in someone else. Helplessness and deadlock dissolve in the paint water as we create on another’s behalf.
Giving thanks need not wait for our image making. When you feel dry and constricted, uncreative and even hopeless, stop and take a minute to think of someone who deserves your gratitude. It could be a teacher from elementary school, the paperboy, a friend, a stranger who smiles at you on the bus, or an elected official who serves your community. You can give thanks for the color of fall leaves or the delight of a hot shower. Notice what begins to happen. Usually I find that as I think of more and more to be grateful for, the energy of creativity begins to flow. An image arises as praise and celebration. Gratitude makes me want to give. Artmaking is a powerful way to dwell in gratitude. Instead of a flitting unnoticed through my mind, a thankful thought can blossom into a meditation. I have made it a practice to create small healing paintings for friends and family members who are ill or are experiencing a special occasion. It allows me a way to witness the person, really notice who they are in my life, and give thanks for all I receive from them, all I appreciate about them. I believe I send healing energy to the person this way, but I know for sure that I am free from worry while creating and that the process generates positive energy. Yet I also almost always experience a moment of thinking, “This is pretty cool, maybe I’ll keep this for myself.” I feel a physical constriction when I think that thought, but that passes when I relax and let it go and bestow art on its rightful recipient.
We can witness life passages through artmaking in the same way we can witness suffering and special occasions. When my daughter was approaching the age at which menstruation was likely to begin, I created a box for her. It was a sort of portable altar, full of mystery as well as practical things. The outside was painted black and red and closed with a tie. When opened, it folded out and had a goddess figure, a medicine bag with homeopathic medicine for cramps, a velvet purse with sanitary products, an amulet, and a letter welcoming her to womanhood. When she left for two weeks of camp, and had not yet begun to bleed, we packed it in her trunk. As it turned out, she did not get her period until after she returned from camp, but another girl did, and Adina used her box to help her friend make that moment sacred. Our own forms of creative celebration can channel and transform the energy of the moment for the highest good.
Studio practice can begin in very small and subtle ways. Witnessing is a skill that can easily be practiced with objects other than images you yourself have created. In a setting where there is insufficient space or time for artmaking, we can still do our spiritual practice, for example, with images collected from magazines mounted on black construction paper or a small object brought from home. We make an intention and then simply choose an image, either randomly or by attraction, and go through the steps of the witness writing process: describing what’s there, cataloguing feelings and thoughts, dialoguing, and seeking meaning. It is remarkably effective to work this way. One can start to use art as a spiritual practice using any combination of intention, artmaking, and witness. Don’t forget to say thank you.
Teachings emerge from the witness writing about images. It is good to review your work at regular intervals. At the end of six- or seven-week sessions in the studio, participants are encouraged to take out all the artwork they have done and to reread all their writings, both intentions and witnesses. This review is an integral part of art as a spiritual practice. Often, themes will emerge or a piece of wisdom will stand out that shocks the artist, who wonders, “Who wrote that?” Although I do this practice of review each time along with everyone else, I also review many years worth of writings when I sit down to write a book like this. I am repeatedly stunned by what I have been given, the richness of the insights, how quickly and thoroughly I forget them, and also how each day I begin over again to learn. Having a great revelation doesn’t mean that it stays in the forefront of the mind, guiding me ever closer to enlightenment, whatever that may be. I forget and fall off the chair and struggle again and again; but like a boulder gradually being smoothed by flowing water, I get softer over time, more porous. I am humbled and reminded that practice is the key word. If a revelation visits only for an instant then flies away, that’s okay. I can climb back on the chair in the next moment. Returning again and again is a crucial part of practice.
The chapters in part two will share some teachings that have emerged from artmaking for me and others who have engaged with these simple tools over time.