Come into my lap and sit in the center of your soul. Drink the living waters of memory and give birth to yourself. What you unearth will stun you. You will paint the walls of this cave in thanksgiving.
Meinrad Craighead, The Litany of the Great River
Who is the authentic you? What values, beliefs, actions, thoughts, and relationships fit you? What is most essentially you? How can you gain or regain a “luminous, virtually religious sense of [your] inner life radiating into and nourishing the outer, wider world”? This is how essayist Michael Ventura describes it in “A Dance for Your Life in the Marriage Zone,” in Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A.
Making a portrait of your authenticity entails reclaiming muted parts of yourself and then creating a symbolic visual representation of what you discover. Part of this work is sifting through what belongs to you and what belongs to others—culture, parents, spouses, friends. Part of this work is trusting that taking time to name and depict the essential you is precious work—but that is the challenge of the entire retreat process. Locating your authenticity can be a radical act, a declaration: “This is me, and this is what I like, value, need, respect.” But to name your authenticity is not to pinpoint a static state but rather to note that a particular collection of selves, behaviors, and beliefs feels true in this moment, and to be aware that your collection of selves will change and grow as your life unfolds.
The following exercise is a long one. You will need to take breaks and weave in other practices or activities. Try to work on your portrait for an hour at a time.
Prepare
An outline of your body on a larger-than-life-sized piece of white butcher paper. Have someone draw an outline of your body in pencil on the paper before your retreat. Think about what posture or silhouette would most capture the authentic you. Move around on the paper until you feel you have captured that feeling. If drawing an outline of your body makes you too unhappy, then draw just your head, hands, and feet, leaving the middle blank. Leave room on the outside and on the top and bottom of your outline.
Art materials such as watercolors, tempera paints, felt markers, pastels, crayons.
A pile of magazines and catalogs. Visit used bookstores, ask friends, ask your dentist.
Masking tape.
Scissors.
Brushes and water containers if you are using paints.
Glue or rubber cement.
If you like, before your retreat, take a few minutes to do a symbol gathering scan. Go through sewing baskets, junk drawers, and your attic while meditating on the question “If my authenticity were an object, what would she be?” Do not hesitate to grab anything and everything that speaks to you or simply seems interesting. Keep repeating the question to yourself and listen visually for answers. Try doing this in a junk, bead, or stationery store (you can combine it with searching for a birthday gift for your sister-in-law or favors for your child’s birthday party). A charm, a scrap from your old Brownie uniform, an image from a greeting card, an old earring, a poem—all are examples of physical things that could embody your question.
Creating Your Portrait
Tape the outline of your body to a wall. Spread out your materials. It is important to begin this practice in a calm, centered state. You will have difficulty naming what is authentic to you if you are not in touch with an authentic body state. Spend some time becoming centered.
See Good Ways to Listen: I Am Enough.
When you feel at rest, read over the questions you will find below. With the questions, your outline, and art materials in front of you, respond visually to the questions. As you mull over a set of questions, you may feel led to draw on a part of your outline or to paste a found symbol on it, or you may leaf through the magazines you collected and cut out images that fit. You may also add words, bits of poetry or song, or quotes, but work with these after you have spent time with images. Use the questions to enter a feeling, imaging state. It is easy when doing this kind of chronological exercise to feel bored, as in “I can’t remember anything; this is stupid.” Stop thinking and try looking. Read the questions a few times as you look; wait and hold; then move into creating.
If you find yourself getting caught up in “This is ugly” or “I’m no good at art,” then do the dialoguing exercise in Courage: Giving Yourself Support. Stretching, dancing, or taking deep breaths and letting out big “Ahhs” can be useful, too.
When, as you work with the questions below, you remember things that don’t feel authentic—that don’t fit but that feel important—paste or draw those on the outside of your outline.
What was my favorite way to spend my alone time?
With whom did I feel most like me?
What did I do (if anything) that I now regret doing because it feels false to me or was mostly about pleasing others?
How much time did I spend doing what I found meaningful?
How did I feel in my body? How did I view myself physically?
I feel most like me when I…
What I like most about myself is…
What I most value in my life right now is…
I never find to time to __________ anymore.
When I am alone, I like to…
My authentic self looks like…
My authentic relationships look like…
What I would like to change in my life to live more authentically is…(Put the images and words from this last question on the outside of your outline.)
Reflecting
Take time away from your portrait. Then come back and spend a few minutes meditating on it. If you were going to name this woman, what would you name her? Writing in second person, describe this woman. What do you see? What is she going to do next? What does she need to survive and thrive? Pretend you don’t know her and see what occurs to you. For example, “You have tangled seaweed hair and strong legs covered with mountains and a river running from your heart. Your arms are crossed across your chest—you’re not taking any more nonsense.”
Keep this portrait where you see it often. Meditate on it once a year on a birthday retreat.
For Long Retreats
You might want to begin this practice early in your retreat and use it as a thread throughout your retreat, doing other things and then returning to work on it.
For Mini-Retreats
This practice works well on mini-retreats. Try to set aside at least an hour and a half for each session and, if possible, space your retreats close together to keep your interest alive.
For Retreats in the World
Take yourself to a visually fertile place like a junk shop, costume shop, museum bookstore, or scenic bluff, and read over one or two questions from an age that interests you. Then look around for images and objects that capture your eye. How do these images or things relate to your questions? For example, in contemplating “What does my authentic self look like?,” you might choose a imposing mountain or a rusted but still-working lamp. Make notes of what you choose and, if you wish, dialogue with your choices later, but for right now remain visual and intuitive. Don’t think about making sense.
For Retreats with Others
Display all your portraits in one place. Spend a few minutes studying each. Sit in a deep listening circle. Each woman responds to a portrait, finishing with the woman who created it speaking last. She describes what the process of working on it was like, what she sees in the finished image, and what, if any, changes she envisions for her life. Repeat for each woman.
If you do work on your portraits together in the same room, center together before beginning work and then work in silence with no comments on one another’s work. No comments about artistic ability or whose portrait is best are allowed at any time on the retreat.
For Experienced Retreatants
If you’ve worked with this practice recently, instead of using the questions, use your intention question and make a mini-portrait of just your head or of a part of your body you wish to heal or come into a better relationship with. Collect images, center yourself, then contemplate your intention question while looking at what you’ve collected. Reply and explore your question visually, drawing in your own images, perhaps adding words.