September 13, 2016 – Painting our prayers – an invitation

“Heather, a Friday group artist, painting cherry blossoms – whether she thinks so or not, this is sacred practice.”

Listen to this post:

I start with a confession. I didn’t paint two more days – this past Saturday or Sunday. I share this not as a mea culpa, but because of how much I noticed it and missed it. I take to heart the promise I made, not just to keep my word, but also because of what painting is to me. I really missed what even a few minutes of it does for me – and to me. I didn’t not paint because I couldn’t have. I was home and passed by my studio a zillion times. But I allowed myself to ignore the pull to my painting and instead, took care of the next thing on “the list.” I was also working on an extensive Photoshop project, for a special occasion commission – working with someone else’s photos, to put together something that is “Life in Full Color.” And it’s not coming easily. By the end of the day yesterday, I was still nowhere with the project, and I still hadn’t painted since Friday (and that was only for a few minutes). I came home from dinner with my mom and dad yesterday evening, and I dove into the painting of grapes – the one whose image I’m completely in love with. Even after just two days away, it was such a relief to be there with my brushes and paints, bringing through this image that has so captivated me.

This is a marked difference from times in the past, where days and days and days would go by, that I didn’t pick up a brush. Even just last year, I barely noticed that I’d not painted for several days – at least not consciously. The promise I made has changed my relationship with what I do. Though I knew it in my head that painting for me is a devotion, I feel now it more closely. Painting is one very important way that I pray. It’s funny how things can shift. I’ve told myself that the free and therefore fun part of what I do, has always been taking the photos and then playing with them in Photoshop – which is more an exploration; I don’t know where I’m headed. And I’ve held painting as the hard part. But these past few days, have me seeing how the painting part is where it gets real for me. It’s where my mark is made and it’s where I sense my love coming through.

“I’ve not gotten very far on this one since I last posted it two weeks ago. I feel it when I’m not painting now.”

I used to be a very regular and very active member of the Fairfax Community Church, when my beloved Sara was the pastor there. Sara officiated at our wedding 16 years ago. This experience with her, drew me to want to be with her more and be part of the community she led. Going to church almost every Sunday for 11 years, revealed part of me to me. In a post last year about my spiritual journey, I wrote this:

What is most precious to me now is that, along the way, I discovered the part of me that is deeply devotional. There is a place in the center of my chest, in my heart that longs to long, to revere, to surrender, to worship even – something greater than me.

Since Sara left (she’s now the chaplain at Marin General Hospital), and things changed at the church, I stopped going and have been staying home on Sunday mornings. I don’t feel the pull to go to church anymore. The years I was so engaged with the church community, I wasn’t part of the one that surrounds me now – it didn’t yet exist. Now that it does, I see how the precious nature of what we do and what happens when we gather in our groups each week and month, gives me much of what nourished me at church.

And yet there are things that I still miss. I miss the intention to be in worship, the explicit “this is devotion, this is prayer.” I’ve been tossing about an idea in this vein for a while. It now seems like it’s time to make it real. The idea is to gather on Sunday mornings in Larkspur – once a month (for now) – to paint together. I won’t teach. I won’t lead or intentionally hold the space for each artist’s creative process, as I usually do. I will instead, hold the space that the gathering is sacred – and joyous. I will be there with my painting and palette – but not all the extra supplies nor set up the projector. We’ll play music that suits this spirit – not necessarily religious (and I am open to suggestions!). We will paint a few hours in the morning – no more than 2 or 3. We will paint our prayers.

I could do this at home, all on my own – but I paint alone all the time. What I miss is being together, in what I’d call worship. Wherever two or more are gathered… Here’s another bit from that post from last year:

The clearest truth for me, is that [my faith] is a relational faith – as much as it is the source of infinite love exists in each of us, is each one of us – it’s most potent as the connection between two or more of us. I have a hard time putting words to my experience of it. It’s a feeling in my body. I have the sense that the center of my chest is expanding. Love is being received as well as emanating out from me. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time.

It came to me earlier this year that what I do, that what we do, is paint our love. And it is my belief that love is God. And I’ve come to believe, that there is no separation from the sacred and anything else. Connection is the nature of our universe. Putting my intention and attention on this, feeds my faith. I am inviting you to join me here.

There is no cost to come, but I’m thinking we will have a basket for donations, we could offer to someone who needs help. A woman came into the office last Thursday evening, asking for our help getting a place to live again, so she can bring her kids back under one roof. She’s doing this through an organization in San Francisco. It came to me, that she’s the perfect person to begin with.

This well-known Rumi poem has been with me, as I’ve written this post today, translated by Coleman Barks. I read a post by a Muslim blogger, that dismisses this translation, because it waters down Rumi’s Islamic religion. But this translation is all over the Internet and I appreciate how the words Coleman Barks used, made the wisdom, the spirit of Rumi accessible to millions of us.

If today, like every other day
we wake up empty and frightened.
We don’t have to open the door to the study
and begin reading.
We can take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do
there are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the earth.

So, will you come, kneel and kiss the earth with brushes and watercolor with me? We’ll start this Sunday, September 18th at 10 in the morning. I’ll have coffee, tea and something to nibble on. Please let me know if you want to be there.

And, if Larkspur is too far for you, I invite you to join us – and paint from wherever in the world you are. I will set up a Zoom video conference so you can join us virtually. Please let me know if you want the link.

With my love,

Cara