November 1, 2016 – Touched by the Sun – on permission and risk

The painting I named after Carly Simon’s song – Touched by the Sun

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These past few weeks, I’ve been asked to take a closer – and more gutsy – look at my work and the impact that it has. The effect is that I’m suffering a big attack of “just who do you think you are?” These attacks, if they are severe enough, are pretty paralyzing. There is a part of me today, that is refusing to “go there.” I’m not writing about my own visual voice – that still seems out of reach from where I sit right now. There’s an internal shift to make, in order for that part to loosen its grip on me, so that I can.

In an exercise in Julia Cameron’s follow-on book to “The Artist’s Way”, called “The Vein of Gold,” she asks us to name five favorite movies – and then to look at the themes among them. Two of mine are, “My Fair Lady” and “Dangerous Beauty.” The themes that thread through the films on my list, have to do with the feminine and the masculine, power, privilege and freedom. Seems I’m working out how to reconcile these two energies within myself – and well into mid-life, I’m still sorting it out for myself. I’m guessing that on some level, this is a life-long endeavor. The question that came to me over the weekend (to which I do not yet have an answer), is how do I live with sovereignty/strength/confidence, and still be feminine? I wasn’t raised with this modeled for me – and looking around, there isn’t much of it in our world now. I have a sense of how this might look intellectually, but down in my bones, it’s illusive. And, to go there, feels really risky.

“Touched by the Sun” is a Carly Simon song, that has become somewhat of an anthem, for this life of mine. I’ve listened to it, singing my heart out, at times when I was taking a big step – or wanting to – like when I was driving on the way to my new little house in San Anselmo, the day I moved in – a home of my own, as a newly single woman. She wrote the song in 1994 for her friend, Jackie Onassis, who had died that year and it came into my life, when I left my first marriage and was sorting out what life on my own might be. I listened to it sometimes so loud, it drowned out my own voice, screaming the lyrics out like my life depended upon it. I love this song!

As I headed out on my hike yesterday with Bo, I my energy was low. I felt troubled, at odds and a bit lost. I had my phone with me and had the thought to infuse myself with something, that might help me find a way through. There it was – this song – in my iTunes. Good thing we were alone on the hill, so I could listen to it playing out loud as I huffed up the fire road. I needed to hear and sing these lyrics:

If you want to be brave
And reach for the top of the sky
And the farthest point on the horizon
Do you know who you’ll meet there
Great soldiers and seafarers,
Artists and dreamers
Who need to be close, close to the light

And the next verse:

But deep down inside I know
I’ve got to learn from the greats,
Earn my right to be living,
Let my wings of desire
Soar over the night
I need to let them say
“She must have been mad”

After hearing it, it wasn’t like presto-change-o, I’ve now risen above – all my questions are answered. But it did reconnect me with a part of myself – those wings of desire. When I first heard this song, I had started to paint only a little, and there was no way I could see myself as an “artist.” I had paralyzing stage fright; I would never have dreamed there was teacher or a writer in me. No one had any clue, that I had all I this to share with the world – except, I can see in retrospect – that the hidden part of me that reacted to this song so strongly, must have.

In this latest phase of self-doubt, I have more perspective than ever. I see that we live change in cycles of desiring, fearing, risking, growing and coming to a new place. Yesterday in the office, I was sharing my crisis of confidence with Carla, our bookkeeper for my husband’s business. Always so supportive and kind, she said she wished that I didn’t have to go through this. I know! Me too! And, I found myself saying to her matter-of-factly, but we must – because as the saying goes: everything we really want, is just outside our comfort zone.

I think some of us are born with the permission to swing out, to risk revealing ourselves. I’d bet that many of the people we call superstars, have this kind of permission factory installed – an innate confidence – for no good reason. Either that or their wings of desire must be gigantic! I don’t know the life story of the glass artist Dale Chihuly, but he sure has permission. When I saw his exhibition at the DeYoung in San Francisco several years ago, I was struck by the creative force, that he allows to come through him. It’s so big it takes a team of dozens of people to make it manifest. He’s just one person, just like you and like me. It seems most of us, though, have a road to travel to set our desire to create free. The only thing that I’ve known to support this, are people with whom we are safe – we provide each other with what’s needed to take flight.

The song goes: I want to be one, one who is touched by the sun. As much as belting out these lyrics puts me in touch with my desire, these words have always felt a bit helpless. There isn’t one single person on this earth, who isn’t touched by the sun. Because we are living in a physical body on this planet, we are bathed in the light of the sun, fed by the energy of the sun, warmed by the heat of the sun. It’s these words that tell of the risk: I need to be in danger of burning by fire! What is that fire? Is the fire being judged, ridiculed, criticized? Or is it as Maryanne Williamson says, we are terrified that we are powerful beyond measure?

Power is an interesting place to come to, at the end of this post. The biggest power source in our cosmic neighborhood, is our sun whose energy is freely given to all of us in equal measure (weather not withstanding). In human terms power is the capacity to act and to influence. It’s used enormously to harm, which is what I think many of us are afraid of. But it’s also used to heal and support life and further the arc of evolution. Art plays a real part in this. Look how one song has supported my evolution. Risking, giving ourselves the permission to claim our power, means painting, singing, dancing, writing, song-writing – and next week VOTING – our love. This is our voice (visual or otherwise), it is our soul on deck, it is what we are built for.

With my love,

Cara