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284. Narrow and wide points of view

Published January 20, 2018 evolving , healing , identification , Infinite space , Intuition , letting go , making art , meditation , perception , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual 1 Comment
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fear first

Fear.

This is the subject of this painting.

You can see that it is dark. The lines quiver and are afraid to move. Trying to come together and collaborate, they can’t. Fear is like a cloud that covers the open sky of possibilities and free choice. No, you can’t do this, fear says, and you get constricted. You don’t see farther than your immediate confrontation with the thing that frightens you. It seems there is no way to avoid or escape it. It is hard to see anything anyway. This is a very narrow point of view.

Naturally, the relief from fear happens when somehow you manage to open the sky of more possibilities again. How about infinite possibilities?

Within our system of who we are, there is the open sky viewpoint, already a part of us that never leaves. All we have to do is enter the state in which we can experiece this openness. Making art is one of the best ways. (Meditating, Dancing, singing, remembering what you are thankful for, these are some of the other ways.)

So imagine: Something triggered your fear. Perhaps you started to uproot a belief that you had held for a long time, and used to think that it was very important for your safety. Now you start to see how this belief stops you from flourishing and you want to change the situation. The subconscious refuses to change, and suddenly you are afraid. It is as if you think very quickly: What am I doing? I am taking away my protection! A dark cloud covers your open view. There is nobody there to help and it is you against your fear. What to do?

Draw or paint the fear, if you like drawing or painting. Where do you feel the fear? How does it feel? How can you describe in visual effects the way you feel? Ask your intuition to paint for you. Be the hands and eyes of intuition. Whatever ideas come, do them. After all it is just a drawing.

As you paint, you pay attention to how you feel. And you can detect where in the painting your description is true to your experience and where it is not exact enough. So you correct yourself to make a good description, as only you, looking from inside of yourself can know.

From being totally engaged in a confrontation and a fight for life, you change your state to being curious, playing with effects that you invent as you go, and trying out expressions. You pay attention to what feels true and not. Inevitably you start feeling good as there is joy in following your intuition. You start paying attention to the composition, which indeed is a wider view of everything, and without any effort, you are already in a deeper state, a calmer state, a wiser state, a loving state.

Fear cannot stay in such an environment. Fear is the vibration of being cornered by danger. It cannot keep its strength inside of a loving, playful, and curious environment.

And while you are still in this loving state, which is your true nature, ask yourself: What do I really want to do now? What does my true nature want to do?

283. There, not there

Published January 5, 2018 evolving , healing , Intuition , letting go , making art , perception , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts 1 Comment
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The surprising power of green

There are two paintings in this entry.

The first gives a good feeling. All the shapes feel good with each other. They are very close together and whatever happens in the picture, they all take part in it.  But when I was painting, I knew that the big brown roundish shape in the middle of the lower half was a wooden wheel of a mill at the river, and I knew that in the water there was blood. In the painting it is violet. These belong to a traumatic event, not in this life, but I know about it.

So we have a trauma hinted at, but the context is like a quiet, friendly village, where the houses hold each other as they watch the bridge crossing the water. There are trees and the sky is playful.

In the second painting the shapes seem to be in shock. There is a house. There is a line in the middle that could represent a little bridge. There are trees, grass and sky. But the sky seems to be torn. Maybe there is a scream in the sky. A dry, dead branch, is pointing at the scream. And there are these warm colored shapes, orange, red and brown, colors that do not really belong in this landscape. They are in the painting to describe something traumatic that is just happening.

The composition isn’t settled. Everything is moving from its place. Where will the pieces fall? We do not know yet.

An event from childhood

Then, for a lifetime, the trauma that we had will be expressed in everything that we think and do.

Sometimes it will be hard to find, like in the first painting. In other times it will be strong and inescapable. Until we decide one day to let it go and we find a way to work on it till it is not there any more.

 

282. A new beginning, or: What has happened to Giora?

Published December 18, 2017 identification , Intuition , perception , Physical and non physical , Spiritual , The world of thoughts 3 Comments
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I am sitting in the big guestroom and the wall of the other side of our street looks at me as I look at it. Here:

IMG_1940

This ‘other side’, as everything else, is created by thoughts, and thoughts are independent entities, capable of self-reflection, which makes it possible for them to rethink who and what they are and what they are doing here in my experience. When I do self-reflection my experience of everything in my life changes.

Do you want an example?

Wherever you are, ask yourself: Let’s see what can I love now? And see what happens to everything around you.

So things are only a kind of a mirror, reflecting me. And ‘me’ is a constantly changing thing, based on what I think. Basically I am free to change myself, as I wish for different experiences. The only thing that makes me seem like a stable being is the big, mostly ancient collection of previous choices of how to think about things. These old thoughts think themselves so quickly when I am not aware of them that they take over my life. They make it seem that they are my choices now of what I want to be.

I am breaking the stream of thoughts. It is time for some quiet, to let all the thoughts of the previous paragraphs get digested. Maybe I’ll stop this entry here, and you, please make sure to take some digestive enzymes.

You may be thinking: What has happened to Giora? There may be a resistance to accepting my thoughts. Good for you. Don’t accept them. Take them as my opinion. You really don’t have to accept anything. It is just my fun to write them. I am not even trying to convince. I am a thought. I can only convince myself to be a different thought.

But you wouldn’t be reading this if you did not have some invitation to these thoughts in you… I am part of your world, and I am responding to your wish to have different experiences.

Before we close I want to make sure I say this: Being a thought is only a partial state. It is a limited view. The complete me is everything, with no boundaries. You too.

281. The beauty of the cloud of anger

Published December 13, 2017 energy , healing , identification , Infinite space , Intuition , letting go , making art , meditation , perception , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts 2 Comments
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A vague Anger

I have learned so much. I have painted so many paintings and read them. But I’m going to skip all of that and be current. I don’t like going back.

The last two paintings are about being fascinated by things that block the mind, the imagination and the openness. I am showing here one of them.

They tried hard to teach us this kind of attention in the meditation retreats. They would say: If you experience being blocked (which is what the subconscious does sometimes, to protect itself against change), do not fight it. Instead, become interested in what is in front of you. Look at that blockage. See what it is made of. Examine. Touch, smell, and experience without language.

It is not easy to do, when you feel being blocked. All you want is to break trough and this cloud is in your way, obscuring everything.

But how about using art?

In this painting I described a vague anger that I felt. I was taking some medication against the pain, so I could meditate (so I could sleep too). It was not a first solution. I meditated and worked with the pain without medications for many years until it became too strong to bear. The medication made me dull and vague. I could not dive deep. I did not feel the subtleties of the energies. And I was frustrated in this vague way, as everything was vague. Painting this anger became my way of coming out of vagueness. It is not that it is important to know exactly how the anger is experienced. It is the state of being interested itself that made the difference. To be interested, to be curious, is to participate in a characteristic of the true self, and this is what made me feel better and this is what opened a window in that inner blocking cloud, to let some fresh air blow in. Now I became aware of the space. I had a chance to make it my home again and what was in front of me became beautiful to me.

What is important in the painting is how the movement goes. It is slow and sticky. It does not burst out but bends and looses power by having parts fall off it.

 

280. Play, relish.

Published November 17, 2017 healing , identification , Infinite space , Intuition , making art , meditation , perception , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts , Truth 1 Comment
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man:place

A lot of my stuff is still in the living room. Another collection is in the studio, in boxes, piled up seven layers, and on the floor everywhere. I still don’t have access to all my instruments and paper.

I use what I have access to. So this one is made with watercolor on canvas. Some canvases are made to take watercolor. I did the drawing on the wrong side, which is coarser, by mistake. I drew it late last night. And I used the softest pencils I have, Prismacolor. They are almost like oil pastels.

In a lot of my recent art there is a person there. I think it comes from the experience of living nowadays. Every experience that I have of the physical world is seen through the body and creates a response in the body. So the body is of interest. In this one there is also a sense of a place with some trees and fields. Everything become the same in importance. All are experienced and everything is viewed by the true self. You can slide lightly into the true self and be the true self for a while. You are extremely sensitive. You feel every little physical appearance. You feel the excitement of a child, wanting to touch everything. Being in a quiet awe, loving everything, wanting to see more, to play with it, to enjoy the good feeling of the person and everything in his world. All that appears looks like a miracle.

The physical world itself does not seem to have a lot of depth. It is just some shapes, some movements, in a shallow layer, doing all the miracles of the physical world, while floating above an infinite space. That’s where you really are. All of it and all that appears in it is you. This is where the depth is. Relish. Play. There is no better feeling than meeting with yourself.

279. What is this?

Published November 8, 2017 energy , evolving , healing , identification , Infinite space , Intuition , making art , meditation , perception , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts , Truth Leave a Comment
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I skipped number 277 by mistake. I’ll keep this number for something in the future. And for now I’ll just continue with this entry.

A man turning his head to me

Describing a body

Of a man, standing

In profile

But turning his head and gaze

To us

He is just passing there

And it is his business

To be there, walking

On his territory

And we are the transgressors

Who should apologize

And leave with the promise

To never do this again

And since there needs

To be some earth

For this story

I tried my hand

At making it

Some dirt

Some grass

A tree

And a passer by

All freshly made.

I really felt there was a person there, before I started to draw. I can show you what he would look like, had I drawn him as I saw in my imagination.

Here, I made a quick sketch of that.

quick sketch of a man

He has on some kind of a raincoat. You can see he’s not dressed up. And of course he wonders what we are doing there.

So how come this view changed to the drawing at the top?

I remember my years at the art academy in Jerusalem in the end of the sixties. Students with easels, standing around a model, and everybody is drawing. I assess the work in front of me, consider the model’s size and placement on my paper, imagine the arrangement of the main lines and volumes, and I start.

From the ear the line goes down through the chin to the collar, to the shoulder, and now comes the long line of the curved back. As I guide my hand to follow that line, there is another voice in me that tells me not to follow that line of the back. Don’t go down, but to the right, this voice says.

It is not a voice really, but a very strong and compelling feeling, like a longing, that almost takes hold of my hand and pushes it to go right.

I did not understand why I had this different voice in me, but I trusted this voice.

Now I know.

The representational drawing describes the experience of the senses. This is how the eyes see. Of course it is influenced by emotions and ideas, but the cementing substance in the drawing is the physical shape, as the eyes perceive it.

The abstract lines in the first drawing describe the experience of the energy. The energy of me and the energies of the things that are described. I don’t see that energy but I feel it. So the lines are a translation of that feeling. I feel different intentions, different emotions, ideas and beliefs that create that person within my infinite field of energy. And in fact, all of these are mine. They are my intentions, my feelings, my ideas and beliefs. I am creating this person in my flow, in response to these experiences in me.

When my ideas and beliefs change, this person will change too.

And, is there anything out there to disprove that this person, these experiences and me are really one thing, experiencing itself?

278. Life can be woven differently

Published November 5, 2017 evolving , healing , Infinite space , Intuition , making art , meditation , perception , Reading art , Spiritual 1 Comment
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Life an be woven differently

Life can be woven differently

Time after time

Time in time

Different

I cannot write about it

Like trying to catch

A fish with a net that has

Too big holes.

276. A report on my condition

Published October 25, 2017 healing , Infinite space , Intuition , letting go , making art , meditation , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts , Truth 1 Comment
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My studio is changing its face. It is the place where my new phase of life will be created. Not finished yet. I did a lot of physical work and felt good with it. Only the nerves in my feet suffered. For days I had very strong pain. But I think there is less of a story in this. I mean, the subconscious does not make a big deal of it.

Even in the midst of the change and the chaos I painted in the living room. But I had three days without painting. Painting is my best way to converse with my non-physical parts. So it was time to talk. Last night I sat at the new, bigger table and my brush dipped itself in the colors. I asked Int (Intuition, the knowing that comes from the nonphysical and does not need thinking) what is going on with me.

Then I painted, to get the answer.

The lines in watercolor were wet. The air was wet and drying was slow. I wanted to use color areas but I had to wait. Every hour nowadays I stop everything and meditate myself to connect with the non physical me. I stay there. I see what I feel. I see what I want. Then I go on with life or so it is called. Other activities and the pain took place and the drawing remained untouched till the morning. When I looked at it in the morning, I saw that it was finished, just as it was. There was no need any more to add anything.

Here is the drawing:

Int's Report

Here is Int’s report about my condition:

  1. The ochre turned dusty with red. (Little pain. Part of the stories of physical life.)
  2. The red that could seem to be harsh and painful reminded instead of strong bright colors on dark backgrounds that I saw in my old drawings earlier. (Excitement, fun, love, adventure.)
  3. And why are there no blocked areas? Because there are no blocked areas in your being. (It is time to sneak out through the spaces between the lines and taste the true essence.)
  4. Green is the repetition of the red. (When you use one different color you want to use it again somewhere in the painting. But here the common element with the redness is the difference of the greenness, which is like the difference of the redness.) (What fun!)
  5. The eyes float disconnected from their caves. (Leaving attachment to the body.)
  6. The most open sections are the heart and the third eye. (Use them as gates.)
  7. There is a person there indeed. He has a shirt with a collar that is plaid. (You. I am talking to you.) (Which, of course is me. In my world there is only me. In your world there is only you. When we meet, you invite me into your world and I invite you into my world. It is much more mysterious and beautiful than we know. When we see through the stories, we discover that you are me and I am you.)

276. Can I teach my subconscious something new?

Published October 18, 2017 energy , healing , identification , Intuition , making art , perception , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts , Truth Leave a Comment
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When I say the word HEALTHY, there is a rush of energy developing in my being, and moving through it to unknown depths.

The same thing happens when I only think the word.

If I do it a lot, and experience the vibration of the word many times, this experience starts to take roots in my being, and there is movement in me, to become the expression of this vibration.

Try this: When you feel not so good, ask yourself, in your mind: How can I feel good now? And watch how you feel.

If I ask, beore I start to draw, to have my drawing show me my experience of feeling good, then I’ll spend the time of making the drawing feeling good, and even go into it in a deeper way than just thinking. So my body will feel good in a deeper way than just by thinking, and the experience will last longer.

My subconscious will take notice and will start to realize that it has to learn how to create this feeling, as it seems that I, its owner and commander, am interested in being this way.

Then the subconscious will start producing this feeling of being healthy on its own, every time there will be any association to this coming up in my being.

And with such a competent couch within myself, what do you think will happen? With me feeling healthy all the time, how can I ever be sick?

So I set out to draw how it feels to me to be healthy.

Hebrew word

Stretching in the morning

inner energies arise

The first drawing even includes the word ’healthy’ in Hebrew, my mother’s tongue, and the strong energy springs out all around it.

The second is about how the body feels strong and capable.

The last is about how the energy moves in my body when I feel healthy.

At the beginning of the third drawing there were only the heavier lines without the lighter pencil lines and the colors. At that time the drawing was really successful in describing the flowering of the energy inside, arising and opening up. Then I wanted to add the lines and the colors, and the whole art became heavier. The energy almost does not move any more.

It is not what I wanted. But it has beauty so I decided to show it anyway. It srill shows the shining, the power that pushes things up, and some sense of a struggle to arise. The struggle is mental and energetic. All is true in this drawing as to my feeling at the time. Maybe this is why it is beautiful.

But can I change my thinking, and can I teach my subconscious how to create a different feeling?

275. Side effects

Published October 1, 2017 dream , energy , evolving , identification , Inner light , Intuition , letting go , making art , meditation , perception , Physical and non physical , Reading art , Spiritual , The world of thoughts , Truth Leave a Comment
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Everything is changing in my world.

I am dismantling my studio. I am not doing art therapy any more. The studio will be rearranged, to support what I’ll be doing next. The free flow, that is who I am, has discovered at last that it had invented ways to stand in its own way. I hug it now, but who is hugging? My computer, what I need for making art now, what I need for writing, and a few more things will move to a temporary place in the apartment, for a while.

Here is a painting from a few days ago, and what I had written about it.

Changing

The drawing was ready for two days. I did not want to do the next step until I knew I’d have all the time needed to finish the painting.

I looked, and different possibilities ran through my imagination. Something was missing in all of them. The best thing is to do the colored shapes right after the drawing is done, as a continuous event. This did not happen in this case. But I found a way to experience the drawing freshly. I got closer, as I described in the past. I came so close, that my nose almost touched the paper. This did it. A new, trustworthier stream of ideas started to flow and I went along with it till all the shapes were there. The choice of colors came too as a stream, one after the other. Something in me knew what to do. Guess what part it is.

One thing that jumped to my attention is that in this painting the stronger part of the painting finds it easy to go out of the paper to the left side. In the beginning of the blog most or all of the drawings never went out through the left edge. The left side was usually left empty, and there was a lot of tension about this side. And here there is no problem at all. The right side of the painting goes out through the right, but it is the weaker part of the artwork and it feels hesitant.

So we have a change.

Lets take another issue. There seem to be two people in the painting. Both have a blue body. And around or close to their heads there are circles of colors that can be felt as light. It just came to me, as everything else came, as parts of the flow. My reaction to having the impulse to draw these halos was to avoid doing it and find something else to draw instead of them. But my dedication is to trust what comes. So I went ahead and did the circles of light.

When I was on my first meditation retreat in 1990, I had a dream, in which I saw myself meditating on the top of a mountain. The mountain and I were shown as silhouettes. Behind us was an orange light that became more and more intense. I woke up in the middle of the night and discovered that I could make my mind go totally quiet just by telling it to do so. I said: Enough! And it calmed down.

I have a feeling that both the people in the art are monks. They walk their path alone. They may be versions of the same person. The one on the right embodies an idea that has been let go of, and the bigger one on the left is acting now with a new choice. The word pilgrimage comes to mind. The direction towards which this figure is moving is the true ’I’, which moves all the time, so you cannot really reach it. But you certainly can be it.

There is a story in the bible, the Hebrew bible, about Saul. He is the one who would become King Saul later. At the time of the story he worked as a herder of donkeys. Today it would be like a parking garage attendant, who takes all the cars to the gas station every day. All the donkeys ran away from Saul that day. He ran after them in vein. But on his way he met with the prophet Samuel. Samuel was there because God had sent him with some oil to find Saul, pour the oil on his head and let him know that he was chosen by God to be the king of Israel. Politics was messy then too. To Saul this was quite a shock, I believe. But for the people who told the story, this was a chance to invent a saying: He looked for donkeys and found a kingdom.

Aren’t we all like Saul? We always aim for the less important things and the best happens to us as if it was side effects. Luckily, we pay attention one day to that part of us that is true and always awake, and eventually get it.

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Entries 1-58 show how I use the method of Intuition Through Art to heal myself from Peripheral Neuropathy.

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