
The man with pain
Has forgotten everything
And now
He gives
the things he used to have
To birds.
Healing and growth through intuitive art

The man with pain
Has forgotten everything
And now
He gives
the things he used to have
To birds.

Birds can fly
They are not afraid of heights
A bough
Is a home for them
Sometimes they would fight
for a good one
Then they’d sleep
Almost standing
Birds start to sing
Even before the sun arrives
Birds are soft
And hard
And I
What is hard and what is soft
In me?
What am I afraid of?
What will my dreams be like
If I have to keep my balance
At night?
Will I sing
In the morning?
When I was very young, there were geckos on the screens of the windows in my room, hunting flies and moths. And beyond the screen birds were standing on the windowsills. Then they would fly to the trees that surrounded the house.
In the evenings many birds would fight for the good boughs, making a huge noise. Then they’d settle down and sleep, sitting on their folded legs that held on to the thin branches. They did not have homework to do. I loved their boldness as they peeked into my room, with the excitement of having just flown still alive in them.
Today, when I close my eyes and imagine what a good life is for me, I see myself flying above the landscape, almost like the birds, but I flap less with my hands. I just have to think forward and I fly. And when I settle on a bough, at the top of the tallest tree, I do not shout. There is nothing to fight for. The world comes to me.
I did so many paintings from the time I wrote about one. I’ll do a summary of two, as I look at them now.
Here is a painting that I called: Birds and Water.
It was done in a daydreaming state, imagining a place I’d like to experience. There are parts of birds in light brown, some green lines and areas, and what looks like a little waterfall and part of a river. The colored areas served, for me, to indicate different colors of the birds in this forest. The whole painting did itself and I was watching as it happened and had my thoughts like the thoughts of a watcher.
This morning, after having my regular call with my friend, I thought: I have a whole day ahead of me without sessions and without calls, And I feel quite good, after having slept a little more than the usual these days. What shall I do with this day?
And now the pain has come and grabbed my left foot quite strongly. It is hard to use both hands now, as the left hand wants to go down to hold the left foot and help alleviate the pain a little. Also, how can you even think? Some crazy creature is tearing at your clothes, pulling your attention, wanting you to do something about its experience of being tortured. This dream of being in a place of birds and water has nothing to do with this. The joy of delicately playing with the stuff of my life through the use of words, feeling the subtle trickle of their energy through my being, all of this is called to run for a shelter now. The bombs are coming down. The siren goes up and down in your head already. I asked what to do with my time today? This is going to take care of it.
Another painting, done in the middle of the night, got this name from me: Night in the Middle of the City. I was very patient when I did this.
It looks like a dream place too. A city that is so thin that if you only scratch a little, a hole is bored in the fabric of what seems to be so solid, and the sky, the deep and beautiful sky, is right there. We float in it, creating our cities and lives. We can create them as what we would love to live in.
The phone rings. It is from someone in Washington. Are you Gloria Carmen? Almost, I say. We are going to connect you to Charles Schumer’s office and we want you to tell them that you oppose the big oil companies as they try to rip the system off. OK, I say, connect me. I have something here that rips my system too. Schumer can’t help me with this, I’m sure. There is nobody to enlist since I am in charge. This is the world that I create for my experiences. I made some choices that do not work for me now and I can change them. Maybe I can change the oil companies too. Don’t they want to live where the birds and the water are? Don’t they see how thin is the reality that they fight about?