Blackout

During the storm a few days ago (well, the storm was in the morning and this happened at night) my street got a blackout.  This is a journal entry from that night.

Tonight the light was snatched away.  I left my painting and my preoccupations and was IN this old building.  A neighbor above shouted BLACKOUT! like Happy New Year's.  Neighbors coming outside into the night, laughing.  "So much for dinner!"  "I was cooking too!"  "It's the whole street!"  "Is the bar open?"  "Hell the bar is blackout too prolly."  "If only this had happened at schoo!"  "And Miss Carol's lights too?"

Wait a little while at my desk.  My eyes do have large dark windows for occasions such as this and I am just waiting as they widen, widen, widen before they cast out nets.  And your fingers are smarter than you know.

Light!  Even a little!  I get to the door by my knees and feet with antennae looking for bumps and sharp dangerous things.  My face hates to go forward because it's imagining a thousand ghostly walls to smash it flat.  Screen door, open.  cool night.  Sweet rain.  Patter, wet leaves, a taxi drives by with a light on, their voices ("Dad, the cars still have lights")  the sweet sad wind, the old train voice.  Silver thinned with black in my dim house.  a candle!  Brighter than a star.  I never knew a candle was so bright.  So a candlelit room at night: once I thought of that as a dark room but now I see this as a room where forms can emerge and singing yellow stars restore the world I know.

When the lights came on it was like bleach like chalk and a little sadly I saw myself once more close and lock the outside door.

the body inside the body

A lot of my artwork is about the experience of being in a body because this takes up a huge part of my life.  One of my favorite quotes ever is by one of my favorite inspirational people ever, the Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno, who said something like if you want to know yourself you can start by observing everything you can about your own body.

As a child I was gentle and wimpy.  I was always the last one chosen for the kickball team.  At 12 I grew too fast for my bones and my knee got permanently messed up.  It’s been fixed, but still is not normal and one leg is much smaller and weaker than the other because I never do the therapy like I’m supposed to.

At 21 I was like an old woman, always tired.  It’s hard to remember now, but my energy level was listless as rotten flowers.  A model in my art school, an absolutely beautiful dancer named Kendra, invited me to come with her to a Qigong class in the lower east side because she thought I was far too young to have so little energy. 

I did go, and was it a great calming experience that solved my problem?  No it was not.  It was horrible!  It was probably one of the most physically horrible experiences of my life!  We did standing meditation, you just breathe and stand.  You relax your head- then your shoulders- arms- chest- stomach- at this point my body screamed at me that it was going to fly to pieces and I was going to DIE if I relaxed my stomach.  I bravely kept taking deep breaths but my body was not kidding.  I passed out in front of everyone- crash!  My gentle but firm teacher led me to her kitchen and gave me a blanket and water and I finished the class lying down under her kitchen table trembling and curled up into a ball.

She said it meant I was sensitive to Qi and if you have reactions like this, Qigong is the best thing you can do.  It’s healing you.

I did stick Qigong not so much to heal myself but because of the beauty of the movements.  You see it was Soaring Crane Qigong, and I loved to move like that huge and beautiful bird and that feeling of flying. But off and on I did have to deal with cold sweats, terrors, nausea, shaking, and there were more times when I did have to go back under the table. 

Later in my life I did simpler forms of Qigong that were not so difficult and had a good experience with them, but I still find it too powerful an energy rush for me so now I do yoga which seems for me gentler.  But I do meditate (sitting down) each morning, and some of the feelings from that first Qigong lesson I still am dealing with, in sitting meditation.

So meditation is supposed to be really calming, la la la.  Not for me, not usually.  For me it’s like a workout.  My experience with meditation is so visceral and so physical it can be more draining than a visyana yoga class.  And I’m not a beginner beginner, really, it’s been 2 years since I’ve been doing this.  The same nausea and panic.  The same voice that screams if you relax your stomach you will fall into pieces and you are going to DIE.  (But now I know that if you feel like you’re going to pass out, for heaven’s sake STOP!  Lie down!)

But lately, after 2 years, an amazing thing has happened.  First of all these difficult times come around less often.  Secondly when the panic does come, and all the physical unpleasantness, I never fell to pieces and I’m not dead.  The intensity of the feelings lessened, so much.  I am able to ride them out and I can observe them and they do go away.

I find this process very interesting, the process of the movement of energy inside me, like weather, like storms and storms passing.   And I started writing about it to try- can I capture on paper something so subtle, so delicate?  To even perceive it in my body I have to be so still (all these crazy feelings only come when I sit still and breathe, not when I'm walking around doing my day). I have tried to remember this passage of energy in words and in some drawings.  

 It’s a very simple movement of energy I am tracing.  I feel tightness like a black ball of tar in the solar plexus (that’s right under your heart, the area in the triangle of the rib cage.)  Then the tightness dissolves (crying often accompanies this) and a lightness fills me like clear as running water.  That is what I would like to share today. 

The sketches are from a sketchbook and the pencil mark is really tentative, soft.  I had to doctor them up with the contrast in photoshop so you can see them on your computer.

The black ball of tar under the ribcage:

One day as it dissolved it was like a flock of white birds literally flew out of my chest.

 Sometimes, if I don’t get too scared of it, it is a tremendous energy a like gold light

 Some writings from my journal:

Feeling of anxiety:

drawing a soft breath

I can pet the baby animal in my lungs

with a touch.

Between my lungs and under my heart

there is a baby bird

with a tiny heart that beats too fast

*

Feeling of fear:

my stomach is small and black  like a tar ball.

inside there is a hole.

the hole appears to be small

but goes back as far as the universe.

in a place with no ground

I cannot rest

I’ll fall to pieces…

*

Crying again:

tiny bird for a stomach

little claws, for a heart

press behind me

hot, snot, salty

tears press slowly through

if you can’t bear it, who will?

*

How does it feel to cry?

Stomach is red, hard,heavy, black and filled

with something ashy, something hot

tight violin strings.

tears,

I know you’re there.

How does it feel to cry?

Shivers that start on your back

melt stomach

warm eyes

poignant and tart.

Morning is gray like a mockingbird

breath of daylight

my lungs are two white flowers.

Stomach goes soft,

like a limp magnolia,

cool and hollow in the middle,

a goose’s belly,

a baby rabbit,

a breast,

white lemon scent of a star,

this is the fragrance of the moon.

Top row of teeth clench

bottom row of teeth

nickel-plated chain

they are falling open

like the soft decaying petals

of a flower.

a Clear feeling:

With every breath that pushes it out

I make a big red rose in my belly.

My throat is a shaft of sunlight

My head is just a basket for soft green leaves

And my smile is the sun thru rainclouds