We must ask ourselves, Who am I and who do I want to be? Once we truly understand who we want to be, we can learn the fine art of “being” or living in that energy field in our daily lifestyle. We are constantly challenged to break our old habits of “thinking and doing” to allow change to become a part of our everyday human existence.
Robyn O'Neil, graphite on paper, 2008 “Recently, I was a guest artist/professor at Rice University and the University of Houston, doing studio visits with graduate and undergraduate students, and this is what I keep trying to tell younger artists, because so many of their ideas come from, like, “I love Bob Dylan, so I’m going to make…portraits of Bob Dylan!” You know? That kind of literal transcription of their own interests or influences instead of something more subtle or powerful. I think you want to jar people, or at least I want to jar people, and confuse them about these things, to make it exciting if they do talk to me about it and find out what’s in there.’” Robyn O'Neil
I read an interview with Robyn O'Neil recently in Believer Mag. I love discovering "new" artists, expressions, and ones that share some of my obsessions thrill me always. O'Neil writes about how her research into Nabokov's way of thinking and writing/association by studying his handwritten notes affected her very intensely. I can relate to this. As I learn about the reality of us as energy beings, I am even more fascinated with the vortexes of energy every thought, every word creates. The fact that Nabokov was a butterfly collector with a passion not easy to match, has intrigued me ever since I began to read Nabokov's writing. Sensory associations are everything, as energy. The time we live creating images for ourselves is not usually so important as the images themselves.
I recognize more clearly today how truly creative thinking supports the internal and eternal growth that my habitual thinking and behaviors resist. My physical habits of thinking and doing are well-developed. I’ve worked on some of them for decades, some for eons! My mother once described to me a pattern I lived as a child. She said she learned quickly that when I resisted doing something she asked me to do, she simply had to wait, ask again, wait, and ask again, and, though I said No again the third time, I would then do what she asked me to do. Once she recognized this pattern of my behavior, she had no more struggle. Of course, she understood this pattern long before I did.
I’ve thought a lot about this pattern of mine, when I have felt strongly about some idea, issue, or conversation. Sometimes I’ve seen the pattern clearly and changed it easily. Mostly it amuses me now to see it. When I get irritated, this gives me more clues again to how I created the pattern in the beginning – clinging as a child will to a favorite toy to my own thought in that moment; Don’t tell me what to do! Are you listening to me? Why don’t you agree!, etc. This week another example came up, and once I blew off my steam into the air around me, I laughed and felt the relief. My employer and I were talking about a work project, and as we discussed our ideas, we hit energy roadblocks. I felt my energy flares arise, but didn’t understand why exactly, beyond a frustration of wanting to “complete” the cycle of thinking and move our project on to the next phase, as I thought it was or should be, in my mind. Finally, I said, I don’t mean to be cantankerous, but I’m trying to be productive and move this on. My employer said, rather softly, You can be cantankerous sometimes, as she poured her coffee. I jumped on this with some relief, and said, Okay! Will you explain to me what makes me cantankerous in this conversation – how this is? Some of this I knew, as my tone of voice had grown hard, loud, and abrasive, but I didn’t understand exactly how I had created the cycle of energy. She said, Sometimes when I go beyond a thought you have, you resist, become argumentative, before coming around. I thought, Yes! I get fixed on a thought, and sink it into the ground as though it is anchored by roots, by concrete. My thinking mind (which in that moment I am defining as “I”) is challenged, and my ego buffer, as has been its habit, defends “me” with, “How dare you change!!”
Immediately, I remembered this 3-times no then Yes pattern I’ve lived since I was a child! Here is how I understand this now. When a “new” thought enters my mind, or my sphere of influence, if I am not instantly and consciously open to that thought energy as it changes and seeks the internal support of growth as “eternal growth,” my mind expanding, then I put the brakes on, control my thinking because I am not able to assimilate “new.” The energy of ego resistance rears its control, and I feel the absolutely controlling energy as a physical force within my body, and within the energy fields that create who I am in this moment. When I am controlled by my mind (mental) energy, I am pacing, guarding my thoughts from change. When I let myself go, soar the wind of the spirit energy, I recognize the restrictions of the physical clearly.
What a gift it is to consciously begin to know who we are so intimately, as energy beings, constantly in motion. Love honors us all, and in this time, the need for Love shows its face everywhere. I remember, to change our energy, we only need to know that we ARE energy!
to be continued.....
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