feelings

As part of the healing I am doing right now, after the break up of my relationship with Andy, I have been seeing a counselor for an hour once a week. It is really good work I am doing there and I wanted to share a little part of my journey back to myself with you here.

I am a feelings person. I have very strong, and at times overwhelming feelings. In the past (and of course even now) the intensity of my feelings have stopped me from functioning as my true self. I also realise that I have found it very difficult to express 'negative feelings'  like anger, dislike, dissatisfaction, hurt and sadness. At my session last week my counselor asked me to run my hands through a basket of pebbles and chose the one that felt, to me, like those stored feelings.

This is the pebble I chose. She then asked me where in my body I was carrying it, this hard rock of bad feelings. I placed the stone, where I felt it, on my diaphragm underneath my rib cage. My counselor gently let me know that I needed to do something about that hard little rock before it turned into something more serious and more physical. 

She then gave me home work of making an art work of what 'feelings' are for me.

These are my feelings, in fact this is me.
The whole complete circle.
Making this drawing was so eye opening for me and I realised so many things about my feelings.

They are colourful and each of them beautiful in it's own right.

They are not isolated things, instead they meld and blend and flow.

Some like anger and creativity are the opposite to each other.

I see that the white inner core is my pure self (my Buddha nature/ essence of Gaia/ whatever you want to call that beautiful pure connectedness to the universe). That my pure self looks through a layer or filter of whatever I am feeling at that moment and thus whatever I am seeing or experience is coloured in some way by my own feelings.

Equally my response is filtered back out through that feeling and will emerge into the world coloured by the emotion it emanates through. I learned today (a week on) that I want to be able to live life as my pure self, I want to make decisions as my own self and not in the state of an emotion. I realise that it is possible to give my inner self time to speak, to quieten the emotions long enough to let me true self speak from the heart.

I see that sadness (above) is so like rain, and tears like rain are cleansing and give new life.

At the moment I am allowing this information to sink in. I know that in time I will learn how to live and breathe as my true self and to see my emotions in a more detached way. For now I am marveling in their beauty and the beauty of having time to learn about my true self.

What do your feelings look like?

experiencing the Ewe

Yesterday was my 31st Birthday and I got to do something that I have been wanting to do for ages. We visited the Ewe experience in Glengarriff (http://www.theewe.com/) and it was just the best, most magical day. It is definitely more than a sculpture gallery or display or even garden. It truly is an experience a feast for all senses and a delight for all ages. The setting is incredible; it has a little waterfall, a steam with pools, beautiful woodland, vistas over the west Cork hills, a gorgeous garden and house. The whole place is sustainable and eco and it has been created with love and care poured into every detail.

We started our visit with a delicious cream tea (it had been a long drive after all). It was better than any theme park for the children. There was so much to do and see and experience without the noise and bustle and craziness. There was such a sense of peace and tranquility that poured into every person that was there. I saw no unhappy, whinging, winy people, not one!

The sculptures were fabulous and were of all sorts of different media, with different messages.

Some celebrated motion and movement.

Others were humorous, many were hidden within the landscape.

There were many made of natural materials that blended into the setting There were lots of spaces for people to make their own sculpture, to get down and play with natures building materials.

There were dinosaurs

but we weren't scared (well, not really).

We became part of the sculptures, here Benny is being part of a great sundial, his shadow was telling us it was nearly 2 o'clock (time to have our picnic).

There were games to play

and adventures to be had.

What fuel for the imagination! Have you ever seen such royalty?

On every level the kids enjoyed it. Joa was awash with texture and smells and sights and sounds. He walked most of the way himself, climbing over rocks and pausing over the bridges to watch the stream run underneath.

There was a great deal of picking up stones and putting them down somewhere else.

Rebe's own frog sculpture :-)

Benny found Ninian The Terrible's key!

Although we were all looking at the same things in the same places we all saw something different. Here Joa is looking past the man-(well woman) made sculptures of fish and is pointing at the water falling down the rocks behind the art. The movement and the noise of the water was what caught and held his attention, while I feasted my eyes on the shapes made by a very clever artist.

There was a 'spin the rock' for story telling.

Rebe had a 'call of nature'

I was moved by words.

We ended our trip with edible ice cream sculptures, oh so tasty :-)

It was a completely brilliant birthday :-)

An exhibition of paintings...

...by me.

(please excuse the quality of the pictures, many of these are photos of photos of the paintings)

I used to paint, I don't any more. I have always 'felt' artistic, and when I first moved to Ireland I tried to find expression for my creativity through painting. I tried a few kinds of media first, but fell in love with oil paints after my mum and dad gave me some for my birthday. This was my first ever attempt at oil painting. It is a picture of a wrecked boat that was grounded next to the harbour in Cobh. Technically I was really pleased with the painting and Andy loves it so it still hangs above our fireplace and probably always will.

As well as trying different media I also struggled to find a subject I liked to paint. For a time after starting painting I really wanted to do a portrait of Rebe. I held off and held off because I was so scared I would never be able to her justice.

Although I don't think I did do her justice, (is it truly possible to capture the beauty of people in pictures?) I think that I captured a special moment in time. I used to love watching her in just a wee vest watching the bath water fill, the excitement and anticipation on her face.

I started doing baby portraits for a while after that. I preferred to do non-formal poses...

My friend Amy's special twin boys. I painted this as a welcome to the world gift.

This was a commission from another friend of mine. The woman is the baby's godmother. They didn't manage to get a photo of them together at the christening so she asked me to paint one of them together using 2 separate photos of the day.

This is a copy of an Ingres painting called 'The Bather'
It is one of my all time favourite paintings and I loved painting her. The painting is about 4 foot high and hangs at the top of the stairs. It is another one that I hope will always hang :-)

This last painting was from a series of monochrome paintings I did.

All of them were of people in 'real life'; not too pleasant situations. I loved painting these and they really seemed to speak to people; all 6 of the series sold.

I liked painting these because they made me realised that painting was a pretty powerful voice. By sharing these images with others I could tell them how I felt about certain issues and situations. It was an incredibly powerful realisation and it prompted me into looking into doing workshops with people 'at risk' using painting as a means of constructive social criticism...but I fell pregnant with Benny and my love of painting ground to a halt.

I have fallen out of love with painting, it is too much effort to find a place for my paintings to be painted, to dry and to be shown. For a few years I created very little (apart from children) and then I discovered crafts, particularly knitting and working with felt and more recently doll making and sewing.

I may come back to painting one day, in fact I have quite a strong image of my future self; in my 50's, my kids grown and gone and myself living quietly, painting.


But for now art isn't so important in this house...well who needs it really when you have the washing machine to entertain you ;-)