It is apparent to me, as I sit down to write my reflections prior to my last module, how ChI has helped to shape my experiences for the last two years. Just as a medical student is convinced he has contracted every major disease he studies, I have taken on the lens of each world religion during the period that I have been studying it. I believe that because thoughts shape our experiences, the mirroring provided by each spiritual tradition has actually altered my path to this place and time.
The truest markers of my journey are the art pieces that I do along the way. These serve as waking dreams. I place them on my altar so that I can observe them and continue to plumb their meaning. Particularly at times when I feel overwhelmed or moved, I pick up a brush so that I can discern the many colors of my experience.
Last month when my twin sister Denise was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma, the only thing I knew to do as she got dressed, got in the car, and drove to the surgeon’s office was to paint a picture of my love and support for her. In this case, I used Picasso’s Two Women Running on the Beach as my inspiration to do a modified blind contour drawing.
www.paintinghere.com/painting/Two_Women_Running_on_the_Beach_The_Race_2851.html
When doing blind contour drawing, I allow my pen to travel across the paper in response to what I am seeing. I look at my own design only sparingly, to make sure that elements stay in proper relationship to each other. In this way, I keep my left-brain asleep so that I can get lost in the lines, textures and colors of my subject. I do not try to draw in a way that 'makes sense'; I just let my intuition guide me from the inside out.
Logic kicks in only after I have added watercolor. At that stage, I note any distortions and exaggerations, and I wonder at their significance.
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I remember my first words to my twin sister when she told me that she had melanoma. I told her that this would be an opening to her, and that it would help her to live her life with greater intention and gratitude. I wanted to skip to “all better” before she even had room to breathe into her own fear.
When I look at the sister who is in the lead in my painting, the one with whom I identify, I see that my desire has made me monstrously misshaped. My forward arm is huge in its grasping, and my feet are rendered awkward and clumsy. My ludicrously nurturing breast seems to extend right out of my throat. I have my eyes fastened on the clouds, rather than seeing where I place my feet. But my 'missing of the mark' is best expressed in the relationship of our hands. Mine is huge and claw-like; hers is recoiled.
I try to extend her grasp with paint, but there’s no hiding the fact that this is her experience alone. We each must each find a way within ourselves to understand what is happening.
Comparing my painting to the original, the greatest truth I see is my love for my sister. I believe that she felt my presence with her in the surgeon’s office and could sense my tears of relief when she found that the cancer had been totally removed.
My study of Buddhism illuminated my experience and became the magnifying glass that allowed me to understand my response—not just to my sister’s condition, but also to my own. For just as Denise was celebrating her reprieve, I broke out in a severe rash that covered my arms and legs, also making its way to my throat. Within a day, I found myself without a voice and—for the first time in memory—homebound by illness. Soon I also lost my hearing on the left side. What was going on?
“The present is the only time that we have to know anything. It is the only time we have to perceive, to learn, to act, to change, to heal.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Full Catastrophe Living, p. 29)
Perhaps my body gave me the gift of illness so that I would have time for reflection. Can I find the surrender that I need to be able to embrace life—just as it is?
Through the practice of mindfulness, I learn simply to become aware of my fears and blocks, becoming an observer without trying to change or fix anything. I grow to realize that each situation is part of a whole, containing seeds for hope and healing within its very nature.
Losing my voice and hearing, I learn to allow.
I am not my pain; I am simply consciousness that inhabits this moment.
“Just as the chariot of the king grows old,
so does the body age.
But the teachings of the holy ones never grow old—
for they reveal the truth directly.”
(Dhammapada, 11:6)
I return again to my painting. I realize that the woman who represents Denise embodies this truth. Her eyes are directly overhead, and there is an unmistakable smile on her face. She is the sister who stays present in the moment. She knows her symptoms and feelings are only messengers from her body, present for her learning. There is nothing to muscle into place to ensure her safety. There is only stepping beyond what Einstein refers to as the 'optical delusion of consciousness', to a place of knowing that she is part of a whole, like a wave within the ocean.
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Now that weeks have passed since my sister’s crisis, she does speak of living each day with greater connection and intention. But as if to underline the truth of my painting, she says the words that helped her most in the days leading to her surgery were my guidance for when she would wake up at night and find herself filled with dread. That was when she would remind herself that she was safe. She would feel the sheets beneath her skin, and breath into each part of her body, and simply return to the moment.
I notice, as I approach ordination, that the comfort I extend to others is often exactly what I need to take into myself. I am grateful for the deep learning that my sister has given me. And I am thankful once again that ChI has provided me with the perfect spiritual resources and inspiration to find meaning within the sometimes-distorted shapes of my experiences.