Soul Collage: Committee Suit "The Restless Self"

I have been feeling this intense sense of restlessness lately.  The need for change - something new.  I really think this has to do with my stage in life: 43 years old - married almost 19 years.  The questions of "Is this all there is?" and "Do I ever get to feel that sense of novelty, thrill and excitement again?" keep bubbling up to the surface.

The background is an exploding volcano - so much destructive energy.  I am a little worried that my restless energy could become destructive - doing something I will regret later.  But most of that background is covered up.  So maybe that is a good thing.  Keep it contained.

There is the speedboat that probably represents thrill and excitement but also luxury and indulgence.  A bit of dangerous playfulness too.  The jar with the lightning bolt conveys a bottled up power force.  As if that cork is going to pop off any second.  Could be alcohol, "tiger's blood" or just potential energy.  Right now I feel I have so much to share, but no outlet for it.

I picked the gun - not for a violent image, but as another symbol of power.  "If I can not gain your respect, I will just take it!"  Fear. There is a credit card coming out of the top of the gun -  I did not even see that until I started cutting it out - credit is potential money, money is potential power.  Really starting to feel the pressures of money, or lack of.

I am a bit baffled by the  tree trunk body / TV headed figure.  It seems frightened and confused. I am frightened and confused by all this bottled energy.  How do I sublimate it without hurting myself or others around me? I am also uncertain of the meaning of the leopard.  It seems to be stalking its' prey.  Maybe it's a "cougar".  What is it I am "Stalking"?

I think I need to stop thinking about all the exciting things that I don't have, and refocus on what already exists in my life that I can get excited about.

Soul Collage: Committee Suit "The Warrior"

This started out as "The Warrior". I wanted to portray my strength.  I am a strong person - physically and mentally.  I maintain my strength through the practice of martial arts and distance running. I travel for work, and I am often alone.  I need to feel strong when I am in a strange city. I trust that, if I had to, I could protect myself.  It may be a false sense of security, but I believe that we all need to live our lives with a sense of security - false or not.  If we do not live with some delusions, than life may be too hard to handle.  Maybe that is what causes people to be depressed. They live without delusion. They only see reality, without the silver-lining or rose-colored glasses  We need our delusions.

But I digress...

This collage became about something else. Now this collage seems to be about opposites.  I love the jockey on the snail.  Not sure why I originally chose this image.  So often my life is a "Hurry up and wait" or maybe it's that I expect to hurry things that just can not be rushed.  When I achieved my 1st degree Black Belt  I though I was a badass.  However, my Sensei told me that NOW I was a student just beginning my journey. I often try to rush the process.

I placed the woman swinging a pick-axe at balloons.  Overkill when a small pin would do the job?  Using the wrong tools for the job.  Bigger and more aggressive is not always better. Sometimes, it seems, that I make my life seem much more difficult than it is.  Am I working too hard at things that should be simpler?

However it could be something completely different.  On occasion a balloon can be deceptively difficult to pop.  Stronger than it looks.  Just like me!

New Assignment!! The SoulCollage

I will be starting on a new art assignment.  This will be a weekly art activity, as opposed to a daily one.
I will be doing a technique called "The SoulCollage, created by Ms. Seena Frost.  The SoulCollage process is an intuitive way to tend the soul and explore the psyche at the same time.  Some images that I will choose may show parts of my multi-layered personality, while others will express archetypes, personal animals guides or my community.  I will create an entire Soul Collage deck to address many aspects of myself.  Just like in a traditional deck of cards, there are four suits to the SoulCollage:
1. The Committee Suit: The Psychological Dimension
2. The Community Suit: The Communal Dimension
3. The Companion Suit: The Energetic Dimension
4. The Council Suit: The Archetypal Dimension

I have begun with the Committee Suite (I love the word committee because of all the double letters).   Here I am taking a deep look at all the different aspects of my personality - you know, the voices in my head.  This week's choice I am calling "The Confused Parent".

I have moved from the young child parenting stage into the teenager/young adult parenting stage.  This new stage is so vastly different that I am reassessing who I am and where do I fit into this relationship - the boundaries just are not as clear.

Okay, so here's what I came up with...The background is a map because I need some direction and/or because I am lost.  Than we have the person rubbing their eyes in this universal "I give up/I can't cope" gesture.  The eyes are closed and the glasses are removed so I can not see or see clearly.  Maybe I have the tools (the glasses) but I am just not using them properly at the moment.

The top of the head has been replaced by a clock - time ticking away.  This is a very different type of internal biological clock that I felt when I was ready to have babies.  This clock is my life and opportunities slipping away.  The feeling of "I will never do ______ again".  Fill in the blank with "push a child on a swing", "get into shananagans with my friends", "fall in love".

Notice that at the bottom, there is organic baby food that is morphing into alcohol.  How did I get from being in control of everything to almost nothing?  I used to know what/when/where they ate/played/pooped/slept.  Now I am lucky if I get eat one meal a day with them or even meet their friends.  It hasn't happened yet, but I am waiting the day when one of the daughters comes home drunk and puking from a party (oh yes, it will happen eventually).

There is a stack of hundred dollar bills behind the right side of the head and hands.  Money is a big issue right now. I hate that it is.  I feel that at this stage of my life there should be less financial struggle. But the struggle is there everyday, and it becomes more obvious as designer clothes are requested, driver's license are archived and collage approaches. As I get older, their stuff gets more expensive.

Finally, in the upper right corner (the future) is a dinosaur skull. Every day I feel like I am more and more obsolete and archaic.  Sometimes I can not even understand the conversations taking place right in front of me - it's like they are speaking a foreign language.  I feel old. I am struggling to hang on to youth, but having teenagers is a constant reminder that youth belongs to them.

So there it is... "The Confused Parent"  The first in the Committee Suit.

Day 65: Mahogany

Last Day of Crayola Crayon project.  Sad.  Not a great place to end.  Bad day.

My private practice has dwindled to almost nothing in the past few months.  I had one client scheduled today and she cancelled (she's agoraphobic, so she cancels about every-other appointment).  So, I went in to the office anyway, because I was expecting some checks in the mail - NOTHING.

Money is diminishing quickly from every direction.  I was lecturing in Toledo and Detroit last week, very low turn out for the seminars and almost no sales of book and/or DVDs.  No one signed up for my webinar this week. I am to the point where I am considering having to give up my office and practice, because I am barely seeing enough clients to cover rent and expenses.

This economic depression has finally hit here, and it has hit hard.  I feel like Dorothy, where everything I know and identify with has suddenly been pulled out from under me.  I know this is happening all over the country and many people are worse off, but I am at the point where I need to rethink my career path.  Is private practice still a viable livelihood?  If not, where do I go from here?  The rules have completely changed, and I do not even know who I am anymore.  If I am no longer an Art Therapist, who am I?

Day 64: Orchid

Before I even looked at the color name, "Orchid" I felt that I wanted to draw either lotus flowers or water-lilies (are they the same thing?)  Something about this color reminded me of Monet's "Waterlily" paintings, but the word "lotus flower" was more prominent in my head.  I Google Imaged "Lotus Flower".

I have not researched the lotus flower, but my understanding is that this type of flower grows up out of the muck.  That is why it is such a powerful Eastern metaphor for rebirth.  Also representative of being pure of body and floating above the muddy waters.  I feel like right now I am in mucky waters.  Money problems.  Navigating through parenting adolescent girls without them hating me all the time.  Trying to find excitement in a 19 year relationship.  Renegotiating my career, because the rate of incoming clients has diminished significantly and in direct proportion to the declining economy.  But I know "This too will pass".  As every other hard time in my life has - it comes to an end and things look brighter on the other side.  But while I am here it is dark and hard to hold on.

Yesterday I had lunch at Wolf Creek Restaurant and Brewing Co in Agoura Hills, CA with three of my friends from my martial arts class (Team MMA in Woodland Hills).  We were celebrating an upcoming wedding. We decorated our lunch table with beautiful pink lily and white hydrangea center pieces, and I took one home after lunch.   I just walked through my kitchen, and smell of that beautiful lily fills the entire room.  Although I did not think of this flower at the time, I am sure I was subconsciously influenced by that smell and the colors.

There is one more crayon left in my 64 box of Crayola Crayons.  Any guesses as to what that last color might be?  

Day 63: Melon

I wanted to make this look like watermelon, and it does a little bit, but that is so hard to accomplish with just one color.  I really want to use more than one color!! Now that I am looking at it, it looks like a bowl of lentil soup. (I'm not even hungry - just finished dinner - left over Indian food from last night).

I was not really motivated to draw today.  I am thinking about what I should do with all the used crayons. I have been saving them all - most are broken and many have the wrappers removed. I want to melt them together and make some final project.  I am thinking of one giant multicolored crayon.  Or maybe I should create (or purchase) a mold of some kind.

I need your suggestions...

Bonus:  for some reason I have TWO more crayons left in my box.  I am thinking that I must have picked up some crayon from another stash early on (I do believe that I have two "Red Violet" drawings).  Anyhow, you all get an extra day!  Yeah!

Day 62: Cerulean

This morning I was watching "CBS Sunday Morning".  You know how they always have the elaborately drawn sun between segments?  I was inspired, and I told myself that when I sit down to draw later today I will draw a really cool sun.  That was at 9am.

After an hour and a half of MMA class, grocery shopping, a shower, straightening up the house, seeing "Limitless" with my friend Justine (the movie was awesome BTW), then picking up Indian food for dinner, and sending out an email to try to find parent volunteers for an event at our middle school, I finally sat down to draw at 8pm.

I still intended to draw a sun.  I even Google imaged "CBS Sunday Morning suns". Somehow, my sun started out as a moon, than stars, than what looks much more like an octopus than a sun.

So, what's going on?  Well, for starters, it IS night time - so the moon makes sense.  The three stars? I am thinking those exist because it was just me and the daughters for dinner tonight.  I really want to try to reconnect with them.  Older daughter asked me today, when she drove me to pick up the Indian food, "Are you mad at me?"  I wasn't.  She said, "You seem like you are mad at me." I was actually in a good mood, so I was surprised.  Than she added, "Well, I know you hate younger daughter, and I think sometimes you hate me too."

We were not even fighting.  This makes me sad.  I am hard on younger daughter.  She can be lazy and easily distracted, so I am redirecting her more often than her sister.  I guess I need to lighten up a little.  This is the type of thing that future therapy session will focus on.

How about the octopus?  Sometimes I feel like I am doing so many things that I need eight arms to get it all done.  I think that the octopus is a fascinating creature.  It is better at camouflaging itself than a chameleon.  (check out this youtube video of the octopus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM&feature=related).  Maybe the sun became more of an octopus because of the color - Cerulean.  Its a blueish under water color.

 I just looked up "cerulean" and Wikipeadia says it is "derives from caelulum, diminutive of caelum, "heaven, sky". Interesting that I made a sun/moon/stars image with THIS color. There is something to be said for Carl Jung's idea of the collective unconscious.  There are things that we know without knowing.