A friend’s practice inspires a change of heart

My theatre partner and I saw a completely forgettable show last week, but a story she shared with me over dinner is a keeper:  her words of practice inspired a change of heart. 

We have had a rainy year. The water table in Baltimore has been rising. And recently the temperatures have been frigid – a time of year when “black ice” on the road and underfoot invites skids and falls.  As water poured into the road from a property across the street from her house, Marilyn had a growing concern about how to resolve this, considering what persuasive or even legal means might be at hers and others’ disposal. A longtime Quaker, she told me how she had woken from sleep the day before with this dilemma on her mind, with these words from her contemplative practice: “Let’s see what love can do.” Moving into the day and into action, she talked with some of her neighbors and then her city councilman’s office. By the end of the day salt boxes from the city were delivered and in place.

While the problem is not completely solved, the energy around the issue has shifted to a completely different mode.

We marveled together.

 

You can meet multiskilled Integrative Psychotherapist Marilyn Clark here.

 

Marilyn’s story and words have been working me:  “Let’s see what love can do.”

They shift my rhythm, and hence the way I move with life. Because one of the peculiarities of my functioning has been a split between my cognitive and emotional functions, and they move at different speeds. I have worked with the symptoms of this for years: feeling isolated, unmet, misunderstood. Isolating others, failing to meet or understand them.

It is only recently that I have actually been able to name this behavioral, and physiological, split. For years I have been mystified and troubled by my ability to speak eloquently and passionately on behalf of social causes, moral and ethical positions, justice in the world, awakening and healing – while remaining unable to advocate for myself one on one when my own deep-felt needs are at stake. I can be coolly rational OR express (mostly dissolve into) an emotional state, a deep ravine between the two. I’ve focused my personal healing work on this dilemma the last number months: my dark light.

If you grew up in an emotional desert, and learned to keep your feelings to yourself, or even secret from yourself, you may be familiar with this pattern. This is a great set-up for regularly failing to ask for what is needed and receive it – or not. And for indirect means to get unarticulated needs met: a recipe for one disappointment after another.

Then there is the lag time – ask me what I am thinking or feeling after my words do not have the effect I intend or following a heated exchange: I don’t know. I need to go away and settle down. Sometimes five minutes is enough. Sometimes I need twenty-four hours. Or a number of days.

 

I used to think that when I pulled away, I was cowardly. Or stubborn: if I can’t get my way here, I am not willing to negotiate or compromise. Or small-minded: I just won’t/can’t agree to disagree. Sometimes it feels like I am stepping on the accelerator and the brakes at the same time. And yes, I can give myself whiplash. While I have no doubt that I can lack both courage and willingness to negotiate, as I consider “what love can do,” I can allow for and work with my own disordered rhythms.

“Let’s see what love can do” brings vividness to my dilemma, throws a suspension bridge over the ravine, and offers me solace. The words reorient my system. They presence what creative business coach Jeffrey Davis calls “qualitative slowness.”  They transform the self-judgment into a nod of the head: oh, right, I am human. Again. Still. The words lessen my urgency to retreat, and instead bring forward a wiser part of myself who has just been hanging back.

 

“Let’s see what love can do” brings about in me a change of heart. And that is what I am here for.

 

Practice:

Start where you are, as you are. Perhaps while reading, your thoughts went to a particular relationship or situation, or a rush of feelings came up. Hold the dilemma lightly, as if it were a small bird in the palm of your hand. Wonder at it. Take in its shape and its effects on you. Let the details be very vivid. Then just say to yourself, and to the dilemma – “Let’s see what love can do” – and notice what shifts in your body, your feeling state, your perception.

Please share in the comments. Your story may ease some difficulty for another reader, as Marilyn’s did for me, and bring about a change of heart.

 

 

On North Avenue, A Chance Encounter with Dignity

A chance encounter with dignity: we were headed in different directions, our destinations – and everything else – unknown to one another.

A portion of North Avenue, formerly a city limit, is home to a jumble of long-time African-American neighbors, creatives, young entrepreneurs, and people passing through. Rich with their assorted cultural resources. 

It’s one place in Baltimore where racial and class silos are just a bit permeable. People mix it up on the street. At the corner of North Avenue and North Charles Street. At Red Emma’s, where you can pay it forward for a cuppa joe and browse radical lit. At the Y-Not Lot, home to community gatherings like the mourning after the Pulse shootings. At Impact Hub, a co-working and civic forum space. I was headed there yesterday to learn about the work of B-CIITY: Baltimore City Intergenerational Initiatives for Trauma and Youth. 

More about them another time: that event was cancelled at the last minute, making room for a different encounter.

 

North Avenue, Tuesday morning

by Sara Eisenberg

 

how ‘bout we exchange a little love?

you said,

throwing your left arm wide 

open for a hug.

 

awlriiiight, I said,

turning back to you

with a natural affection.

 

you’d spent four bucks

on a bus pass and had not

eaten, i had

a couple of bucks

to spare.

 

we turned away, headed in different

directions,

I had a clear destination, 

arrived to find 

B-CIITY’s event cancelled, so

 

(ten minutes) 

 

there you were, reached out

again, 

standing at the bus stop, half

a hot sandwich wrapped

in paper

 

made my day,

you said

turns out I came down here just to meet you,

I said

 

you looked emaciated, even a lightweight

jacket sat heavy on your

shoulders but

you had a destination too

 

and dignity

to spare.

 

Banner photo: Common Threads, by Linda Carmel, Hillsborough Gallery, Hillsborough, North Carolina

It’s not about anything but love

It’s curious how I’ve been drawn back repeatedly to an area in the Catskills that I have visited regularly for close to forty years. Clearly it has been home to me in some way I have not been able to name.

There is a “there” there, but what is its nature?

Spiritual initiations and awakening, weeks of study and following ashram discipline, Jewish Renewal retreats, gatherings with healing colleagues, meditation and prayer and practice – and family events. For the past eight years the family events have included pilgrimages to Stagedoor Manor, a camp for serious theatre geeks from which my grandson will “graduate” in a few weeks, then head off to college.

But what is it really that has drawn me back over and over again?

As I drove south through Sullivan County a few days ago, returning to Baltimore after a camp performance week-end, I once again considered this question. When my daughter and I arrived on Friday afternoon, we had been greeted with a double rainbow. The weather had been sunny and pleasant with a few heavy downpours. As we left were still under the influence of Saturday evening’s gloriously silver full moon. Nature was certainly at its kindest this trip.

And we had been inspired by six shows from Friday through Saturday evening, full of gifted and spirited acting and song, and enjoyed the particular dance that happens every summer as various family members and friends disperse go to different shows and come back together to exchange “wows!”

….and then I heard these words spoken in the voice of one of my teachers:

It’s about love.

It’s always been about love.

It’s not about anything but love.

When I thought it was about wisdom, it was about love.

When I thought it was about skill, it was about love.

When I thought it was about duty, it was about love.

And what is the nature of that love?

The nature of that love is action, not sentiment.

In Hebrew, the word for love is Ahava, which has a numerical value of thirteen. The word for One is Echad, which also has a numerical value of thirteen. Coupled, in relationship, their value is 26, the numerical value of the Unpronounceable Name of God.

And so it goes: we think that we travel, we think we gather and disperse, we think we study, we think we perform on stage or off.

While what we really do is love.

Receive and give over and over again.

Express the One – endlessly and concretely. Humanly, that is to say imperfectly.

Sing the Unpronounceable with our imperfect human actions.

 

 

At an intersection: But what do you love to do?

“But what do you love to do?”

JC has stopped me in my tracks with his question. We have been sharing our respective histories and current engagements with activism and social justice, and I am suddenly and unaccountably inarticulate.

Here I am a couple of hours later trying to understand why.

I met JC Faulk as a facilitator of conversation circle events several times over the summer months, and we had spoken before. Long enough to discover our shared admiration and debt to Edie and Charlie Seashore, who had trained both of us in group skills and diversity work, albeit a half generation apart from one another. An unexpected intersection, rich with a shared understanding of group process.

Red Emma’s, where we met over breakfast, sits at its own notable intersection. Charles Street runs north-south. It is typically described as “Baltimore’s Main Street,” “a historic cultural corridor,” ripe for development and redevelopment, and “a place where people want to live.” North Avenue, which crosses Charles Street just outside the door, runs east-west. It is “targeted for revitalization, improved safety, economic opportunity and access for residents.” This corridor gained notoriety for the Uprising that took place about two miles west of here in April 2015. These corridors can easily stand in for the city’s racial and economic fault lines. Red Emma’s sits at this intersection, drawing a mix of customers from both corridors, a stew rich with possibilities. A rarity in Baltimore.

I have just written myself to a new understanding. Now I see that I am pinned by his question at my own intersection:

Who I am and who I wish I was. Who I am and how I’d like to see myself: more skilled, more willing, more courageous, tougher and more empathic, grittier and more loving, ready to put not just my voice but my body on the line. The for-real Sara and the idealized Sara. The Sara who wants to make a difference in the world, be a difference in the world and thinks she has to be some other person to do this. The Sara who has just effectively devalued her life’s work.

And oh, my. The fact that I have crossed and recrossed this bridge with pretty much every single client I have worked with over the years does not save me from the same dilemma.

Now that I have named this problematic intersection, here’s my answer, JC:

I love to write. It helps me to see myself more clearly, to see myself whole. When I share my writing and hear back that it has helped some readers see themselves whole, I am nourished even more.

I love to explore life’s challenges with another person, to see the light come on in someone’s eyes. See a face soften, a body relax or straighten up as it needs to.  A flash of understanding. The “oh,” or the silence that says: I really get that, I get that in a way that restores me to something essential in myself, I get that in a way that I can make a different choice, I get that in a way that I see you in a fresh way. I love to travel with someone as she takes root in herself, breaks through hard soil, and unfolds towards the sky.

I love to play a role in a community that shares a clear focus and intention for a common good. Every such group is an intersection of differences rich with possibilities.

I love to work with people who are ready to talk, and want practice. Help design welcoming and safe but not bland or superficial group meeting spaces. Where strangers can build lasting and resilient relationships over time, become allies and friends. Where we human beings can show up with our strengths and limitations. Grant one another dignity. Listen to and tell stories. Learn and teach. Be together in “we don’t know.” Shed tears and shake with laughter. Drop through anger and fear and open to heartbreak. Stand together. Grow, grow up, grow in self-responsibility. Build the generosity, willingness, fortitude, trust to have one another’s backs.

And by nourishing connection in these ways, draw down grace. Because when we humans come into relationship, especially when that relationship is big enough to hold our differences, the world does respond and signal.

I love to work with practice groups, where we can practice being imperfect, genuine human beings together, and carry that out into our lives.

Thanks for asking, JC.

Now, friends – read more about JC’s work here.

 How about you? What do you love to do?

A Touch of Hands: An Interview with Artist Sheri Hoeger

 

I’m delighted to continue my interview series by introducing visual artist Sheri Hoeger. Her recent series of paintings, A Touch of Hands: An Invitation to Loving Connection tells the story of Sheri’s personal journey towards wholeness, integration, and a new sense of mission in her art.

Sheri and I “met” as we responded to writing prompts through Tracking Wonder’s Quest 2016. We found we share a love of the textures of bark, sand, and rust, photos of our loved ones from the back – and the preciousness of waking up to life in each moment, whether that be a moment of joy, sorrow, or dailiness.

In her early adult years, Sheri’s work as a manicurist hinted at where she might be heading. Introduced to the airbrush, she brought out the beauty of her clients’ hands, garnering a local reputation for her custom nail designs. Then, as an interior decorative artisan since 1988, Sheri applied her skills to walls, floors, fabric, furniture and accessories.

Demand for her designs led her to launch her stencil line in 1992 as The Mad Stencilist. Her work has been featured in numerous books, magazines and on television. As lead designer and director of Big Oak Arts, she offered workshops and classes in the fine and decorative arts nestled in a beautiful setting in the Sierra foothills in Placerville, California.

This brings us to A Touch of Hands: An Invitation to Loving Connection, a series of paintings that Sheri describes as her “real” work– the result of her journey of recovery after the loss of three siblings in two years.

The project transforms the most painful time of the artist’s life into a “celebration of all the things a touch of hands can mean.” A celebration, too, of what she describes as her own “mindful practice of reaching out and sharing more, day in and day out. Folding it into my habits like chocolate chips into the dough.”

I am deeply touched by Sheri’s story. While two of her siblings lay dying, she took photos of one of her hands holding one of theirs- “clasped in love and pain and support, knowing their time here was not to be long.” She filed the pictures away, telling herself, “Some day, when I’m ready to do my serious artwork, I will paint them.”

After her losses, Sheri didn’t “soldier on.” She kindly allowed herself the time necessary to recuperate, and months later, she struck up a friendship with another woman. While listening to a presentation one evening, Sheri’s friend held her hand, and then snapped a picture of their hands with her phone camera. When Sheri received this photo in a text the following morning, she realized the synchronicity. Her friend didn’t know about the pictures Sheri had filed away. The time had come.

Sheri launched her A Touch of Hands series in the fall, her “straight-from-the-gut-through-the-heart work,” with an interactive Facebook page where she invites her readers to post photos of hands and the stories behind them.

A keen observer, Sheri is able to hold the beauty of the world along with the difficulties and complications of life. With honesty AND kindness, she acknowledges the messiness and then chooses to make something beautiful in response.

I trained myself to lock onto what I find beautiful that is right in front of me. Even in the most dire of circumstances the sight of an egret or the croak of a frog can lift my spirits. It triggers my sense of wonder, which brings me joy. It comforts me to know that all the rhythms of life are underlying even my saddest song. ~Sheri Hoeger

Sheri’s open-heartedness is married to her openhandedness: kindness, generosity, risk-taking, a mastered paintbrush. This allows her to transform photographic images with her intention, heart and brushstrokes, into living portraits of relationship.

There is such potent healing power in the way she connects people to the beauty in their lives.

The paintings don’t just tell my story, they tell all of our stories through something we all experience, something that is so important to our well-being and so common that many of us don’t really notice. But what if we were more mindful? ~Sheri Hoeger

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AN INTERVIEW WITH SHERI HOEGER

Connection, comfort and deeper understanding are my currency, and knowing that I’m doing something that feels important.

Artist Sheri Hoeger
Artist Sheri Hoeger

Sara: For many years you have worked primarily as a decorative artist, in others’ homes and spaces, and found great satisfaction and joy in creating for them visual connections with what was important to them. How has that prepared you now to launch your own your “straight-from-the-gut-through-your-heart” work, A Touch of Hands?

Sheri: I have always been happy to explore and paint so many kinds of things because I was working for other people.

I remember a client wanting to have oranges underneath her whole archway. I thought, “Oranges? I don’t know why she wants oranges.” Then I started drawing oranges, and “Omigosh, look at how the leaves are, how could I not have always loved oranges?”
IMG_3676I interviewed people at length, and incorporated things that were symbolic or metaphors that only family would get, little private jokes. Or with a pet portrait, the owner wants to capture that love, how it feels to be with their animal.

My favorite projects were always where I could help connect people to what was important to them, the love in their lives. Somehow those thoughts and intentions come through in the painting.

When painting for myself, that became difficult. If images were beautiful to me, they seemed to have equal weight. So, if I didn’t have a commission to work on, I painted what I thought was beautiful and would sell.

What was missing in my own studio work was a “why” that was deeper than a pretty picture as a vehicle for my entertainment, skill-building and gratification.

 

IMG_3635

Sara: It seems that A Touch of Hands is deepening your own wholeness, marrying your level of mastery in painting with your own personal meaning, rather than just the personal meaning for a client, as well as bringing your own process and voice out in a different way. You seem to be arriving at a new inner and outer stance.

Sheri: A Touch of Hands satisfies my craving for deeper meaning through my art.  I feel like I am finally in touch as a fine artist with what is important to me to paint. The paintings don’t just tell my story, they tell all of our stories through something we all experience, and is so important to our well-being and so common that many of us don’t really notice. But what if we were more mindful? We touch our mates’ hands, our grandkids’ hands, we shake hands on a deal, we touch hands that have meaning in so many ways, and we take it so much for granted. That’s part of my mission, I think –  here’s a moment of touching hands and it means so many things, and trying to capture that moment in the painting and also remind people that they have those kinds of moments all of the time.

I think of it as a collaborative effort and invite interaction on a Facebook page. It’s been really freeing to just put it out there and see where it leads. The images are resonating with people because the relationships, emotions and circumstances are universal. Each one is a statement in itself, but as a collection I feel they are even more powerful.

This is also born of a wider shift. It’s kind of a new thing for me to be writing a lot and putting it out where people can actually read it, to share the occasional honest and disarming insight that I once would have kept to myself. It helps me make sense of my experiences when I can share some of the wisdom gained. Whether it is through my work or other aspects of relationship, I fulfill my purpose when I have that kind of impact.

 

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Sara: What you are offering here is a very different kind of exchange in the art world.

Sheri: There have been some really beautiful contributions on the Facebook page. My intention is to sometimes use those images as resource material for the paintings. Monetary income does not drive the project, as I give most of the paintings to those who have modeled for them. Connection, comfort and deeper understanding are my currency, and knowing that I’m doing something that feels important.

 

To see more of her work and for a few  tips to improve your powers of observation,

read my full interview with Sheri Hoeger HERE

Visit Sheri’s A Touch of Hands Facebook page HERE

Visit Sheri’s website HERE

More interviews HERE and HERE