Death *AND* Non-death Related Grief: living another life

While much of my own personal grief experience comes out of the deaths of our three boys, many times in my life, I find myself exploring a more non-death related grief experience. For example, in the documentary Babbleonia, the actor Al Pacino talks about how the practice of our art is about allowing the unconscious to become free, to rise to the surface, to express itself. It got me thinking about how much rises to the surface when I can allow grief and hurt to rise up to the surface of my heART, how much is then set free, and how much more open space I seem to have in my being when done. 

As I then later watched the documentary Looking For Richard, I found my heart strings pulled by all the actors sharing their visions. Something in me began to long for the life where I was going to be an actor. And suddenly I found myself surrounded by all this free floating grief and disappointment at all the things I have not done, all the roads not taken, all the years gone by such that it is too late in some ways for some of those dreams.

And frankly, many grief experiences do this same thing. I remember all the free floating grief after each of our sons died. The just rampant longing for the life that was now gone, the path that was absolutely closed to us now. We are still mom and dad to those boys, but our parenthood is of a different kind. I've probably made the most peace with this fact through the art-making process, both re-member-ing and he-ART-making, over the years, working creative prompts myself, pushing the exploration visually, in writing, and conversation.

So I began to wonder what I should do with this free floating, non-death related grief coming up now about all the roads not taken?

I started working the layers and textures and text of the piece shown in the image at the top of this post. I started with "In Another Life I Would Have Been..." and then I added all these empty window frames and meditated on what I would see through each of them. I flashed on images of a tilted drawing table, something a comic book artist would use. I flashed on a beautiful kitchen with the stove in an island where you can actually use all four spots on the stove top! I flashed on a small theater room where actors were improving, where spoken word poets don't feel the least bit self conscious about screaming and over-the-top rapping with their writings. And then I flashed on a fountain in Italy.

As I then came back to my piece, pondering how to draw or paint or collage each of those peeks into each of those windows, something interesting happened.  As I surfed thru my digital library of my art and photos, I found:

• Images sharing the cover of our collaborative Heroes & Demons graphic novel/comic book from a good many years back. I illustrated the cover and two of the interior pages. It isn't exactly being a full time inker or writing a comic series, but huh, look at that... I sort of am a comic book artist.

• Images from several of our celebratory, ritual meals. The one in particular shared here is from the meal made for my 40th birthday party.  I made the bread from scratch. The lemon, ginger, honey dressing is from scratch. The salad is bursting with fruits and vegetables, many we bought fresh from the local farmers market. All washed, cut, mixed at my own hand. It was not a very gourmet meal, not very complicated. But still, I was the chef for that meal and many of the others that were photo documented by my lovely husband.

• Images from the early 2000's Vagina Monologue days.  A funny publicity photo taken of me and a fellow actor at a rehearsal one day in the lead up to the show. We sold out the house for those shows that first year. We raised a lot of money for local non-profits. And the following year, I helped coordinate and organize the art exhibit that was companion for the second year's run of the show. It was not Broadway or Hollywood, but I was the actor doing the Hair monologue that first year.

As I filled the windows of my heART-work with these images, the grief and disappointment freed up from my unconscious. I realized consciously that I actually had done many of those things I was longing to do, those things that unconsciously I carried as being disappointed to not have done!! And the conscious realization of all this freed up a huge space in my BEING for coming up with new dreams or for pursuing these dreams more in-depth ways.

And more than that, this conscious realization gave me space to have my humor return. As I looked at that last window where I would explore something about the fountains of Italy, it became light-hearted.  I found a public domain image of one of the fountains I long to see, and when I pasted it into the frame, I suddenly started laughing.

I flashed on myself as my doll character self -- since I have her anyway, I can put her into Italy right now. When I looked over at her, she was still in the headstand position I put her in when I wrote up a "different perspective" prompt a few months earlier. And suddenly, I was laughing and visioning what I would want to do at those Italian fountains, and I plopped her right into the frame, doing a headstand right in the fountain!

I may or may not get to Italy, but I don't think of it now with such disappointment and longing and ache for a road not taken. I think of it and laugh at myself doing headstands in the high art fountains!  :) That's a big shift for me.

So that's your creative prompt:

1. Ponder the idea of, "In another life I would have been..."
2. Make a list of all the images, words, ideas that come to you as you ponder that thought.
3. Then collage, draw, paint from that list.
4. What comes to the surface?
5. What perspectives shift for you?
6. What rises up from the unconscious and becomes free for you now?

Here's to continued creative explorations!
-Kara

[previous published version was in Radical Creativity January 2012]
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If you are looking for other creative prompts to explore your grief experiences, take a look at the eBooks we have available in our Shop.

Never Feeling Safe Again: why bother to love when it all boils down to loss

There is some bottom line experience to grief that boils down to this:  we never feel truly safe again.  In truth, “safety” was always an illusion really.  But prior to the rattling of grief, we could pretend we were safe.  We could love as if loss would never touch us.  We could pretend that the ground beneath us was solid and unshakable. 

After grief comes along though, the innocence of that kind of “safe” perspective seems to get lost.  We come to full consciousness of how the pain of grief is equal to the amount of love we felt for the person who died.  And it is painful.  We come to a full consciousness of how quickly our life and the lives of our loved ones come to an end.  We awaken to the vulnerability of being alive.  And nothing feels safe.

In my own grief experience, I found that I initially wanted to become as hardened and emotionally risk-less as possible.  I recalled how, during my pregnancy, my husband and I would both talk to the baby inside me.  We played with him, felt him move, touched his hand as he reached thru my skin, and we read him stories each night.  We invested in our love for him whole-heartedly.  After he died, my first response was to think that I would never ever do that again.  I would never invest in another pregnancy or child that way.  I would never risk the emotional attachment again, so that if and when another child dies, I wouldn’t hurt so badly.

Can you see the absurdity of grief in that?! 

Of course when I calmed down and came to my senses again, I realized how ridiculous it would be to withhold my love from any child.  How could I NOT love and communicate with our other children?  If I got pregnant again, why in the world would I NOT want to parent that child from the moment I knew of their existence?  Why would I NOT want to love and invest in whatever amount of precious time we have together?

The larger reality of all this was the acceptance of the fact that death does happen; grief does hurt; nothing and no one is safe; AND I choose to live a full life anyway. 

It is true that grief takes away a certain innocence or ignorance about being safe.  But all we really have is this present moment anyway.  Yes, you can touch on the past in your memories. Yes, you can touch on the future with your intellectual planning.  But truly all that really exists is this very moment.  

In this moment, I am safe as can be.  

In this moment, I can choose to tell my husband I love him.  

In this moment, I can choose to tell my son I love him, regardless of the fact that he's dead.  

In this moment, I’m doing the business of my being.  

That is all we have.  If there is any sense of safety, it is in this moment.  And grief taught me to stop fooling myself into trying to build a structure of safety or to insulate myself by living out of fear of loss.  Grief taught me that I truly do want to love fully this moment.  And if loss comes in the next moment, so be it.  That will be the business of that moment. 

But in this moment, I chose love and being fully alive.  
And we all have that choice.

Reiki to all eyeballs seeing this,
Kara

[previously published version ran at Radical Creativity in November 2011]

Tea With Grief: creative prompt

There is such a prevailing attitude in our world today that says, implicitly or explicitly, that grief is bad. It is one of those horrible things. Something you have to heal from or get over or move through to get to a place where there is no grief (as if that place actually exists). Some experiences seem to tell us we need to get past the grief to return to the state of being we were before the grief-causing-incident (as if you can just forget what happened and be who you were before grief came). Some experiences seem to tell us we can be changed, but it has to be spun to have a packaging that says we are some how a better person now, or we've learned something from this, or there were gifts that came from it all.

The more time I spend on this planet, the more I think both extremes of this spectrum are hooey.  Really. You can keep your DSM V, and your theories, and your medical journal speak, and even your new age healing manual and workshop speak. I think that both the idea that you have to heal from grief OR the idea that you've changed now to be a better person -- ALL of it seeks to escape grief.  Anything to just not sit with grief.

Heal from it. Get over it. Move past it. Integrate it. Find the gifts. Evolve from it.

While I'm sure some of these might come to be a reality for some people, I still think that most people try to steer the bereaved -- or we get sucked into steering ourselves -- toward one of these goals without ever truly SITTING WITH GRIEF. Rarely do I hear anyone say to a bereaved person, "I'll sit with you and your grief." Or, "How much time did you spend sitting with your grief today?" Or, "When you first sat with your grief, what did you think about? What did it look like?"

For some, the idea of sitting with grief is repulsive because they have not experienced grief themselves and our grief seems like a dis-ease they do not want to catch.  For others, the idea of sitting with grief is overwhelming precisely because it is happening to them and they feel they'll be overwhelmed by it.

But I propose that we can approach sitting with grief in a multitude of ways. As many tools as there are in the creative box, there are just as many ways to sit with grief. Below are a few creative ideas.  Pick one at random. Just try approaching your grief in as many ways as possible, from as many angles as you can possibly dream up. You may well end up feeling a sense of healing or moving through or discovering gifts in the end, but those things are so not the point and maybe not even necessary. It is simply about discovering ways to SIT WITH GRIEF. Be in the same room. Talk to one another. Re-member your shattered heart.

• Imagine your grief as a stuffed animal.  Either draw or get a stuffed animal similar to what you imagine.  And then spend a 1/2 hour each day this week offering Reiki (or just a healing touch) to the stuffed animal.  I have had experiences where the doll I'm using represents the person I was at the moment of trauma.  From my different perspective and place today, I offer Reiki to the doll as a way of sending Reiki back in time to myself when my heart first shattered.

• Cut out images of chairs from magazines, papers, art books.  Look also for images that might represent your grief.  You can draw images as well.  Then collage the chairs and images of grief into the chairs on a piece of paper.  You can do a chair and image to represent yourself as well.  Looking at the collage, write a dialogue of what you say to each image of grief in each chair.  Write down what they say back to you.  You can even do it with talk bubbles right on the collage if you want.

• Many of us schedule everything into our lives these days.  Very few people I know have the ability to live a stream of consciousness kind of life.  So we schedule what time we wake, when we'll be in meetings, what night to go out with our partners, when we'll travel, what day we'll use those free tickets to the Science Center, when we'll have dinner with friends, when to catch that new film.  Why not schedule time to sit with your grief?  Seriously.  Put it on the calendar.  Friday, June 10, Noon to 2pm, Sit with my grief.  And then keep your date for it as conscientiously as you would keep any other date on your calendar!!  If you are into meditation, take the time to mediate with grief.  If you like to walk, go for a walk with your grief.  If you like art museums, take your grief to the museum with you.  Think of it as an Artists Date with Grief.

• Have a tea party with grief.  I know it sounds weird.  But often the things we refuse to allow into the party are the very things that get blown out of proportion, seem like monsters we are trying to keep at bay.  Invite the monster in.  Serve him tea and cakes.  Talk with him.  You can do the whole fancy table and hat and music playing in the background if you want.  Or you can do this by drawing or writing or collage.  Cut out images from magazines and such that make a tea party scene for you.  Looking at the collage, write up a little description of what happens at the tea.  

Before jumping to the candlelight vigils and rituals *for healing*, instead, lets really hear it when *grief support* is asked for...and then try making space for exactly that support to be given.

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If you are looking for other creative prompts to explore your grief experiences, take a look at the eBooks we have available in our Shop. 

[Previously published in Radical Creativity June 11, 2011]

Post-grief, even the smallest things change...

There is a scene in the film Losing Layla where Layla’s mom Vanessa is in line at a bank or post office sometime during the first weeks after Layla has died.  The line is long and moving slowly.  A few people ahead of Vanessa in line are a mom and young child who is jumping and dancing around with a sweet little voice.  And the camera pans to Vanessa’s face.  You can see all the crumbling walls of pain and heartbreak falling down her body and spilling across the floor.

Let’s face it.  After grief comes, nothing is as simple as it seems on the surface anymore.  

The everyday things, like running errands, become complicated. Going to a café for a few minutes of quiet coffee time can be very difficult when you are a bereaved mother and the table next to you fills up with people who’ve just finished their Mommy and Me class. Going to any social event can feel arduous.

Sometimes it just is a reality that we have to be creative in our post-grief life to change up all the things that, prior, seemed so simple.  It may not be something you are up to in the first days or weeks after grief comes, but one small creative choice at a time will add up to a new way of doing things. Simply not being afraid to change your plans is a great way to allow yourself to step out of line, do a different errand, come back to the post office later.  Or getting your coffee to go and heading to the wide open space of the beach to enjoy it instead of staying at the café.

Much of the time, the changes required are a matter a paying attention to your heart, tending her as she needs tending, and being gentle with yourself instead of judgmental about the whole process.

In my own personal experience, after the death of my son, I just found it less heartbreaking, and much easier, to do my grocery shopping at one of the 24 hours shops, heading out late night, after 10pm to get what we needed.  That shop even had a 24/7 ATM of my bank, so I could do my banking in the late hours, too.  And they had a branch of the post office inside, too. While the branch itself wasn’t open that late, I could still post through the slots and buy my stamps via the machines there.  It was a heavenly gift to be able to do my basic, everyday things this way at first.  It allowed me to be creative and gentle in finding new ways to reconnect to the world at large without feeling rushed and pushed to do so because of errands.

Everyone will of course be different in how they feel post-grief.

The key is to be curious and tolerant with yourself as you discover what will work for you and what will not work for you.  And know that over time, your creative choices will shift and change and get bigger or maybe shift back to something more pre-grief-like.  But you need not force anything.  You are your own best advocate.  You are extraordinarily capable and response-able (able to respond) to your heart.  Take the best care possible.  And know that it is very normal that the simple things don’t seem simple anymore!

Much love <3 to each eyeball who stuck with it to get here :)
~Kara

[Originally published Radical Creativity March 28, 2012]

10 Ways To Handle Life When Struck With Grief-Incommunicado

Do you ever have those grief experience days where you should just be incommunicado? I sure do. There should just be no speaking or writing allowed.

But the phone rings, the emails come, the meetings are set, the events are happening. And so I go forth and speak or write and oooooooooooooooooooooh, what a bad idea that is. The day usually ends with me having a slight implosion before planting myself in the tree swing if it's summer or in my blanket house if it isn't summer!

So in an effort to start getting creative in the face of those grief-incommunicado spells, I thought to try and come up with 10 things for how to practice handling life when this strikes! Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. ... [oh damn. THIS is one of those days.]

What about you? Your best tip on handling grief-incommunicado spells?

Sending you Reiki and supportive vibes for whatever spell you find yourself in at the moment! From my radical grandma heart to your heart...
k-

Stillness and motion in grief experiences...

What metaphors out in the natural world do you find speak to your grief experiences?

Coming out of the grocery one day, this bird just seemed to sit still on the wire, on display for me. He stayed put while I stared, while the thought came to take a photo, while I dug out my phone and opened my camera app, while I focused and all the way through snapping several shots. And in equal quiet and grace, he leapt and opened his wings flying off. He made me acutely aware that in my own grief experience, I often have trouble being still and an equal amount of difficulty transitioning to movement. Even transitioning in and out of meditation each day, I'm clumsy and often uncomfortable and question why I keep practicing.

So I pondered for a bit standing in the parking lot. And as I tuned in, I saw other birds. Ones making a mess splashing water all about as they bathed in a puddle left over from the previous day's rain. A couple squawking at each other. Others flying, landing, and flying again. A little one rather awkwardly getting the hang of this "being out of the nest" thing. Made me ponder how awkwardly we humans can also be as we move into or away from our grief experiences. Sometimes the broken heart seems too jagged to touch, and yet other times we lean into the broken open spaces and nestle there. It's a process, not a product...a practice, not a perfect. Even when the moments of grace appear as perfections, it is helpful to be reminded that no one and nothing is perfection, end all be all, perfection. We all stumble and squawk and splash around.

In the end, I came home and starting with the image of the bird as one layer, I played around with digital collage until I ended up with the piece you see here. In my mind, I held the thought of the natural world as a metaphor for our grief experiences. The splashes, the colors, the black that streaks across everything sometimes, the counting of things (number of days since you died and the like), the attempts to re-order our lives (the backwards library card there). And, well, what you see in the image here is what surfaced.

Got any stories to share about how the natural world has provided metaphors for you in your grief experiences? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments here <3

From my radical grandmas heart to your heart,
k-

Shepherding the chaos into some form of expression

When grief comes, it can seem like the meaning of everything changes. Time seems to go fast or slow. Our jobs seem meaningless in the aftermath. Our priorities have changed. Relationships evolve or fall away. As a very specific example, I was an artist before the death of our child, and after his death, the value of art even seemed to change. Frankly, grief can make everything seem like chaos.

In doing outreach with bereaved parents in my early grief years, I came across variations on this chaos everyday. One parent had been a prolific writer prior to the death of his child. After grief's arrival, he felt he wasn't doing justice to his child's death because he couldn't write a thing about it. The previously prolific writer mentioned that he had only been able to write emails since his child died, but nothing else. I encouraged him to consider those emails! Emails can be a form of journaling if you ask me. Back in the early 2000's, we even published a memoir under our KotaPress imprint that was partially made of email communications a woman had while she was facing cancer and treatments.

And so, if you are using the net as a form of support after grief's arrival, look at what you are writing in that medium. Those posts and emails can easily be the expressions of memoir writings or prose pieces. Maybe those are the first draft of a book to come. Maybe they are completed pieces themselves. Or the beginnings of support themed articles you might want to publish someday.

Who knows? But one thing I try to offer those wrestling with creativity in grief's aftermath is this:

Practice being open to expression in whatever form it comes!

Now, I'm not saying that all our creativity in the face of grief will turn into something public or that all emails will turn into books. We may not want to do anything like that with the expressions that come. But I am saying that the initial expressions after grief's arrival can come in a variety of ways. Don't discount any of those ways!

Because grief creates the potential for everything to change, so too can forms of expression change in grief's wake. We may or may not use our old medium for creating. We may discover new mediums for these experiences. It is okay to let expression come in whatever form, to whatever degree, at whatever pace.

Let yourself be tender as you shepherd all grief's chaos into some form of expression!

Miracles to you,
Kara

To roar. Or not.

After awhile I begin to feel that, whoever I am, is stuck inside all these layers. The letters of language are used to try and be heard. The network of pain that cascades thru the body, making the eyes so sensitive that looking at or into normal light levels just hurts, is all too real. In the meantime, under all that is this sort of adult who continues having ideas, impulses to create, sparks for connecting art to heART.

-----

Had Pinky and the Brain streaming in the background one day, and it struck me that they are sort of projections of the mind. The same mind. Flip sides of one mind. They work together to make a whole. A dysfunctional whole, but still. NARF. Sometimes the roar comes and other times it is just a narf.

Sometimes my hands shake, making drawing or even cooking, messily impossible. Often it seems related to iron levels, but there are so many chronic issues going on in this one bod of mine that it is hard to tell. And even trying to DO something is weird. Sometimes the something works. Sometimes it doesn't. Much as I think I am commanding my health (Brain), sometimes my body is just sitting there all Pinky-like going NARF.

It is a weird thing. To be raised in a modern western world that implicitly and explicitly tells you that you should have command, you need to have discipline, you have to become an expert, if you want to be taken seriously and make a mark, you have to...have to...have to. The myths of being the commander. When the truth is that being human is a damn messy NARF most of the time.

I mean sure, you can put in 100,000 hours on some obsession you have and learn a lot from it. I get a lot out of making more and more art, putting more and more hours into the practice. But my shaky hands bop in now and again to say, "Hey Commander! NARF!" I'm not poo-poo'ing process or learning or passion or spending your time doing what moves you. I'm just saying the complicit stuff of the modern western world that turns that all into experts and "six-figure years" and such...well...NARF.

-----

Was reading Improv Wisdom and one of the prompts she offered along the way was to "count on insecurity." Isn't that great? Count on it. Don't try to beat it into submission. Don't try to expert your way around it. Stop trying to get to the perfect place where it resolves and never surfaces again. Rather, count on it. Count. On. It. Count on insecurity. What a novel and creative idea. Count on the NARF.

-----

Stress. Whether coming from "real" situations or coming from my insecurity (that i now count on), stress has a damn fucked up way of messing with me. The chronic pain returns. The stomach does weird things. The shakes shake. If we had the money or an insurance company/provider that actually cared, and we tested things consistently around the experiences I have with stress, just guessing, but I think stress may relate to much of what goes on with me.

I find it difficult to give words to what is happening to me physically, especially after going to great lengths to communicate w supposed caregivers who then say everything is "normal" and begin to treat me in a dismissive manner or as if I'm a drug seeker. Especially annoying given that as of the other day, I've been sober for a solid 20 years. But whatever, dismiss me. NARF.

And one begins to understand the frustration of so many chronic fellow beings. You see every provider your insurance will cover and none help. For that you fork over a day of work, cost of ferry and gas and parking, and a $55 copay. For nothing in the end. And if you find someone who might be able to help but insurance won't cover them, you literally ponder groceries or the cost of trying yet another supposed caregiver. After awhile, you just sort of feel tired and defeated and actually begin to wonder if maybe you are crazy. Except that one side of your face is swollen and you have hives under your eyelid. Those are hard to just conjure out of nothing...NARF.

Not that I don't aim to do best care possible for myself, but stress, in general, and these specific examples, seems to affect how my body reacts, takes up nutrients, gets rest, etc. I think. Total guess. Could be completely full of shit there. But guessing.

Mind you, I know it is a privilege to do anything these days:

• even just having a doctor, any doctor
• having access to clean water (Flint, MI, USA still doesn't have access to clean water!)
• enough to make the ends meet so we can buy fresh veg and fruit regularly

I notice these things. I notice how being able to "afford" in this modern western world is a huge piece of the experiences humans have. Affording doesn't buy us out of racism, sexism, disability-phobia or chronic illness, but with enough "affording" those bastard show themselves a lot less in the ways we are able to care for ourselves, or not, in the choices we have, or don't. Or at least we are able to make choices even in the face of those bastards.

I'm thinking here of how last year we had the privilege of coverage to "afford" to get my husband's eye exam and new glasses. Our "affording" allowed him to see properly again and be able to continue driving, etc. But our "affording" could not buy us out of the health-corporate-mindset that targeted my husband as a black man, scared him w narratives of how he could go blind, bullied him into multiple additional tests that he didn't need just so they could bilk more from our insurance. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him, everything came back totally normal. And still the next year, for coverage, we were bumped to more expensive "affording" because of those tests, my hub was now see as more risky. We "afforded" the privilege of caring for his chronic eyesight loss, got the glasses, could make the option to get what he needed to see again. BUT we could not buy ourselves out of the targeted racism that was aimed at my hub insidiously within the health"care" system.

It's bullshit.

-----

I don't know. No answers really. No resolutions, no tidy answers, just continued process. ❤ Just noticing all the times that, even with my best efforts, stress still steps in here, yelling, "Hey Commander! NARF!!"

-----

Thanks for hanging in there with the ramblings of another radical grandma trying to figure it out,
k-

Yes, it is a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Yes, I did get the chance to actually work at the Neighborhood!

I know it's really easy to make jokes about the pace and tone of the Neighborhood shows and materials they offer -- especially in a world today that is so fast paced and technology based. But I spent several years studying Fred Rogers' work and if you just take the time to really look, you'll see some incredible things:

• his language of creativity; 
• his advocacy for child development; 
• his ability to see that while the outer world has changed, a child's inner life is still in need of safe and sacred space in which to grow. 

And even after his death, there are incredibly talented people who have worked with the Neighborhood from the start who are maintaining and nurturing the growth of all Fred's work. You can learn about their work at the The Fred Rogers Company.

So all the photos, I'm sharing today were taken by my mom who was equally excited about my working at the Neighborhood. :)

Photo left: The day my mom came on the set of studio A, we had the Neighborhood house set up. So she got to snap photos of me playing around on the set.

It simultaneously seems like a million years ago and just yesterday. During my three years at CMU in Pittsburgh, I was lucky enough to land an internship in PR and production at the Neighborhood under the mentorship of Hedda Sharapan. I got to work with David Newell (aka Mr. McFeely), Margy Whitmer on a few of the Let's Talk About It books, and doing some production assisting with Matt Meko, Adrienne Wehr, and Heather Arnet along the way. It was a most interesting time.

It's hard to explain how it was both thrilling and disillusioning to walk onto the set of the Neighborhood of Make Believe in studio A. It had always been an imaginary place. But here it was, brick and mortar, set artists touching up the painting of the path of rocks, the various puppets, seeing that Mister Rogers sneakers were actually a necessity in Make Believe because it was usually he, the one man, running from X the Owl's tree to behind the Castle to voice almost *all* the puppets himself!

I did a lot of different things while working there. One of the big thrills was the chance to play the Purple Panda at a few live events with David Newell when he did appearances as Mr. McFeely. There have been many, many people over the years who have gotten to play Panda, the most famous of which is probably Michael Keaton.

When I was there, Matt Meko played the Panda on the set a few times for filming. I vaguely remember an episode of him dressed in this same Panda suit (photo left) but with the addition of roller skates -- or was it inline skates? I can't remember now. But I remember it being pretty hilarious.

And let me just say that all the layers of that costume were HOT! I remember laying the pieces of it around the office to air it out and dreading any hot, summer day events. Can't imagine what it must have been like to be under the head of it with the hot lights in the studio -- I should ask Matt about that :)

For my part as Panda it was only live appearances which was great because there were always kids around who just flipped out at seeing Panda. My mom snapped this photo at one of the ice cream socials -- yes, that's me under there :)

One of my favorite jobs at the Neighborhood was getting to write with Hedda and Fred. He had his very unique way of speaking and writing. It really was like learning a different language. He had an understanding of the internal life of kids -- of people in general really. His language reflected this. While I was there, my mom found a copy of a 1970's book the Blue Cross had put out in partnership with the Neighborhood, aimed at helping kids understand everyday things. I remembered having a copy of it when I was a kid, but my mom said I wore the book till it had holes in it, so it was gone by then. But she found a copy of it at a garage sale for a nickel and snagged it for me. It was so exciting to see it again that I brought it into the office the next week. Left it with a note for Fred in his office asking if he'd sign it for me. He left me a little note back saying it was exciting for him to see it again after all those years, too.

When I was working there, the Neighborhood had been in production for 25 years. They were no longer producing 52 new weeks of shows a year, but were doing only something like 5 or 6 new weeks of shows annually. But they were also in production for a zillion other projects like the photos books in the series "Let's Talk About It", filming specials like "Fred Rogers Heroes", and the "Different and The Same" series in collaboration with Susan Linn, and more. So there was a lot of time spent in the offices, at a desk, in front of a computer, on the phone, or at the copier. While I was always amazed that this was a company where people actually stood, looking you in the eye, waiting for an answer to the question, "How are you today?" -- there were also definitely boring office moments. Thankfully, there were creative sparks like Marissa and Matt in the office, too. They often pounced upon unsuspecting employees with a bucket full of confetti! Matt snapped this Polaroid the day the two of them got me:

I will say that I loved when the Neighborhood shows were being filmed. Everything about being on the set, the Green Room, the jokes and play of the crew, the care and feeding of the fish :) Anyway, it was just fun to be a part of it -- and mom snapped this photo of me honoring the fish!

All in all, it was an interesting time in life for me. I had spent my childhood with the Neighborhood, and now here I was becoming an adult in the Neighborhood. There was so much to learn. Hedda was a great teacher. Long lasting friendships were made. Matt and Heather are still a part of my everyday life. And I think my mom and I were both touched to get to connect with Fred in person. I'm sure we were just another couple people on his radar since he met so many people every single day. But my life as an artist, woman, and human being was materially changed by being able to chat with Fred about the sacred space between the Neighborhood filming and the kids watching. I've thought often about that idea. The space between what I create and the viewer who sees it. That space is hallowed. It can be discounted and disregarded, overlooked. BUT when both artist and viewer are aware and conscious of that space, it is a place that allows for miraculous growth and development. And Fred was the one who taught me about sacred space. For that lesson, I will always be grateful.

I don't know who took this last photo, maybe Matt or David. But that's moi, Fred, and my mom. It was such a luxury to get to spend that day with my mom on the set. I'm so glad I have these few snaps to mark its happening...

Anyway, that's my Neighborhood story!
Miracles to each of you!
k-

[Originally published in Radical Creativity, March 20, 2008]

Stained...

Sometimes looking at grief straight on is a difficult thing.  I think the idea of objectivity is myth in the best of circumstance (because I don't see how we can ever be anything but subject to our own culture, education, environ, etc), but when you throw grief in the mix, I think objectivity is downright impossible.  We are subject to what has happened to us.  We are subject to our own personal beliefs about grief and concepts like healing or integration.  We are subject to the impulses and (explicit or implicit) rules and measures of our environment like family of origin, spiritual support system, work place, geography, and more.

With all that distortion, I think sometimes the best counter to it is more distortion in a way.  When we can't look at grief straight on anyway, why not crick your neck, tilt your head, and look at it all sideways?!  Sometimes a metaphor is a good way to shift perspective, to gain an insight, to get curious about what is happening.

An example:
Sometimes when I sit in curiosity about what grief has done to my life, I see a big stain.  At first this idea really got to me. I was rose-tinting the past as if prior to grief my life had been some pristine, antique, sacred piece. And then someone put down their giant cup of coffee leaving my life stained, sticky, and a big phat mess. The truth is that nothing was pristine before either, but grief left me focused only on the stain.

It really is another metaphor that came into play to get me out of the twisted view of now living a ruined life.  Art itself came into play.  I began looking at canvas pieces I'd started and ended up hating.  A wrong blotch there, a slip in a cut out there, a lumpy icky texture there, an out-right stain I couldn't remove over here.  I had impulses to throw the canvases away.  I didn't want anyone to see how bad I was as an artist.  I had shame rise to the surface because:

1. I was an untalented hack and 
2. I was actually following a wasteful line of action in considering throwing away perfectly good canvases.

So I did my best to stop myself.  Breathe.  Put the canvases propped up across the room from myself and really sit and look at them.  The vile spewed from me.  Actually I eventually learned this vile was my own inner gremlins spewing at my own self! I was soooo not being gentle with self.  As I sat and let the vile spew, eventually I grew tired and kind of bored.  I had the impulse to get up and do something else, but I asked myself to just take another breath and keep looking.  I sort of zoned out after awhile, even feeling like I would fall asleep.  Then a little bounce of energy came, and I started to look at the canvases in a different way.  You know how you look at those 2D images and then suddenly your vision shifts and you see the 3D image embedded?  Like that.  Some shift happened.

I got up and sat closer to each canvas.  Turned it on its side, upside down, looked at the wrapped edges of them.  Eventually I started to see there was something else that could come out of these canvases.  Sometimes in re-working a new piece, I'd be working the stain into something new, too. Other times, the stain ended up so far in the background that it was foundation for the new piece built on top of it, but you could hardly see the original stains and pieces I'd hated.

As I explored this more and more with art, I found it to be true of canvas pieces, art journal pages, even digital landscape pieces.  I work layer by layer.  There are times I absolutely hate what I see in front of me.  It all feels stained and like there is nothing contributing to the whole here.  But I keep working it.  More layers, more integration, more dancing around and with the stains.  Eventually some whole reveals itself, and it begins to feel ... sort of done.

I say "sort of done" because even when I finish a piece and sell it, it never really feels done to me.  I let it go in that particular format at some point.  But usually I have a high res scan of that piece that sold, and I can take that into a digital landscape, re-work it, make new images from it.  You can see in the piece posted here today, it is totally new, *but* look at the shirt on this new GRRRRRL.  The image of the star crowned fairy on her shirt is from a canvas painting I did a couple of years ago. That same star crowned image was a part of a cookbook cover for a national group, too.

Grief is like this.  Not so much the stain I hate, that ruined some rose-tinted-pristine past I think I had. Rather it is one element layered amid all that I am. It is integrated into this full life I'm living. Sometimes it shows up in the foreground with some prominent element to share. Other times it is faded in the background, less seen, but contributing to the whole nevertheless.  And often it seems invisible to most because they are looking only at the top most social surface of me.  That's okay.  I don't need everyone to get it anymore.  Art is like that.  Some love it.  Some hate it.  Some have artists they love who can do no wrong.  Some are just hungry for as many new works as they can possibly feast upon...

Again, like grief.  There is no one single way to be with it, understand it, witness it.  Our experiences will be as individual as we are as unique human beings.

Understanding that helped me spew less vile most days.

And on the days when I do still spew vile, well, I think of it as playing with acid to create a layer on a new canvas.  It's just a step along the way.  I know now that I'll keep working the canvas till I come to some peace with it.

Hope you all are getting insights from your heART explorations, too.
Reiki to any and all who come across this!
Miracles,
k-

[Originally published in Radical Creativity, November 22, 2011;
also published at The Creative Grief Studio blog 2011]

Creative prompt: body map

click image to see full size...

Body Map 
creative prompt from Coach + heARTist Kara LC Jones
inspired by Arts For Social Change by Beverly Naidus

When my son died at birth, I quickly checked out of my body.  There was so much disappointment, so much grief, and feelings of how my body betrayed me and him entirely.  Later on when talking with a local law maker about getting a state law changed for stillbirth documentation, I was told to my face that I did not give birth to a child.  I was told I had a fetus and *it* was dead.  The law makers were trying to intimidate and shame me -- and other mothers like me -- into being quiet, leaving them alone, to cease our efforts in the fight for women's rights around all possible choices.  While I knew intellectually what they were doing, it was hard on me emotionally because I was still in a crisis of faith about how my body failed me.  With time, conscious processing, and art making, I've been able to explore these issues and try to find ways back into my Power.

So today's prompt is a share for you to explore your relationship with body.  Of course this could work for anyone, but I'm also offering this specifically to women who've had pregnancy or infant death losses.  Just seems to me that this kind of loss complicates our relationships with our bodies, and however empowered we felt prior to the death, there is some shake up with our bodies in grief's wake.  So here's how you can creatively explore this:

• The first thing you need is the outline of your body or a body shape you feel represents you.  You can either:
  
   -Get large sheets of butcher paper on which you outline your real body, full size.  This can be a very powerful way to work because you are looking at your actual body shape.
  
   -OR you can do line drawings in a more representative shape -- click the image at the top of this post to see full size version.  You'll see that I used a very simple outline.  For me, this worked to show the plump, roundness of my body - and it also showed how dis-empowered I felt in my arms.  Empty arms idea.
• Once you have your body shape, duplicate it three times.
• Then consider how you feel/felt in your body
  
        1) at the moment of trauma,
        2) when in an unsafe environment, and
        3) when you feel like you are in a safe environment
• Ask yourself what color represents each of these times?  Consider how your body felt in each of these times?  Are there areas that felt achy or soothed?  Are there words to represent various parts of your body?  What did the areas surrounding your body feel like?

If you look at the full size version of the image I included at the top, you can see how I played with the areas of my body that felt most affected to me.  The head, the heart, the stomach, and the womb.  You can see how the story of each of those areas changed over time.  You can see how the coloring and lighting changes from version to version.  You could optionally do a fourth body version to explore intentions you'd like to set for your body relationship going into the future.  All of this is just a way to map the story of body with which you are living, to make conscious, the things you may not have realized are at play.  Just try it and see what you discover.

If you do blog post to show results, please feel free to post comment here to share with us!

Miracles to each of you...

k-

[Originally published in Radical Creativity, January 26, 2010]