Re-making the holidays: new priorities of grief

The newly bereaved are often taken aback when they discover that grief has changed more than just “the year of firsts.”  As bereaved people, we heard a lot in the early days of grief about how we should be prepared for the first Christmas, first Mothers Day, first holidays that came after the death of our son.  And it is true that we needed a lot of extra support during those “firsts” to cope with the waves of grief and to understand the continuing bonds of love while trying re-member our family that had been so dismembered by the shattering of grief.

But what no one told us was that this grief experience lasts long after the “firsts.”

I was utterly in shock when I hit my second Mothers Day and realized that I would be FOREVER without my son’s physical presence on this holiday.  Every Mothers Day I faced, for the rest of my life, would be yet another holiday lived with the reality of my son’s non-existence.  THAT was overwhelming.

So how can creativity help us when we get through the “firsts” and then face our entire lifetimes full of being without our loved ones on holidays?  Well, we become our own best advocates, and we find out what our new priorities are for re-making the holidays into something meaningful again.  As with everything on the grief path, there is no prescription for this that will fit every single one of us.  We each have to find our way. 

AND there are a lot of resources and folks out here who are willing to share and help us re-find meaning during holidays:

• The Creative Grief Studio has annual holiday kits available free each year to give ideas on creative activities that might be some heARTmaking as we both grieve and celebrate.
• We did a collaborative holiday post with some helpful ideas and tips here. 
• WYG has a "Practical Plan for Dealing with the Holidays" over on their site.
• Do a Twitter search for "grief and holidays" and you'll find a plethora of information, services, and groups.

These are just a few starting points, just a smattering of ideas, for you to start discovering your own path. The possibilities are endless though, truly. You know what fits right for you and your family. You have every permission and right to re-make the holidays into something meaningful now that grief has changed your priorities and perspectives. And remember, by doing this kind of thing yourself, you model for and give permission to everyone around to do this kind of integration and re-creation themselves. By re-making the holidays, we engage in the potential for an even healthier community!

Reiki to all reading this,
Kara

Paper bags, throw away lives, and impossible expectations...

It is incredibly frustrating to see individuals, and our society as a whole, having impossible expectations around grief experiences. Today's share comes partly out of this rant I originally shared on one of my social media feeds, and it is worth repeating here to start us off:

Oh for the love of Pete!!!!! ARRRRG. Listen up, peoples. You cannot ever know more than the oppressed person themselves about what they need to find their liberation. This goes for social justice issues as well as for grief experiences!!!!!! If you actually think you have the right to tell another person they "need help" or "should get over it" or "need to find closure" or are "too sad" -- fuck you. You have internalized white supremacist imperialist capitalist patriarchy and are playing "father knows best" instead of being compassionate and present to a person who is already fucking hurting. Take your colonization bullshit and go play in your own yard. Hurting people need relationships that are partnering, curious, supportive. They do not need your prescription of propaganda for "the right way to do grief and healing" bullshit!!!!!!!!! ARG. [Have I mentioned my ability to be patient is challenged lately? ;P ]

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Couple of years ago, I took one of Patti Digh's Verb Tribe courses. The creative approach that had the most lasting impact on me was her insistence that we write our different topics each day using a sharpie pen on a paper bag. Her idea behind it was that if we get all caught up in the "preciousness" of "good" pens and "quality" paper and such, we set ourselves up to have to be "perfect" and have what we created using those things be exceptional. But if we are writing on any old paper bag with whatever pen we have handy, it can get us in the habit of just writing to practice writing, to watch the words drip out of our fingertips, to let them move across a surface without them being so precious as to have to be perfect.

In the end, some of the things I wrote on the bags were gems. Some were starts that evolved into other pieces as I played with them. Some really were just trash that became bags used to ripen avocado or interesting surfaces to use as collage backgrounds on art pieces or something.

All of it was a reminder that if we want to be writers, then write. It's kind of like some of the sparks that Barb Sher has written throughout her different books about how if we want "to be" something, just start being it and see what happens. Now, of course, in a practical way, she wasn't advocating anything ridiculous like wanting to be violent, so start walking around with a gun!! But she was saying that for many things, you don't have to have a license or particular degree to just start doing it. If you want to be a writer, start a blog and write. Open a notebook and write. When someone asks what you do, answer with, "I'm a writer."

These things revolved around permissions that I had to practice giving myself. Maybe it is because I'm a girl/woman. Maybe it was some moral thing about "telling lies" from the religion I was raised with back in the day. Maybe it was individual internalized crap, maybe it was imposed from structural inequities, maybe both. Maybe maybe maybe. But for some reason, until encountering these kinds of practices with permission for myself, I kept looking for permission to call myself thus-and-such from someone else.

As a college student, I met a musician after a gig one night, and he asked about my studies. I told him I was a student of a particular professor, and the musician (who knew of this professor) said, "Oh you are a writer then. Great. What do you write?" It took me a moment to answer him because I was shocked. I hadn't yet allowed myself to call myself a writer "officially" or anything, let alone hearing it come out of someone else's mouth! Why did it make such a difference to have his validation? Why did I need that? Why did it shock me? And on and on.

Anyway, all this babble to say I keep re-discovering every single day that the value of practice is in the practice, not in the quality of the paper or pen. I want to be a writer, so I write. I want to be an artist, so I make art. I want to be a gardener, so I drop seeds into the dirt. Live it. Go for it. Take out that stack of paper bags and make art. And by the way, the muted mandala/gelli press art you see in the photo with this post is done, yes indeed, on a ripped up paper bag!!

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This phrase: don't throw away your life. Or the idea where social injustices occur and we humans ignore it as if the people affected are just living lives that are disposable: throw away lives.

The amount of grief in those phrases makes me buckle under the truth that these are not just words. Rather, we are talking about human beings here.

I can understand we care about another.

But to impose your ideas of right and wrong on others by trying to guilt them into thinking they will throw away their lives??? I don't mean the big things. If someone you love is an addict, then maybe, yes, okay, I can see you asking them to seek help, support, rehab so they "don't throw away" their lives. But to tell someone they are throwing away their lives because they want to major in art in college? Or to suggest they are throwing away their lives because they want to marry someone of a religion or race you don't like/don't want them to/whatever? Seems...needlessly violent, harsh, causing oppression instead of actually being in relationship with them?

I can't understand how we don't care about each other.

To look at the justice system or the water system in the good old USofA and throw up your hands and say, "Oh well, nothing I can do," seems like a defeated acceptance of the idea that people are disposable. Or to keep doing exactly what we are doing because "that's just how it is," seems like a collusion with the idea that some are just living throw away lives. Not saying we can be the solution, solo, ourselves, BUT we can DO something. When I am called for jury duty, I can go into the courtroom and when asked questions in voir dire, I can speak the truth. They'll never want me for any jury probably and the judge might threaten to have me arrested, BUT I can still speak the truth. I may not be able to change the pipes in places like Flint, but I can keep sharing on social media about the situation. I can sign petitions. I can donate money. I can protest visibly in the world, on the street when possible.

While the idea of using tossed away paper or disposable paper bags for writing, for not making writing process too precious, makes sense to me; the idea of LIVES being disposable makes no sense to me. We may make mis-takes (missed takes, like in the movies, so do another take). BUT we don't throw away our lives if we major in art or inter-marry religiously or racially. We have big social justice issues in the world, and while we individually can't fix the big picture, the people affected most by these issues are not lives we can throw away! There is action to be taken. Do something. Start by LISTENING to the people most affected!

The oppression of grief around these ideas is relieved some for me by taking action.
What does it for you?

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More than ever, I hold close to my heart, the idea that it takes creative approach and practice to address our grief experiences and remain in touch with our humanness; our vulnerability; our (maybe broken) open hearts.

None of us can meet impossible expectations. We can only live our lives as practice. Make mis-takes (missed-takes), try again, keep experimenting. I have no answers beyond that. There are no such thing as "experts," but rather just people who are practicing practicing. And after all their practice, they know what works for them and are open to sharing BUT that should just be an invitation for you to practice and find your own ways. Their ways can't possibly be 100% yours, too. That's okay.

Listen. Learn. Do.

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Don't have some sweet, wind-it-up, conclusion here. The swimming-ness flow of all these thoughts is all I have to offer as a reflection of my own grief + creativity. May Reiki flow to any and all eyeballs who come across this.
Kara

[Previous version published 2016 in Radical Creativity]

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.

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]

Business Card Of Grief: a creative prompt

FOREWORD: For clarity sake, I stress here -- because apparently offense has been taken when I have previously shared this prompt in other formats -- this is NOT actually my business card!! I do not hand these out to anyone. This is a creative prompt, an expression of grief where I was exploring -- and encouraging anyone else who wanted to explore -- what it would mean if we actually were REAL with the world at large about about death and grief experiences. As always, my work is not for everyone, so please, if my prompt and expression upset you, feel free to unfriend, unfollow, don't read here, or whatever you need to do.

PROMPT: Many years ago, teaching at a grief retreat, a newly bereaved mom told me that she was sick of being silent about her grief in order to be polite and keep the social awkwardness at a minimum. She was considering having a t-shirt made up that said, "Dead Baby Mom," with the black and white image of her dead baby's footprints under it. I LOOOOVED that idea and made note of it in my notebook. She is the inspiration for this creative prompt.

There is so much speculation and judgment about grief, how we express grief, what is healthy, and what is socially acceptable. Sometimes the truly unhealthy stuff is actually coming from trying to conform your grief to some set of rules or another. The therapists consult their diagnosis books and say, "You have 2 weeks." The social workers consult their resources and tell us, "Grief has 5 stages." Our friends and family tell us how hard the first year will be, but often never realize how hard it is to face the second year. It is often socially unacceptable to talk about how the second year is a killer because this is when you realized that EVERY year for the rest of your life will be like this. The dead person will not come back in any of the following years.

Of course our perspectives shift and change as we learn and grow ourselves. We become our own best advocates and start to find our way. BUT the initial hindrances of grief etiquette can feel extremely constricting. Like wearing a whale bone corset 24/7.

So this creative prompt is asking you to be honest about wherever you are in your grief experience. If you shed the polite stuff, what would your business card really say? What t-shirt would you really wear? When you attend events and have to fill in those "My Name Is..." stickers, what would you really like to write?

Try actually making up a mock up of one of these like I've done with the business card image in this post. You can do it up digitally on your computer OR get out the paper, scissors, glue, and markers and begin playing. Use up old business cards by using the blank backs to make your business card of grief. Have a few of those random name stickers in a drawer? Take one out and write what you really want to write. Cut out paper in the shape of a t-shirt and write what you want across it. OR take an old t-shirt, turn it inside out or backwards. Write on it with a sharpie marker!

You get the idea. Give yourself permission to express what you actually want to express about your grief and life experiences. Even if it is only art that you make in private for you and yours to see. Even that is a first step away from the constrictions!

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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.

[originally published at Radical Creativity - July 27, 2010]

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-

10 Ideas for tending when grief is breaking your heart(open)...

[Featured image: Summer daisy in full bloom with black and white distressed border on photo. Words surrounding: "Whatever is unfolding, even if it is the most difficult stuff, find some spot of ease each day where you can rest your body, mind, and heart."]

When grief experiences come along and seem to break our hearts (hopefully break them open, not just break them), it can be exhausting in all ways: body, mind, and emotion. Even being able to read or concentrate can be trying, so this is a quicky 10 ideas for tending when things are most difficult:

1. As soon as you notice the difficulty is pressing on you, stop. Breathe deeply, allowing the breath to go all the way down to your toes and hold it for just a second. Then release and let your physical body relax a little with the exhale. Do this a few times if need be.
   
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2. Can you get to a spot with access to clean water? If so, take a few moments to go there, rinse your hands, face, neck. Let the coolness or warmth of the water bring you fully into the moment, the body.
   
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3. Can you find a place to comfortably sit for a few minutes? Maybe sit nearer the edge of the surface and flex and stretch your feet, pointing toes out, pointing toes up. Allow the stretch in your feet and calves be a reminder to tend your being.
   
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4. How much water have you had to drink today? Can you get access to clean water now to drink a cup or fill a water bottle to keep you hydrated for the next little while?
   
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5. Is this current difficulty leaving you feeling isolated or lonely? Is there one friend or love you can text - you don't even have to use your voice if that's too hard - just text to say, "Hi there, can we text for a bit to check in?"
   
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6. If you can't think of anyone you'd like to be in touch with, how about trying out the text crisis line (US service only at this time) to chat with one of their volunteers. You don't have to be having suicidal thoughts to text, but rather just if you are having a moment in which you need some support, they can help. Here are details on how it works.
   
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7. Can you find a few minutes to have complete quiet and stillness? You can set timer if need be so it doesn't feel endless or something. But just for 3 minutes or 5 minutes, can you close a door, turn off phone, find as much quiet as possible, just for a few? Sometimes the space of quiet can reset our head!
   
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8. Or on the other end of the spectrum, can you take a few moments to listen, uninterrupted, and really savor your favorite tune? Maybe in a room with door closed, alone space? Or if not, then with earbuds in so you are kind of "away" from all the external stuff. Sometimes love of music can reset our head!
   
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9. Can you use and do you have access to a piece of paper and crayon or color pencils or markers? Can you spend a few minutes just scribbling out whatever is hurting most right now? No "artmaking" type space, just scribble scribble to get the energy out of your heart and head, through your arm and fingers, and smooshed out on the page? After all is smooshed out, maybe take a few minutes in empty spaces of the scribble to write a few words that are in your head around this energy?
   
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10. Do you have a favorite soft blanket or shirt or scarf? Something where the texture makes you feel safe or warm or cool or tended in some way? Can you get that now and wrap it around or wear it for a bit now? Allow yourself to feel enveloped.

By no means is this a comprehensive list. But I hope it encourages you to notice when things are hurting or difficult, and then check in with yourself to see how you can tend, either individually or in connection with others. And if you have other ideas to add to this list, please know you are invited to share them in the comments here <3

From my radical grandma heart to your heart!
k-

Oh the crowds that gather in my head!

The psychology of the crowds of stuff inside my head would make your head explode if you tried to wrap your brain around it all. When I try to wrap my own head around the crowds, it usually results in something like, oh I don't know, an implosion into a little pile of ashes.

So sometimes I try to completely escape my head all together. I do this meditative exercise which I'll offer you today as a sort of creative prompt if you want to try making up your own process:

1. I sit at the edge of the ocean or some body of water that is much larger than I am. 
2. I stare for a long time at the huge amounts of water. The crowds of water. 
3. I imagine the BEing of water looking back at me. Like imagining the entire huge body of water is the body of a BEing, conscious, with character and personality.
4. I imagine how small I must look to the huge BEing of water. 
5. I imagine it looks back at the small speck of me. Just a speck of a girl, sitting there, trying to consider the immensity of it.
6. And then I imagine that I become the water, looking back at my speck of a self. 

And you know what happens? Like a FLASH, the crowds of my speck of a head become so small that they require almost no effort to see, map, deal with, whatever. And I come to realize the following:

• I am just being. 
• The Water is being. 
• We are each other. 
• There is no crowding. 
• No crowds of anything anyone anywhere. 
• And there is immense space again, inviting me to rest.

Often this process allows me to sleep a bit. Or to recognize that my speck of a physical body wants to stretch into that immense space of Water BEing. Or things just quiet down enough for me to see there is no immediate emergency, nothing is on fire, and my breath is breathing me. Okay, no imploding into a pile of ashes today then!

It seems the psychology of the crowds of my head are best seen from way up above -- from a place where it all looks like specks on the horizon. From a perspective where the crowds don't look like snarled monsters, but instead look like a thing of beauty. Perspective, I love you.

So what about you? What helps you shift from the snarling crowds to the immense body of water BEing state?

Miracles,
k-

[Original version published in Radical Creativity, Saturday, May 10, 2008]

Exploring balance and our own meaning making...

As sunny season here in the Pacific NW gears up and the days begin to fly by, I'm reminded again how important it is to keep my balance. Grief especially takes its toll on our bodies, minds, and spirits in ways that can knock us off balance. There are times when grief is so all consuming that it can seem to just eat up days and days. I find it especially important then to keep the idea of balance front and center in my life.

Balance doesn't mean making everything "perfect." It doesn't mean "getting better" (whatever that actually is!). Rather, balance simply means being mindful of your whole being and looking at the whole picture of needs.

For example: Our minds spin when grief hits. We can't make sense of this new world without our loved one or whatever our loss circumstances are. Many people need to have brain input to be able to make new meaning of life again. But at the same time, grief taxes our sense of concentration, so it can be hard to read or pay attention. So balance between needing new information and lack of concentration might be:

• Take it slow. 

• Read things in sound bite form. 

• Open a book or magazine to a random page and just read one sentence. Mull that sentence over for a whole day, and see what comes of it for you.

As always, be as gentle as you can with you. Take whatever pace and time you need.

As part of your exploration of what balance means to you, don't be afraid to reach out for help. Though you may not have anyone in your immediate network who can be of support, please know that there are good people out here doing awesome work, willing to communicate with you and offer support. Try one of these:

www.WhatsYourGrief.com
www.GriefHealingBlog.com
www.Dougy.org
www.HighmarkCaringPlace.com

And you are always welcome to check out my on-demand Grief + Creativity classes for support, too!

[Originally published in Radical Creativity, July 13, 2007; resources updated April 2017]

Grief and Showing Up...new podcast

This podcast is exploring how we show up during grief experiences. Showing up, just as a human in general, can be challenging, but when you add grief experiences to the mix, what happens? In this podcast we're exploring:

• What are the rules that seem to dictate how we show up or don't during grief experiences?
• What does it mean that we get only 3 days bereavement leave?
• What does it mean to "get closure" when we are still alive and living our experiences?
• How do we show up without having to intersect with "perfection"?
• What happens when we show up even when we're not or the situation is not what might be deemed "perfect"?
• How do we show up even if it is scary to do so?
• How do we keep ourselves practicing ways to show up?
• Metaphors abound in artmaking or writing or showing work or publishing.
• When we show up, we enter into self-care, AND begin to intersect with others so that self-care truly IS community care.
• When we show up to tend our path, we allow other people space to show up, too.
• When we show up to tend our path, we create sacred community space, too.

To stream this podcast, click here.

Thanks for listening!

From another radical grandma trying to shape the world we are in,

k-

If you like what you hear, 

please click the tip jar to support
our grief+creativity efforts.

Books and the art that can come from them...

What do you do with books you don't want anymore? It's great if the library will take them or the used bookshop. But what if they don't want them? I have the answer:

ALTER THEM!

:) That's exactly what I did with these books. Here are the front and back covers after alterations:

And here's a glimpse of what I did on the inside of each:

But the even cooler thing about doing these kinds of physical, altered books is that you can do high res scan of various aspects of the pieces and then make even more artworks. Here are a few of the pieces I've done in that process, and these are now available in my gallery as stickers, totes, journals and more:

This one is an over saturated, highly detailed scan of one of the paperdolls on the back cover, worked up in PSE as its own solo piece. You'll find it over in the gallery here.

This digital composite was from a shrine series and it incorporates the door featured on one of the front covers of the altered books. It actually incorporates high res scans and photos of 8 different pieces I created along the way. The shrine outline and composite was all done in PSE and this finished piece is in the gallery over here.

So can you see how you can start with old or unwanted books to create art? Then scan or photograph and make even more art? What ideas are sparked for you seeing this? Are you already picturing books that you'd been considering clutter which now might morph into art? What other items do you have around the house that you might turn into art?

Go play! Have fun!
xoxo,
k-

[Originally published in Radical Creativity, June 2009]

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]