The greatest thing about blogging is that there is no pressure. It was the best step for me as a longtime journal writer who never wrote continuously in one at a time, but several. One journal may contain a small period of time, but from beginning to end it can span a decade or more. It seems sort of schizophrenic, but it came naturally to me. I have never been one to do things a certain way just because I was taught that it was the only way, or the “right” way. I realize that is simply the hallmark of being an artist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t second guess myself. I am a walking paradox of angular plushness.
I began creating this structure in Jacob’s Woods after we had made a huge, long brush pile of the trees and limbs that were cleared to create more pasture space, leaving the piles to serve as animal habitats. After weeks of clearing the long stacked piles of limbs called out to me and invited me to play.
I began building by stacking, leaning, and intertwining various sizes of sticks and thin saplings into an arbor that worked with the trees around it that were still standing.
I had discovered I had a passion for this type of sculpture in college in the 90’s when I had the privilege of working as an intern at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach, and we hosted an artist named Patrick Dougherty. Helping him gather for his installation lit a fire in me, one I had long forgotten was there.
I had never attempted to build anything of this nature myself. I just never had the opportunity present itself until now, some 30years later.
I found that placing these sticks made my spirit come alive in a way I had not experienced in decades. I was there from sun-up until sun-down for over a week, rain or shine, in the bitter cold. It was compelling me every moment I was involved, yet not without frustrations.
I got lost in connecting the smaller branches and twigs which began feeling like arteries as I was sensing the deeper connection of this thing I was creating.
Artery:
- any of the muscular-walled tubes forming part of the circulation system by which blood (mainly that which has been oxygenated) is conveyed from the heart to all parts of the body.
- an important route in a system of roads, rivers, or railroad lines.
At first I would curse whenever one of these twigs would snap, but I soon began to see that it was all a part of what I was learning about myself ; that those breaking sticks( like those things in me I considered broken and frustrating) were not needed. It was part of the natural pruning process, ultimately figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
How often had I continued to figuratively jam the same stick in a certain place that it was never going to stay because logistically, it was not meant to fit there?
I had continued to build around the space inside and after a particularly exhausting day, found myself curled up on the forest bed, giving thanks and meditating on the deep meaning of it all. That is when I realized that I was in The WOMB. The totality of the significance of it all absolutely felt like a rebirth. I became the stick. Every awful thing that has happened to me in my life, all of what I’ve considered little deaths, are the very things that have paved the way for me to fulfill my purpose in helping others to find their way out of darkness. When a stick broke, I tucked it in. It was a part of the process.
This is all of us. It is about looking beyond what we have perceived as being broken to the greater understanding that we are all a work in progress. Death is not just about a door closing. Every little death, those circumstances we thought had broken us, has the ability to open new doors. It is my experience that once I leaned into whatever each moment had to offer, in complete, unwavering faith, it became easier and easier to hear the voice that would guide me toward becoming everything I am meant to be, sharing my gifts with the world and seeing the masterpiece in myself that God sees. There are an infanitesimal number of doors from which we can choose to open. We may hear the siren’s song and be fooled along the way, but it is The Almighty who whispers in our ear to tell us to try another door.
P. S. Giving birth is exhausting.
V is 4 Voice 