I participated in an art therapy class in 2000, and thoroughly enjoyed being able to learn how to express emotions and the inner workings of the psyche through art.  In December of 2002, my mother died of breast cancer, in March of 2003 my brother-in-law died of leukemia, and in May of 2003 I was diagnosed with Stage Three breast cancer myself.  The emotional turmoil was almost more than I could stand, but I found that the expressive art therapy helped me to cope with all the trauma and confusion.  As you’ll see, as we go along here, what started out as a series of exercises to help me cope with my breast cancer and chemotherapy, turned into something of a spiritual journey…

1st DRAWING: “DRAWING OF INTENTION”
Pastels and appliqués on 18X24 art paper. 06-08-03 (before my mastectomy)
 

This drawing was meant to represent my “intent” as I went in for surgery.  The central image is that of a wind-chime with four chimes.  To me, wind chimes represent “harmony” and “completeness”; they dispel “evil spirits” and cleanse the air with sound.  The leaves to the right represent live and growth of positive spiritual energy. And the dragonflies are the carriers of that energy.  The “cloud” effect is one I use to represent my Unconscious. One dragonfly emerges from the Unconscious, bringing the light of healing spiritual energy (the yellow rays) with it.  This “positive” image made it easier for me to face surgery and to be positive about its outcome.  As it happens, my surgery went without a flaw, and I was treated to a private room (because the hospital wasn’t full) for my hospital stay. Although there was obviously some pain, I was surprised by how little physical pain I experienced during my recuperation after surgery.

2nd DRAWING:  “BAD BLOOD”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper.
06-14-03 (five days after surgery, before chemotherapy started)

I started out drawing a blackish-brown tumor that was spewing  out tendrils of cancerous materials, but as the drawing progressed. I realized the tumor wasn’t spewing… It was sucking in poisons from outside of my body… from the environment around me.  The term “bad blood” kept coming to mind, and I realized, as the drawing progressed, that my unconscious mind was creating an image of all the stress that had been inundating my body over the last few years.  The cancer hadn’t come from inside of me; it had been a manifestation of all the stressors outside of me that had created “bad blood” between my psyche and the outside environment (my dreams shutting off, my “sucking it in” after Mom’s death and Randy’s death and the dogs’ illness & surgeries, the stressors at work… all of it)  A very revealing drawing.   I then needed to find a symbol of what is necessary to affect the “bad blood” and purge the “illness”… Drawing #3 then showed up and was (to me) amazingly  detailed.

3rd DRAWING:  “GREEN PHOENIX”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper.  07-08-03 (one week before chemotherapy started)

It actually took me several days to complete this work, and a few more days of “living with it” before I felt that I understood at least the first few layers of the meaning of its component parts… There are levels of meaning I haven’t even begun to see yet, but here are a few of my thoughts on the sections: 

TOP LEFT: These are drops of blood that initially reinforced the “bad blood” symbol in the previous cancer drawing I did.  They represent bad feelings and bitterness, almost like an acid-rain (something I’m still, apparently carrying with me from when I left my old employment, etc.).  I want to rid myself of these feelings; put them outside of me so I can heal.  As I drew them, I also got the mental impression, not fully defined or explained, of the Virgin Mary shedding tears of blood… great spiritual suffering; personal sacrifice.

 TOP MIDDLE: The blue tears represent sadness, feeling blue, bouts of uncontrollable weepiness.  The Flood.  I’ve felt overwhelmed by sadness (loss, lack of control, being drown in sorrow) during this year, and this is something I want to put outside of me, too.

 TOP RIGHT:  This was actually the last of the outside images I drew.  For several days, this space was blank because I didn’t know what was “supposed” to go there.  As I was settling down for bed one night, though, the image of black vultures circling high in the clouds came to me for no reason, and I knew that’s what had to go in this corner.  The vultures represent Death, ever-present, circling, haunting.  As they are outside of the center circle, I believe they represent a lingering fear of death… But, they also bring with them the sense that even though they seem ominous, they are not evil; they’re a part of Nature…

 BOTTOM RIGHT: The dark clouds represent “depression”, and the humanoid figure wears a mask of hopelessness.  Under the mask, though, are rays of yellow light beaming from the being’s face.  I think this represents a fear that depression will smother my inner light; will suffocate, extinguish, or otherwise dampen my spirits…  Keep in mind that before I started this drawing, I wasn’t consciously aware of all of these “negative” feelings.  I was surprised, when I did the drawing, how many there were, and how they covered almost the entire page… they were far more pervasive and overwhelming than I knew (or allowed myself to admit before).  Seeing them in front of my face helped to me to acknowledge them and take steps to dispel them or at least start to understand them better.

 BOTTOM MIDDLE: Here is a mish-mash of crisscrossing lines; a representation of intense “electric” tension that creates chaotic and ultimately harmful internal energies.  This is “stress”, a toxic environment.  It embodies feelings of acute disconnection, a sense of being torn every which way, unfocused anxiety.  It is not a good place to be; it’s very destructive.

 BOTTOM LEFT:  When I was doing this drawing, this was the first image that came to mind: the humanoid figure wearing a false smile (that was cracking).  This figure represents counterfeit feelings… and the mask is cracking because I’ve begun (I think) to see the truth behind it.  The figure may also represent my dislike for the feigned concern I’ve experienced from others.  This image seems more “profound” than the others, representing more than I can imagine at the moment.  I can “feel” deeper meanings here, but my conscious brain cannot fathom or articulate them yet…
           The dark scribble emanating from the side of the figure (each color laid down in a continuous, unbroken line) represents, in part, the mangled threads of Life that can be knotted up (and rendered “directionless”) by fake emotions and platitudes.  I also believe that the black scribble represents my initial impression of my cancer (being adjacent to the “bad blood” on top, and the “chaos” of the bottom/center).  I surprised, as I look at it now, how large and negative this particular component is.  I believe it represented, too, a fear that the cancer would overwhelm every aspect of my life and being. 

CENTER IMAGE: Then came the center image, the inside-the-circle image. My symbol of hope; the one that purge the negativity.    I knew as I started this drawing this part of the piece that it had to be a phoenix, but I was surprised by how the phoenix turned out.
            At first, I wanted to do it more like a flame, in reds and yellows and brilliant oranges, but my Unconscious kept nagging at me that that particular interpretation of the bird and those colors were “too consuming” and “too destructive”, so I put all the hot colors aside and picked up green instead.  Green has always represented growth and opportunity for me… so my phoenix embodies those things, among many others.  More obvious meanings of this symbol are, of course, regeneration, unquenchable recuperative abilities, and enlightenment.  Phoenix’s are, of course, also associated with “healing tears”, and have the ability to carry great loads (burdens) without difficulty over long distances. My phoenix is green so it also represents to me unstoppable personal growth, evolution, and a future filled with healing and potential.  I’m a bit surprised to see, too, that in this particular rendering the phoenix also looks vaguely like a Tree of Life… another wholly positive and reaffirming image. [[My sister Monica says it looks like an artichoke, and might represent “layers of the psyche” that have to be peeled away to reveal all the light inside.]]  The light emanating from the phoenix’s throat represents to me the Voice of the Spirit, and my desire to better hear, heed, and understand it.   [[My brother Marty stated that the phoenix’s head and open beak looks, to him, like two people, wrapped in robes, standing side-by-side in a tunnel of light.  This might represent my mother and brother-in-law, who recently died, waiting for me.  Rather than feeling “haunted” by that idea; I found it rather comforting… to think that there they are in my drawing…]]  

It’s hard to see in this small version of the picture, but around the outside of the circle is a thick band of white light-energy that protects the phoenix from the negative stuff outside the circle. I like this image a lot.  It speaks volumes.

4th DRAWING: “WHITE ARMY”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 07-13-03 (two days before chemo therapy started)

This drawing was actually in response to a lucid dream I had of an army sheathed in white armor standing on top of a hill.  There was a flat plain below the army, covered with a desiccating blight.  Suddenly, from behind the army came a huge wave of translucent, iridescent fluid.  At first, the solders feared it because it was so huge and threatened to drown them, but then they realized it could cleanse the plain of the blight, so they let the wave cascade over and through them and down toward the plain below.

I realized immediately, that this dream was about my cancer.  The hill the army stood on was my left breast (which has not been touched by the cancer), and the flat, blight-ridden plain was where my right breast had been, where the cancer was.  The army itself was my immune system and the wave was chemotherapy. 

The drawing itself contains white blood cells, my “white army”, floating in a yellow and blue river of swirling chemotherapy agents.  The pink space at the top represent healthy tissue, and the dark brown blotches are the cancer.  In this image, I see my immune system as being strong, and working in tandem with the chemotherapy, without being overwhelmed by it.  The cancer, in this drawing, too, looks far smaller than it did in drawing #3. 

I took all of this as a very “positive” pre-chemo treatment image, and I carried a smaller version of it with me when I went in for my first chemo therapy treatment, on July 15, 2003.  Because of the debilitating effects of the chemo, however, I wasn’t able to do another drawing for about 10 days.  Images popped into my head, however, while I recovering from the first chemo  treatment, and as soon as I was able to get them onto paper, I did…

5th DRAWING: “ADRIAMYCIN”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. (07-26-03, eleven days after my first chemotherapy)

[[I originally considered doing this drawing on red paper (to represent my bloodstream), but it turned out all right on the white paper. ]]

This drawing represents how my insides felt immediately after chemotherapy.  Adriamycin was one of the chemo agents used, and it is bright red in color.  I made me violently sick for over a week.  I felt it like a destructive “dragon” inside my body, curling and churning around, spewing molten acid into my stomach, making me regurgitate every morning… It was horrible. 

In the drawing, Adriamycin is depicted as the red dragon surrounded by up-heaving spews of green and black-spotted vomit.  It’s crushing pearls (white blood cells, my immune system) in its talons.  Its chin drips with my blood. There are three curls of vomit, representing the number of weeks scheduled between each chemo treatment.   In mythology, most dragons hide a cache of gold, but in this drawing there is no indication of it… my sense of not being “rewarded” for my suffering with something tangible and seeable.  I understood when I drew this image how “negative” it was and thought about doing another, more “positive” drawing to counteract it, but first I had one more chemo-agent drawing I needed to get done…

6th DRAWING: “CYTOXAN”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. (07-26-03, eleven days after my first chemotherapy)
 

The second chemotherapy agent I received was “Cytoxan”, a clear fluid that instantaneously caused a slight “tickling” sensation in my sinuses, resulting in a stuffy nose and a layers of viscous “slime” that adhered to the back of my throat for a week, and often triggered my gag reflex… bringing on “dry heaves”.

The Cytoxan is represented in my drawing by a blue dragon that spews dark viscous fluid from its nose.  (Three flows from each nostril, for three weeks between each chemo treatment.) On its face is a dark “butterfly” shape that represents sinus cavities. 

Its eyes are white, blind – an indication that the agent doesn’t seek out any specific cell in the body but rather attacks any fast-growing cell it comes in contact with, be it a fast-growing cancer cell or a fast growing cell in the mucus membranes…  Like the “Adriamycin” drawing, this one is very “negative” and foreboding, but it characterizes how I first reacted to and felt about the agent when it was administered to me. 

7th DRAWING: “RAIN OF GOLD”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. (07-27-03, twelve days after my first chemotherapy)

 To counter-act the negative impact of the previous two drawings, I did a drawing that was very “positive” in feeling and meaning.  It shows a female figure (me) with the right breast missing (my mastectomy) and without any hair (a long-term result of the chemotherapy).  She is wrapped in flowing ribbons of red and blue, representing the chemo-agents Adriamycin and Cytoxan.  Rather than being “monsters”, the agents in this drawing are depicted as gentle wraps that caress and support the body. Cascading down over the body is a rain of golden flowers, and the figure holds a large bouquet of them.  These are the “dragon’s gold” that was missing from the previous two drawings; the benefit and reward for undergoing the trials of chemotherapy.  Eventually, they could be collected into a “golden fleece”.  From the throat of the figure shines a bright white light, the “Voice of the Spirit” that will speak through me and with me while I go this stage of treatment.

This will be a precursor to my new “drawing of intention” – something to focus on, and visualize -- as I head toward a portacath surgery and my next chemotherapy treatment.

8th DRAWING: “Cured and Healthy”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-02-03 (3 days before my portacath surgery and next bout of chemotherapy)

 This exercise was meant to create an image of myself completely healed and whole in body, mind and spirit… Something to focus on and meditate on when I’m feeling especially yucky during my chemo treatments.

In this image, my mastectomy scar is a glowing white line across the right side of my chest.  My whole body is golden (having taken the "dragon's gold" from the previous drawing and "internalized" it.) Bright flames of healthy femininity, “goddess power”, emanate from my up-turned palms.  The three circles in the drawing also make up a sort of down-pointed triangle (6); another symbol of feminine energy and vitality. The loss of a breast has not diminished my power in the least.  I have a full head of long curly grey hair (symbolizing "wisdom") and there is a pure white "third eye" in the center of my forehead.  Around each hand are hoops of leaves representing "healthy growth", "prosperity" and "abundance" at my fingertips.  I am sitting on a crystal orb -- "sitting on top of the world" -- but it's not the Earth; rather, it's a new world of my own creation.  All around, bright rays of yellow light stream out from around my body.  I am like a sun radiating life-enhancing heat, light, and abundant energy...  This is the ideal me: healthy in mind, body and spirit. I am a “child of the Universe”.

After I did the drawing, I put it up on the walls with the other ones and noticed several things.  The blue and red that had dominated the last few drawings were almost nonexistent in this new one (my triumph over my fear of the "dragons"?); and this new drawing seemed like something of a "reorganization" of the symbols I used in the very first art-for-health drawing I did (just before the mastectomy surgery in June). 

Text Box: First drawing I did in June 2003

 In the first drawing (insert to right), the leaves and grey-tones, and yellow radiating light were drawn from the perspective that they were things hidden in and waiting to be released from the Unconscious.  In this new drawing, they're all "externalized".  In the first drawing, too, everything was set down in very linear fashion (vertical lines, mostly); whereas in this new drawing, everything is circular.  Lines into circles, in this kind of art, usually indicates to me that a "round" or "cycle" has been completed, and now I am is ready to move onto the next challenge or series of challenges...  I wasn't aware of the similarities between the two drawings, though, or what it all "meant" until after I'd finished "Cured and Healthy" and set it up on the wall... That "surprise" factor is always an indicator to me that I'm doing things "right" when I’m drawing, and I’m not “forcing” them to go the way the ego wants them to go...

9th DRAWING: “Releasing My Soul to Guide Me”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-08-03 (3 days after my portacath surgery and next bout of chemotherapy)

I was feeling very sick this day, but finished the drawing anyway.  I’d had it in my mind for a few days, and even did a preliminary sketch before this one was finalized.     

            In order to move myself out of focusing on my body – which was depressing at times because I felt so sick during the week directly after a chemo treatment -- and instead focus myself on my inner Self, my soul as it were, I felt it necessary to seek a symbol that would embody that transition.  This image came to mind almost immediately.  My soul, as an angelic-like figure beaming with white and gilded light, surrounded by the greens of opportunity and growth being “unchained”.  The chains represent linear-thinking, fears, a desire for control, being bound to old trains of thought and action, being imprisoned and immobile (stagnant).  In the drawing, the chains are dissolving through the power of my will and my desire to change and evolve, and the spirit trapped behind them is being released.  The release need to happen, I believe, because I feel that this whole year – which has been one of intense turmoil, trauma and illness for me – is a result of an accumulation of “bad blood” between me and my spirit.  In order for me to get well and to learn from the traumas, I have to quit locking my spiritual side up behind fears and my desire to “control everything”, and allow the spirit to move freely, speak, and guide me.  I have to both unchain the soul and the mend the fences, alleviate the “bad blood”, and start new… letting the spirit guide and teach me. Some of this is also reflected in the previous drawing, where I see myself as a more spiritual being when I’, “cured and healthy”. 

10th DRAWING: “All My Support”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-11-03 (6 days after 2nd chemotherapy session)

 This drawing was one I did as a sort of very personal “thank you” to the Universe and family members who had been so supportive to me already in my cancer treatment.  It is comprised of five hands reaching up; each one open, extending help and support to me  (Each hand is actually a tracing of one of my own hands… indicative of my physical relationship with my siblings, and my metaphysical/ spiritual connection to the Universe.)

            The hand covered with pink triangles and wearing a rainbow bracelet is representative of my younger brother Marty (who is gay).  He often came to my house in Shasta from Sacramento on the weekends to give treat me to videos and company and help me to relax. The blue hand is representative of my younger Matt and his wife Rhonda.  They sent me “care packages” of the kinds of foods I was able to most easily eat when I was feeling sick from the chemo treatments. The bracelet is comprised of five “G”’s… for their five children whose names all start with “G”.  (At this time there was a sixth “G” on the way, but he wasn’t born yet, so his charm didn’t appear on the bracelet.)  The purple hand is indicative of my older sister Monica, who is endearingly referred to as our “woo-woo” sister because she believes in spirit magic, omens, and a personal relationship with the here and hereafter.  The bracelet on this arm is of a feather and five red beads on a leather band – a sort of personal totem.  Monica, like Matt and Rhonda, also sent me “care packages” in the mail with treats and other goodies.  The green arm is representative of my older brother Mark Jr. who provided me with physical, monetary, and emotional subsidy during my cancer treatments.  (He lives in Arizona, and would often drive or fly out to Northern California to be with me during surgeries and the weeks immediately after my chemo treatments when I was at my worst physically.)  The yellow hand with the white star-bust in the palm is representative of the Universe (God, whatever you want to call it); my spiritual and immortal support without which I couldn’t have gotten through some hours, much less some days.

            There were others who were also, and in some ways equally, supportive, but I didn’t add any more hands to the drawing because “five” seemed to be the number I wanted to highlight in this drawing.  The number five is repeated often throughout this drawing: 5 hands each with 5 fingers, 5 “G”s on the blue bracelet, 5 beads on the feathered bracelet…  This number has many different levels of meaning, but to me, as it relates to this drawing, it represented a kind of “centering” of four; connecting it to the greater  “One”.  (Imagine a square with a dot in each of the corners and a fifth dot in the very center).  “Four” has always represented “the complete, ideal Self” to me; so four with a fifth element added represents me as “complete” and whole as I’d like to be, connected to the One and “centered” by it. As I said: it’s a very “personal” drawing… in a different way than all the others thusfar, I think.

 11th DRAWING: “Connecting to the Cosmic Self”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-14-03

 I did two drawings in one day, and this was the first of the two.  It was in response to an Aikido breath meditation I’d been working on to help center myself and focus on healing.  While I was doing the meditation, I “saw” myself lying on my back in a lake of mercury with the sky reflected in the mirror-like surface of the liquid.  Then I saw an echo image of myself floating directly above me, nose-to-nose with the one in the lake.  It brought with it a very calming, floating-free, connected feeling.  I was able to maintain that imagery for about 15 minutes (which is long for me; I can usually only hold an image for a minute or two).

            Then I did this drawing.  As always, I was surprised by how it evolved and turned out.  It wasn’t intentional, but I realized after I’d done the drawing that I’d split the image in half, horizontally down the middle.  I was also surprised, when I looked at the finished product, that the most color-rich, detailed part of the drawing is the “cosmic” half; and the “present reality” part of the drawing, the conscious “me” section of the image is the less colorful and less detailed.

            In the bottom half of the drawing I am represented by the human figure floating in the mercury.  (Mercury is very “alchemic” to me.  Although I didn’t know “why” it had to be mercury I was lying in at first, I realized later that the image was speaking to transformation, so the alchemic properties of mercury fit perfectly with it.)  Ripples extend out across the fluid from my body.  From inside the body appear ting spheres of living energy.  I see them as little globules of stellar material and living light.  They rise up and out of my body toward the figure that is floating directly above me.

            The top half of the drawing shows a distant shoreline rich with verdant growth and a clear blue sky overhead.  (Images representing a state of existence that I’d like to reach  -- rich, full, vibrant, “clear skies”… no cancer or other worries.)  The humanoid figure floating face down here is my cosmic Self; that part of me that is part of the Collective Unconscious, or Collective Consentience; the Universe, God, what have you.  It’s seen as being filled with a vast starscape, a pale planet and moon.  (The moon actually has a tiny human figure in it but you can’t see that in this reduced-size representation.) 

            The life-energy/ stellar-material of my body leeches out of me and heads for a connection with the Universe.  One could interpret that as “Death”, but I don’t see it that way.  There is no death, only an transference of energy.

            After I’d finished this drawing, too, I remembered one I’d done several years ago in Art Therapy class that seemed to be very similar to this one.  I pulled out my old portfolio and found it (TO THE LEFT)…  It was entitled “Children of the Universe” (10-23-00).  On the back of the drawing, I’d saved the worksheet and dialog sheet I’d done in response to the drawing.  Part of it read:  “I am a woman who… is a child of the universe but never felt connected to the light.  The light is inside of me, however, and is just starting to speak to me in tiny embryonic ways.  The light will help me to come out of myself, to grow; and when that happens all the stars inside of me will ignite and I will truly embody the Universe… Balance, Completeness, Harmony.”  This current 2003 drawing seems to reflect how far along I’ve come in that personal evolution that started almost 3 years ago.

            [[When my brother Marty saw this recent image, he said it reminded him of the line from the book and movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” when Dave sees the obelisk and gasps, “My God, it’s full of stars!” ]]

12th DRAWING: “Good Spew”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-14-03

 The second drawing I did on the same day was this one, “Good Spew”.  At first, I wanted to do a positive image of the vomiting that plagues me during the weeks directly after my chemotherapy treatments.  I hated the vomiting, but needed to think of it as something “helpful” rather than “hurtful” in order to tolerate it… So, I intended to do a drawing that showed the act of vomiting as a “good spew”; a natural process employed by the body to purge itself of poisons and impurities.  If you can’t get the poisons out, they’ll do more damage, I told myself.

Text Box: You can hardly see them, but here are some of the seedlings.
            What finally came out was this drawing… and rather than speaking to the simple act of physical regurgitation, it speaks to a complete reorganization of matter; a restructuring of my psyche and spirit.  It shows a glowing maw (very “vaginal”) filled with orange, yellow and white magma… the bowels of the earth rising up.  Some of it cascades down and splashes out along the rocks.  With all its convulsive, ground breaking violence, however, it’s still quite beautiful to look at.  I don’t see “Destruction” here; I see reorganization.  In the center of the maw is a splash of white-hot magma that looks vaguely like a bird in flight.  (My phoenix?)  And nestled in among the rocks, barely visible, are tiny bright green seedlings starting to sprout. 

            What may seem like a horrid “convulsive”, “destructive” year to me, on the surface, is actually a time of vast inner restructuring; necessary to create a more stable, more fertile environment for new self growth.

 13th DRAWING: “Mandala # 1”
Pastels on 18X24 art paper. 08-15-03

 When I did this drawing, I “knew” only that I had to do a Mandala image of some sort.  I had no other idea or agenda in mind: only that I HAD to create a mandala.  When I was working on the image, I literally ran my hand over the box of pastels waiting for some color to “speak” to me before I picked it up.  Then when I had the pastel in hand, I would hold it over the paper, and wait for some clue as to where the color should be placed and how it should be shaped.  It was a very “organic” experience… growing and developing entirely of its own accord.  It ended up as a sun-burst image with a swirl of pastel colors inside.  The only semi-recognizable shape is that of pale green “eggs” throughout the inner circle.  I personally associate this color with “opportunity”, so it was interesting to see eggs of opportunity floating in the mix.  Like the previous drawing, this one, too, seems to speak to a process of reorganization.  But color-wise, it is a “happier”, brighter, more optimistic view of the process.  Rather than a flaming volcano (“destroyer”) , its is a flaming sun (life-giver).

            After I did the drawing I referred to the book “Creating Mandalas” by Susanne F. Fincher to see if I could find any other insight into the piece.  In the chapter “Great Rounds of Mandala Forms”, Fincher suggests that this particular type of image is a “Stage Two: Bliss” mandala.  She writes: “Bliss (is) characterized by a lack of form and a feeling of fluidity in the design… Sometimes the mandala looks like an aquarium filled with fish eggs… There is a suggestion of fertility, but no clear sense of what is developing…”  That seemed to fit my image to a tee.  The danger at this stage, Fincher says, is that if one gets “stuck” here – in the happy, blissful stage – the rest of the round will never be completed; no personal progression will happen, and the psyche and spirit will stagnate.  So… it’s nice to be here in this “blissful state”, but I can’t stay if I want those eggs of opportunity to actually hatch.

 

 14th DRAWING: “My Energy Fields”
Pastels on 22X24 art paper. 08-18-03

 This was an exercise from the “Art and Healing” book wherein one draws a outline of one’s body and then plot the flow of energy within the body to see if there are any blockages.  I created a cut-out facsimile of  by body and then laid it down on a piece of mottled art paper.  I chose this particular paper because it looked like it already had a smoky “flow” going through it and I thought it would better prompt me to pay more attention to my own energy flow.

            I then laid the cut-out over the paper, and started filling in an “aura” around the outer perimeter of the form – rather than drawing an outline and filling it in.  I went along body-part by body-part and tried to “feel” the color of the aura at each stop without any preconceived idea of what color would go where, and without the judging the color choices as I went along.  When that was all done, I removed the cut-out and looked at the aura.  Something was missing… So I added an extra aura around the existing one that was all bright yellow in color.  I felt this was the “healing energy” of the Universe (kind of like the aura of a guardian angel that lived in and around me) that surrounded my own aura.  I then added “lines” and whatever other symbols came to mind – again without any preconceived idea of what they might mean – to each portion of the figure.  Then I left the drawing alone. Hanging on the wall, for almost a week before I tried to “interpret” what any of it meant.  

            Even looking at it now, I understand that it’s speaking to flows and blockages I may not yet be consciously aware of… some of the colors and symbols are still something of a conundrum to me, but I trust it will all make sense eventually.  I “know” now that the orange part of the aura has to do with some kind of physical pain.  My ankles and wrists hurt both from mild arthritis and from physical work;  my ankles, especially, are what I consider one of the “weakest” areas of my body.  Even the slightest stress can cause them great discomfort.  The orange aura around the right upper arm corresponds to the nerve damage done by the mastectomy surgery that has not healed or subsided yet.  I am a bit alarmed, however, at the orange aura along the left side of the figure’s head (it’s left) as I don’t notice any physical pain associated with that area of the body.  I have a fear that there might be a tumor lurking in there, that my aura is reacting to, but of which I’m not yet aware.  The orange radiating line in the abdomen correspond to the intestinal pain caused by the chemotherapy.

            I don’t know why, exactly, but I believe the green and blue parts of the aura correspond to a healthy flow of energy in those sections.  The dark blue in the right firearm, however, seems to reflect a “stoppage” of energy flow there (which may be associated to my surgery as well).  Twin bars running along either end of this dark blue patch also seem to indicate a barrier to health energy flow… resulting in the lightning-bolt like dark green line emanating from the fingers of the corresponding hand.  (I’m not sure what that means yet.)

            The curved, “toothy” markings in the chest area and the thick band of yellow-gold coloring in the upper chest, I believe, speaks to the damage caused by the vomiting I do during the week after each chemo session.  The chemotherapy drugs damage the stomach lining, and in turn bile and acid damage my esophagus.  Dry heaving causes pain in my rib cage and back.  There is an energy blockage here, too, most likely being cause by the physical damage being done to my body by the chemo.

            The three bars across the groin area are indicative of the fact that my perimenopause was forced into full-fledged menopause by the chemotherapy.  I no longer have any periods. The energy that would normally flow through that space has thus been cut off… I believe after chemotherapy stops, even if my period never return, the energy flow there can be reestablished.

            I was most confused and intrigued by the blue line that severs the head from the body – which seem to indicate that I’m either being too “in my head”, too esoteric, or too body-focused.  It looks like, though, seeing the pale blue ball at the throat and the round-about symbol just under the clavicle, that energy is being blocked at that point, and the soothing blue energy isn’t able to travel into the head area like it needs to.

            Now that I know where the energy is blocked, I’ll have to work on finding out what exactly is causing the blockage and how to remove it….
 

15th DRAWING: “Clinging to Hope” (Amid Deep Despair)
Pastels on 18x24 art paper. 08-24-03

 I was VERY depressed on this day, and wrote several pages of “ranting and crying” in my daily journal.  Between my cancer, the horribly stressful conditions at the office where I worked part-time even though I sick (where I was suddenly under constant scrutiny because I was still friends with co-workers who had previously been forced to leave the agency), and the tiny annoyances of daily living (like a messy house, a dryer that stopped working, and a dog that insisted on pooping on the living room floor), I was sick to my stomach, tired, and thoroughly depressed.  I felt overwhelmed, crushed into the dirt, and exhausted. I could see no hope in the immediate future and felt like everything was collapsing around me.  I raved to the Universe to either FIX things, or KILL me because I couldn’t take anymore.  One more mishap, aggravation, or crappy day, and I was going to topple into the abyss.

            Because my emotions were so huge and over-powering, I knew I had to draw them onto paper so I could look at them more objectively.     When I started this drawing, it was my intention to draw a black hole surrounded by ruins, and place myself in the middle of the hole, being sucked off into oblivion – because that’s exactly how I felt when I started the drawing.  But as the drawing progressed, I was surprised to see the image change.

            I did the ruins first, and bare dark-brown ground, and black billows of smoke with flames inside of them, and meteors crashing to the earth, but all the while I was drawing these things in, the hole in the center of the drawing remained blank.  When I’d finished all the “darkness” of the sky, land and ruins, I then focused on the hole.

            I suddenly didn’t see it as blackness anymore, but tried instead drawing an image of myself, in a fetal position, with my head in my hands inside the circle.  After I’d penciled in that figure, I immediately erased it because it didn’t seem “right”.  I didn’t know, then, what to put in the circle, so I reached over into the box of pastels and pulled out the first one my hand landed on, a pale peach colored one.  I held onto it and set the tip of it into the circle.  Without knowing why, I drew a free-hand figure of an infant floating in mid-air… Then I saw the circle not as a black hole, but as a protective bubble that kept the infant safe from the devastation going on all around it.  

            After I finished the drawing and hung it on the wall, I recognized the infant as “hope”…    Despite all that was going on, despite how horrid I was feeling, I was shown that there was still a tiny “hope” living inside of me that was protected from all the darkness and despair by a power greater than anything around it. I felt MUCH better after the drawing was done, and was able to rest peacefully for the rest of the day.

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