All my life I have been doing a “balancing act”, trying to hold my life together so that it would work as I thought it should. Trying to hold together my image of how the world should be. I became aware of how I do this the summer (1997) when I drew an image with various shapes balancing on top of each other.

The tension of holding and balancing, trying to keep the piece of my life in place, can only last for so long before it falls. The falling was not the catastrophe I thought it would be. The pieces of myself fell gently onto a black line. I realized that I don’t have to hold the world together, it will be okay.

I saw the world around me beginning to fade—disappear. At Bailey’s Harbor (1997) I saw in my mind the image of my grandmother’s house. The image began to fade as I looked at it. It vanished. It was gone, not real. In the spring of 1998 the world around me began to fade—vanish. My mentor, Evadne got sick from kidney cancer; my friend Chuck became ill with brain cancer and died six weeks later. Everything that I valued was disappearing. I realized that I had created my world through my associations with people and ideas, and all that I made was vanishing.

Even before these losses, I was shedding who I thought I was. This was happening in winter of 1997/1998. An image I called Bare is an example of this process. Its voice said:

This is me. What do I have to offer? Bare. I am bare. I am shedding. Who are you? Dead, fading. What will be? I am empty. Holding Nothing.

Then in February of 1998 I saw a flower in my chest. The pedals and center of the flower are clear and open. Attached to the center is a string, a line with a yellow half oval shape. The half oval floats away from the open center where it had been sitting. I am uncomfortable with it floating away from me. I image myself grabbing it and holding it like a teddy bear. I am comforting myself with the security of the world as I have known it and made it. I am afraid to let it go. I do not know what will be. I let it go and it floats away. Now I see the center of the flower and it is open and clear. I am open. I am clear. I depend on something that isn’t real, as A Course in Miracles states in the introduction: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God”.

The fear of letting go of the world I have made is very strong. Even knowing of the peace from my center, I panicked and went right into chaos when experiencing my world falling apart. During Chucks’ illness the image of snake was presented to me. The snake was going down into a hole, trying to dig down into the ground—a metaphor for how I was living. Digging, doing, to keep my world balanced, clinging to the world I had made. Desperately trying to re-make it, to re-create what I was loosing, in another form.

I attended the image of the snake and let it talk to me”

I am in a hole. I am stopped. I am surrounded. I am down in. Years—nothing is here. Nothing is there . . .

Later the image of overlapping lines on top of each other appeared. These lines faded before my eyes. I am vanishing.

Afraid, not knowing what would be, again I held myself up. A drawing of another flower shows this. The flower’s pedals were light, see through. The pedals held a black T shape in its center. I felt held by the pedals. A co-learner, Linda, noticed the lack of substance in the pedals, which were holding me. Her experience of the image was as if it was going to fall over at any moment. What was supporting me was unsubstantial, like the world I had depended on—not of any real substance and unable to hold me. I hold myself in fear without any support.

I did myself the same way in Atira II as a teacher trainer. Individually each person in the group became angry and disappeared. I tried to hold the group together. Evadne told me over and over and over again to “trust yourself”, to “be quiet and go to yourself”. I was too scared to trust responding from the openness from my Center, instead I tried to meet it with what I thought would “work”.

That year I was drawn to the writing of Sheldon Kopp, in particular the book called If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him. Kopp states that you cannot depend on a person for answers. Each person has to go through their own process, their own struggles, and find the answer for himself or herself. Each person comes to see that they cannot control things of the world and that the y struggle with embracing and opening to my Center is expressed in the following poem:

Impatient. Reaching. Wanting. Walking away from Center. Running. Going in circles.

STOP! You are not paying attention. Be still and quiet. Listen to yourself. Be silent and go to Self. Let God hold you.

I am afraid. I see nothing. No idea. I panic. I am stuck. Searching. More stuck. Cannot move. I am stopped, surrounded. Motionless. Going nowhere. In a brown hill. I am hidden.

Once you attend what is hidden, it cannot hide anymore.

I emerge from the darkness, holding myself stiff—looking. Nothing is there. I am nothing. Bare. There is nothing out there; the only place to go is to myself, or hide and die. Tears. I see thin lines on top of each other. My life. The lines vanish; they are fading before my eyes. I am vanishing, changing. I do not know where I am going. I am impermanate—imperfect. Transparent—see through. Moving to Center. Held in the white. I am held.

Remember the whit rose and let I hold you.

I never gave myself a chance to be.

You have so little faith in yourself—because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect Love is in you. So seek within, what you cannot find without (A Course in Miracles)

Shedding everything in my life I thought was important. This is me. Bare. I am Bare. I am shedding. Who are you? Dead. Fading. What will be? I am empty, holding nothing. I am open.

FINAL BONDING

McNeil (1996) states that at each stage in the continuum we bond to what is feared (p17). Later on page 19 she states “What evolves (from going through the stages of the creativity continuum) is truth which can be embraced with Love where it is made available for final bonding. Shedding Illusions that hide our fear is for coming home to ourselves, to know and embrace the Love we are at our core. Bonding is for becoming in fullness, our Self waiting to be embraced—the experience of Grace, the ever-present fullness of Spirit”.

The illusions I embraced are that this world is supporting me. Through the years the light shone on little pieces of the illusion, making it available for bonding. Bonding Spirit does by showing us the illusions and fears we hold are not real. The illusions hide the fear we hold within. The fear is that we have forgotten our Center and that we are Love at our core. The final bonding is the realization of this.

I held myself up and worked to make my world. This is what I did to hide my fear. The fear was that I did not believe my center, Spirit, was there for me. I did not believe Spirit was real. What I was depending on was unreal, what could be more scary? Slowly, I saw pieces of my illusion. I saw how the world I created was not dependable and was on shaky ground. Slowly, I gain trust in my experience of coming from my Center. I am becoming in fullness, my Self waiting to be embraced—the experience of grace, the ever-present fullness of Spirit.

Reference:

(1975). A course In Miracles. Mill valley, CA. Foundation for Inner Peace.

Kopp, Sheldon (1972). If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!. Toronto. Bantam Books.

McNeil, Evadne (1996). The Creativity Continuum. Baileys Harbor. WI: Atira Publications.

I was a participant in my second year in atria One as teacher trainer. During the course of the year I was aware of a persistent fear. The experience of fear never really left me. I struggled to put words on my experiences, they did not feel right, forced. When I did try to force words, I lost my experience, so I stopped. I was quiet. I listened and felt what was within. I stayed there and didn’t try and force words to come.

In looking through my images and notes from that year a theme arise, the fear of being alone and the experience of emptiness. I try to cover the fear or to fill the emptiness with people; with my father, who is now dead and with my husband, whose presence no longer softens my experience of fear and whom I felt distance from for the first time. In a drawing of Jeff and myself (Image 1&2) the lines of each figure go past each other; together physically, but distant.

The early memory drawings (Images 3&4) brought me back to my experience of my father, of his warmth and my connection with him. My father continued to be present in the body poem experiment. I first attend my father—where I held my experience of him in my body, in my chest. As I attend him my awareness shifted to Jeff. I became sad. As I attended my experience of Jeff and looked within the image of a circle hanging on a curved line appeared (image 5). I am hanging. I did not know where our relationship would lead. I had to stay with just myself, to know myself without another.

The process of knowing myself without the other was experienced in the homework assignment, beyond the point of boredom. I drew blue lines of many kinds, over and over again on many sheets of paper until I was bored. I pushed myself to continue. My last drawing was one small blue dash on a single piece of paper (image 6).

Taking away, reducing, leaving only what is necessary. Stay with one—single—what is. I held a piece of clay with my eyes closed. I tore a piece of the clay off and put it aside. I rolled the remaining clay into a ball. It felt too big. I tore more clay off and formed the clay in my hands into a smaller and yet smaller ball. At the end there was almost nothing there. What remained was a very tiny ball between my thumb and forefinger.

My experience of myself and of being alone began to shift in my images. First a single black line became present (image 7) “I am alone. Black line. Almost touching myself.” The “almost touching” statement settles me. The image of a flower (image 8) is similar, “A line coming up from the bottom—a ‘coming out’ in a sense. An openness. A presence. I am settled, resting, held, between, one, lone, single. I am here, present”.

The chasm drawing series illustrates the shift from fear of being alone to an acceptance, a “settling into” myself. The assignment was to draw how I would get to the other side of the chasm. I drew myself in mid air, between to large pointed black and brown hills (image 9). The experience is of being suspended—fearful. The second drawing was of a single black hill with a split through it. A black circle (me) is falling into the split (image 10). In the next drawings there is a movement to a resting place or an opening to what is present within—an emerging. The black circle is resting at the bottom (image 11). Out of the black circle a flower grows, emerges (Image 12).

At this point in my process I was not aware of the shift taking place. The change showed in my images. I remember experiencing a settling feeling response to images 13 and 14, though I could not put words to what was happening. I remember quietly attending myself and not feeling as overwhelmed by the fear as I had the year before. My experience of this year echoes the experience stage in the Creativity Continuum. McNeil writes on page 13:

The function of the experience or incubation stage is separating which requires more passive mode of participation. It is, ideally. A quiet accepting, relinquishment of conscious control that allows the process to continue mostly outside of awareness. In our impatience to proceed we may be tempted to manufacture an ‘appropriate’ experience in order to avoid having to wait and practice patience.

The separating function of the experience stage results from leaving the morass of chaos for the clarity of a single feeling or sense experience. This description is admittedly cryptic and ideal, nevertheless, it happens, if only in increments, which cannot always, because of their minuteness, be identified.

Last year, in my first year in Atira One as teacher trainer, I learned to embrace the experience of chaos. The shift to the experience stage of the creativity continuum is a natural progression. There is an experience of separation. Sort of like being a passive observer—of life, of yourself. Yet at the same time being more fully aware, more fully feeling. Quiet acceptance of what is presented rather than an active embracing. Not involvement in the world—passively watching. An act of trust, willing you to be, willing you to see, who you already are.

REFERENCE:

McNeil, Evadne (1996). The Creativity Continuum. Baileys Harbor, WI: Atira Publications.

I experienced a pervasive fear in 1994/1995 year of Atira. Fear rose instantly when I perceived (real or imagined) that I made a mistake. The fear seemed to come on suddenly, taking over my experience. In reality, if I attended, fear was always present. Fear paralyzed me. I wallowed in a state of chaos, not knowing a way out. My fear of the fear, which I call scaring myself, exasperated the fear. I felt trapped. I described myself as having no voice—not hearing or seeing. I followed the process rigidly, not trusting.

I participated in the process by embracing my experience of blackness. I saw the color black when I looked inside. Black as in lost in darkness. I colored a large sheet of paper with a black oil pastel. I stayed with the blackness, scared out of my wits. My fear was wordless. I did not know what I was afraid of. I was immediately afraid when I saw the darkness. Evadne’s presence guided me to enter and experience the darkness. I wept. Within the darkness I felt alone, blank, empty.

My life was filled with many stressful events. I do not know if the pervasive fear presented itself because of these events or if I was simply ready to embrace the fear. My fear of fear scared me so intensely, that I retreated into numbness, the darkness, and the fog of a sinus infection. In order to embrace my fear I needed someone to attend me, to hold me. I went to a friend who was studying a form of bodywork called the Rubenfeld method. The Rubenfeld practitioner touches the client’s body; the client looks within for images to emerge while she attends the practitioner’s touching. I used it with my practice of the Atira process. During the Rubenfeld sessions images of flowers emerged from within the darkness, in my throat—choking me. A small ball was suspended above a flower. It sat where the tension of my sinus infection was focused: at the top of my nose, between my eyes.

The image of the flower lived with me (see images 1-5), along with a wordless fear. The experience of sinus infection became unbearable. I could not sleep. Something inside me was calling me. I obeyed and listened. I closed my eyes and attended the “something inside”. Screams emerged. I tossed and turned. Restless. I saw darkness. The flower emerged out of the darkness, from my uterus, up into my throat, choking me. I went into the darkness again, forcing myself to stay. I experienced something next to me, a presence. I was comforted by it. My fear dissipated. Then I felt this presence leave. I was alone with a deep pain. “No! No! Don’t leave!” Crying, I laid in the darkness, afraid and utterly alone. I settled down and the flower reappeared. It moved up my throat. I did not choke. I saw a ball above the flower (image 6). The ball dropped into the center of the flower (image 7), it dropped down through the stem and landed in the blackness, in my uterus. It laid there, planting itself (image 8). I wept as the tension dissolved.

Then I saw grass growing from my womb. It grew tall, up through my throat (image 9). Something was in my throat. A sound struggled through my vocal chord. A gentle soft owww emerged. The tension from my sinus infection lessened, I could breath easier. I was able to sleep. My infection, which had been debilitating for three weeks, began to clear.

I was silent, with no voice. I have received my voice. I was beginning to trust my wisdom, to trust my experience, to acknowledge my voice. I entered into my experience of fear, the fear of being alone, rejected and abandoned. In putting my power in the world outside myself, I abandoned myself, my own Wisdom. I could not give my truth, my experience and knowledge from practicing the process to others—I was too afraid of being rejected, being alone. I had not the trust in the Wisdom of embracing the chaos, the fear.

CHAOS:

I participated in the process of opening to my experience and embracing chaos (fear): “a mass of sense and perception that can be seen as a veritable storehouse of information (p.8)”. Staying with the experience of chaos was extremely difficult. McNeil states that staying with the experience of chaos is typically avoided and seems like an irrational thing to do. I avoided the chaos by escaping into numbness of a sinus infection and by not allowing myself to experience the chaos. I was extremely afraid even at the thought of allowing myself to experience the chaos. Evadne helped me by gently guiding me and supporting me while I embraced it.

The purpose of embracing the chaos is to bond with it, to receive the information it holds. Bonding is not something I made happen. It is something I prepared for by allowing myself o experience the chaos. Bonding is “the Light of Love that fades illusions, changes perceptions and brings forth truth, forgiveness, release, peace and awe (p.9).”

Through embracing my chaos, bonding did occur. My fear vanished and was replaced by an inner sense of peace. McNeil states that through bonding we “embrace the Love we are at our core (p.19)”. The voice I received is the voice of Love that is at the core of my being. It has always been within me, waiting.

I learned to trust in the Wisdom the chaos holds. My trust in the chaos will support others in their process. In remembering the Love that is at my core, I can respond to others from that Love, rather than through fear.

REFERENCE:

McNeil, Evadne (1996). The Creativity Continuum. Baileys Harbor, WI: Atira Publications.

“Bonding is not an ego function, which is to say its outcome cannot be foreordained by planning or willing, nor can it be guaranteed. Rather, bonding is a Spirit function. It occurs when Spirit moves. (p.7)”

I want to be in control of the outcome. I believe that if I do the right thing, I can foreordain the outcome. I believe that I know what is good, right and decent. My notes from Atira II were filled with judgments of what makes people good and bad.

During Atira II I became a foster parent to an angry 8-year-old boy. I believed I knew what to do to bring the goodness out in him. He confronted my illusions about goodness. He was not about to let go of his fearful perception of the world and trade it for my nice version. I thought I could teach him about nice and that he would embrace niceness. This did not happen and I was confronted with his anger. I felt a need to control his aggression. I was confused and frightened by my need to control him, something I had labeled as bad.

In Atira II we developed expressive art experiments to try out in our community of Atira learners. I dealt with my confusion over my need to control my foster son through developing experiments, which “researched” people’s experience of control. I facilitated role-plays of what I believed to be negatively controlling situations. My co-learners responses did not fit my preconceived perceptions. Their responses were different than I expected. They experienced themselves. I could not contrive or fabricate my expectations. Each person was himself or herself in the moment.

Years later, now a parent for 8 years, I finally understand. What do I understand? That I cannot foreordain the outcome. I cannot play God. I cannot take on Spirit’s function. Not only with my children, but also in life.

I came to this understanding when I began to become aware of how I judged myself and see myself as flawed. I verbally beat myself up when I do something I think is bad or gets someone upset. I have a strong impulse to “do something” to fix the outcome of my misdeed. I do the same with my son. I want to change aspects of him, which I perceive as bad or hurtful. I do the Atira process to eliminate the bad aspects of myself, again foreordaining the outcome.

My teenaged foster son returned to my home after running away from a group home three years ago. I struggled with my own and other family members fear of the outcome should I let him return. As I sat quietly with myself, I realized that all I can do is to trust my own sense and that the outcome is irrelevant. I could offer myself and the rest is up to him. I saw that the reality of life changed him, not me.

The acceptance of the realization that I cannot control and am not responsible for outcome came slowly. First in /spring, preparing for a workshop, the words came to me: Your Love is enough. Then this summer at an Atira workshop, an image (31) given to me: I am lumpy. The summer seemed chaotic, with many events happening that caused me despair. I became afraid. Unlike the other times I was afraid, I kept it to myself. I held it. I did not attend it in the usual sense. I kept busy cleaning, sewing, and taking care of kids. I spent three days making a quilt, not thinking of anything and acceptance came—of my son and myself. I accepted my lumpiness. I accepted my son’s attitude. I accepted that my Love is enough. It is freeing. Not having to change anyone. Standing up for my truth without judgment or condemnation. As in bonding, its function is to “transform from what one conceives ones self to be to be who one is. (p.7)”

References:

McNeil, Evadne (1996). The Creativity Continuum. Baileys Harbor, WI: Atira Publications.

From my studies with Dr Evadne McNeil of the Atira Expressive Arts Process

“Bonding is not an ego function, which is to say its outcome cannot be foreordained by planning or willing, nor can it be guaranteed. Rather, bonding is a Spirit function. It occurs when Spirit moves. (p.7)”

I want to be in control of the outcome. I believe that if I do the right thing, I can foreordain the outcome. I believe that I know what is good, right and decent. My notes from Atira II were filled with judgments of what makes people good and bad.

During Atira II I became a foster parent to an angry 8-year-old boy. I believed I knew what to do to bring the goodness out in him. He confronted my illusions about goodness. He was not about to let go of his fearful perception of the world and trade it for my nice version. I thought I could teach him about nice and that he would embrace niceness. This did not happen and I was confronted with his anger. I felt a need to control his aggression. I was confused and frightened by my need to control him, something I had labeled as bad.

In Atira II we developed expressive art experiments to try out in our community of Atira learners. I dealt with my confusion over my need to control my foster son through developing experiments, which “researched” people’s experience of control. I facilitated role-plays of what I believed to be negatively controlling situations. My co-learners responses did not fit my preconceived perceptions. Their responses were different than I expected. They experienced themselves. I could not contrive or fabricate my expectations. Each person was himself or herself in the moment.

Years later, now a parent for 8 years, I finally understand. What do I understand? That I cannot foreordain the outcome. I cannot play God. I cannot take on Spirit’s function. Not only with my children, but also in life.

I came to this understanding when I began to become aware of how I judged myself and see myself as flawed. I verbally beat myself up when I do something I think is bad or gets someone upset. I have a strong impulse to “do something” to fix the outcome of my misdeed. I do the same with my son. I want to change aspects of him, which I perceive as bad or hurtful. I do the Atira process to eliminate the bad aspects of myself, again foreordaining the outcome.

My teenaged foster son returned to my home after running away from a group home three years ago. I struggled with my own and other family members fear of the outcome should I let him return. As I sat quietly with myself, I realized that all I can do is to trust my own sense and that the outcome is irrelevant. I could offer myself and the rest is up to him. I saw that the reality of life changed him, not me.

The acceptance of the realization that I cannot control and am not responsible for outcome came slowly. First in /spring, preparing for a workshop, the words came to me: Your Love is enough. Then this summer at an Atira workshop, an image (31) given to me: I am lumpy. The summer seemed chaotic, with many events happening that caused me despair. I became afraid. Unlike the other times I was afraid, I kept it to myself. I held it. I did not attend it in the usual sense. I kept busy cleaning, sewing, and taking care of kids. I spent three days making a quilt, not thinking of anything and acceptance came—of my son and myself. I accepted my lumpiness. I accepted my son’s attitude. I accepted that my Love is enough. It is freeing. Not having to change anyone. Standing up for my truth without judgment or condemnation. As in bonding, its function is to “transform from what one conceives ones self to be to be who one is. (p.7)”

References:

McNeil, Evadne (1996). The Creativity Continuum. Baileys Harbor, WI: Atira Publications.