A Living Journal & Imaginations of the Present
"Tiger's Eye mirrored with layered leaf towers rippling on the surface"
Title: Enter the Tiger's Eye (from series "Play Therapy")
c-print
30" x 21"
2019
What’s here in this moment? A memory of being present with Linden, my baby boy. The other night he woke up and I went in to hold him and give him a little bit to drink from a bottle. He snuggled up and fell sound asleep in my arms with a soft light still on. I began to weep at his beauty and the tenderness of the moment. I gazed at his face and fell deep into my heart, into my overflowing love for him. I was in complete awe of this tiny being, so humbly choosing to be my son in this life. I felt incredibly grateful and incredibly honored to be his mother. I cried and felt into both our mortality.
At that instant I felt the closing-in begin - I began to grasp at the keeping of this moment, of these circumstances, this arrangement in our infinite relationship, and, instead of surrendering to it, loving into it all the more, I felt the need to maintain it. There is nothing we can keep, nothing we can maintain - not forever. And in the not-foreverness, we must find the balance of nurturing, tending-to, but with a soft and open hand. When we grip down, cling, mourn before it’s over, not just out of love, but out of fear as well, then we become disconnected from the very thing we cherish.
I returned. I softened.
I still cried in amazement, but with a gentle smile on my face.
His face.
I looked at him and took him in as one whole - not the individual parts alone. As I did so, the geometries behind his perfection began to appear. I feel deeper into them, seeing not just the whole, not just the varied parts of his face - nose, eyes, mouth, cheeks - but I feel between the geometries and into one pore.
The geometries were stacked high like stones. I found myself standing between pillars on an open plane. The sands of time swirled their blessings around each one. The coursing of energy pulsating up from the ground. I could feel his heartbeat. And the pillars remained tall, ever changing, and yet precisely arranged. I raised up with each undulation of his breathing body and slid down deeper with each exhalation. We weren’t alone. It was the erecting of a monument in his likeness. Not to worship the man he would become, but the divine infant he is. Now. This monument rested in the dark - in what we often refer to as the “void of space,” but nothing could be more full. The darkness was radiant as well. It only needed the spark of energy and intention to coagulate into matter through thoughtforms to become manifest in the light. The light is already everywhere, it just needs the right encouragement to spark. A “yes, and” moment of light and travel. Once upon a time, it did travel, but now it is a matter of recalling it, remembering it, in any given S P A C E. Yes Einstein, and yes Walter Russell. Yes! And…..
As I felt my mind begin to drift away from what was present in this moment, I returned to his face. My emotions having already run their course, I just sat in motherly love, present with my sleeping child. I felt myself reach for those images of the divine mother, trying to make them me or make myself them. No. I am. I am enough. Here and now. I am the divine mother embodied in this moment.
He is a monument unto himself, every child is and shall be. They are perfection in each and every making. Their potential is infinite. INFINITE. The limits they encounter are placed there by us. We’ve imagined all limits and placed them on ourselves in all manner of creative ways. My mind drifts to Disney, Walt Disney, and what he was going through 100 years ago when he created Mickey. A PUSH for imagination after that. My mind drifts again to Yoko Uno - the inspiration behind John Lenon’s song Imagine. She used imagination to survive when she was a child without a home, hungry, and caring for her little brother (as I understand it). They imagined their food. My mind hops again to the movie Hook and all the little lost boys surviving and THRIVING on their imagined feasts. Once Peter, the adult, was able to see it for himself - see the realness of their imaginings - they exclaimed “you’re playing with us!!”
I begin to cry again. Imagination!! It’s SO powerful. It’s been such a gift to receive the imaginings and stories of others, but perhaps we - - - no, I - - - perhaps I have let others do too much of imagining for me in this life. It’s time I participate in the imagining - in creation and creativity.
That’s it! The power of imagination can be used to suppress and oppress, just by continuing to tell the stories we already know - what happens next? If you know the answer, then someone isn’t just sharing a creation with you, they’re reiterating a teaching. What is a teaching? A teaching is something we can all be sure of in one form or another. But in a world where the only constant is change, how can we be sure of anything? I recall my old art projects pointing at just that - the absurdity of certainty.
But there are things we can be certain of besides change. What are they? I am certain that the potential in this child (and in all babies) is absolutely limitless. To protect or to nurture that limitless potential, maybe all I have to do is imagine it being honored and upheld. Maybe entering the present moment is the only healthy kind of imagining. “Healthy.”
My mind skips again. I think of all the diagnosed cases of ADD and how I often feel it in myself - the inability to stay put, to stay present for very long or to focus - my mind activity sweeping me away and eliciting all manner of emotion. When I was a little girl, I thought this kind of daydreaming would help to make me a good little actress. Maybe so. But now I see the older generation in my family succumbing to Alzheimers and dementia - maybe this will increase in occurrence throughout our population. ADD in our youth and early adulthood, until memory loss in old age. It doesn’t have to be this way - are we doing it to ourselves? Are we being torn apart by distraction and dopamine hits? What would the antidote be? I believe the antidote is coming back to presence, to focus, as often as possible, for as long as possible. And, of course, without the needy gripping and fear of what could happen in the future. No. It’s not a means to an end - just an observation.
So what is it to be present? What is it to stay in the here and now. I’ve heard wonderful guided meditations on this - releasing thoughts of the past and of the future and releasing the need to describe what’s happening now. It’s so freeing and so… forever.
I’ve experienced presence in a number of ways, though. One version is paired with imagination. It’s the breaking down of the solidity of this reality and entering all the layers of realities, dimensions, and empty space that lies within the here and now. It’s all present. We can only create from the present. So, in fact, being present doesn’t always have to be a slowing down into stillness, observation, and breathing. It may always need to begin with that, who knows, but there is a deepening within it. There is a canyon that opens up, a rhythm that reveals its beat, and layers that dance to the surface when we’re open enough to receive them.
I see that my mind danced in and out of presence with the associations each thought brought up - imaginings and events and teachings from the other. And by “other” I mean US! Our imaginings, events, and teachings. They are ours, our birthright. We thrive on them, but we also limit ourselves with them. So what do I see? What is present in me? In the here and now? In front of my eyes, in the presence of the “other,” an innocent, well-connected-to-the-divine, little baby boy. Maybe he’s imagining me? I know he’s fully present. I find it funny when people try to muse at what a baby is thinking - the absurdity of it - they are NOT thinking, thank god. They are present. They are experiencing and absorbing and fully engaged. They have no judgments beyond, “yes - that!” Or “hmmm not that.”
I will not limit him with punishment. I will not distract him from his feelings. I will not coax him with addiction. We are all doing the best we can, but I have to admit to myself - I’ve been trying to get my older son to fit a mold, model, and system that I don’t even believe in. I’ve been doing it out of fear and social pressure that isn’t mine - it is not mine and it certainly is not his. He is a happy little boy - why would I push him anywhere away from where he is right now. Absurd, top to bottom. I don’t know how to do it any other way. I will have to imagine another way. I will have to imagine both my boys in their limitless potential.
As a kid when I was told “you can be anything you want to be” I felt the hollowness of these words. We’ve been enslaved as a species, once again, but in a semi-harmonious way. Tricked back into our cages. That’s ok. That’s O.K. How do we get out of our cages? By imagining a way out. Imagining a potential for ourselves that feels good. And knowing we move into it by seeing it already done. I imagine myself free. I imagine my boys free. They don’t need to be anything they’re not. If I imagine it will be hard, a difficult road, then it will be. But I also know deeply, intimately, that the rough road blesses the journey to some extent. I imagine the journey to be easy, simple, elegant, perfect in its design. We’re human, so of course there is pain, but the lows mold us as much as, if not more than the highs. It’s the inhale and the exhale. We breathe in and we breathe out, as do all things. The entire universe breathes with us. Expansion and contraction. Both need to occur and it is pure perfection. I do not want to limit anyone. I want to set us free. I imagine we can build monuments of light in the dark halls of space just by intending it. My son, our babies, are written in the stars - a reminder to us all. And to us all a chance to remember.
I remember that moment I was a mother holding my infant son while he slept in my arms. I lived it with every fiber of my being. It is written in light. It is written in love. And it now resides in all our DNA, in every constellation, in every molecular structure of water - may it flow over the earth, be released by fire, and float in the air for us to breathe it in and breathe it out once again. Passing it on generation after generation. It is within. It is without. It is always. It is forever. And it already was.
It was all a memory. I recall it. I remember.