Looking at Art

“Looking at art can be as necessary, as nourishing as opening the window, as inspecting one’s soul through the eyes looking back in the mirror. Art offers a window that opens into self and other. Not a literal window as in a Matisse painting, but an opening that allows us to look outside ourselves, into ourselves. Art reflects and transmits light and dark, spirit and soul, awareness, the invigorating, refreshing challenge of a new vision.”

-J. Gendler from ‘Notes on the Need for Beauty’

Art Saves Lives

From Sacred Art Studio June newsletter:

Driving around town, I often see a bumper sticker that says, Art Saves Lives. And I say aloud to myself--to the universe, "oh yes." I believe in my heart that if it hadn't been for painting, I might not be alive today. Art saved my life and continues to...every day. I've often said this to people (and write of my story often here at my blog) though many may not know the extent of what that means for me. Twenty-two years ago, I was in the darkest period of my life in the wake of my brother's death from AIDS followed by the sudden death of my mother nine months later. Feeling alone in my grief, I began a rapid descent into the underworld, abusing alcohol and sex. I lost count of how many times I drove drunk and thank the gods that I didn't get thrown in jail or worse--kill someone. By this time, I was on collision course with my own premature death. Although I had studied fine art as an undergraduate, I was working long hours at my first design job out of college, so there wasn't much time for painting; although I always had my easel set up in the corner of my apartment. A canvas silently waiting for that one moment to arrive. I learned very quickly that our culture does not deal well (if at all) with death or grief and over time I became more and more isolated. One fortuitous, albeit drunken night, I picked up a brush and began to paint. For me, that painting (shown below) was the start of my healing journey.

Livingstone Daisy with Urn ©1991 Amy Livingstone

My work as evolved over the years and illustrates a slow emergence from the dark into the light to the sacred art that it is today. Out of my grief came deep compassion and a new worldview which has guided me over the years in serving the healing of our world. Art as sacred activism.

Painting (or sculpting) continues to ease my aching heart around the ecological crisis. When I'm feeling despair for the earth and her creatures, painting, creating beauty, is what sustains me. To quote author and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams: "How do we find beauty in a broken world? By creating beauty in the world we find." The video for the "Lovers of Creation" is in process (coming soon) and am at work on a large "Interfaith World Tree" painting. Lately however, in the early hours of the day, I have been exploring small "Odes to Beauty" inspired by my garden. Art as meditation. (See more paintings at the Sacred Art Studio Facebook fan page.)

Ode to Beauty: Morning Glory

This practice as emerged out of suddenly becoming a caretaker for my elder father and his wife. Witnessing their suffering--both physically and psycho-spiritually--is heartbreaking and challenging. I believe that all the work that I have accomplished spiritually and professionally has led me to this place. I also know from my life's journey that my creative process will continue to be my saving grace as we travel this path together.

I share my story with you and encourage you to pick up a paint brush or a pen. A guitar. Dance. Sing. Imagine a world where art and creativity are valued above war, greed, and material 'success.' My new bumper sticker reads "Make Art. Make Love. Make a Difference."What does yours say?

For love of the EARTH!   

Hope and HeART

From the Sacred Art Studio May newsletter:
Welcome to all the new subscribers, many who signed up during Earth & Spirit Council's Earth Day Conference at PCC Sylvania. It was a sacred gathering of like-hearted beings that brought together our youth and elders to honor the Earth, learn from our indigenous teachers, and find hope and heart during this time of evolutionary transformation. I facilitated one of the many workshops that were presented throughout the day: "Opening the Heart through Art." Expressing our gratitude and/or grief for the living Earth through the creative process, we created personal heart mandalas.

One of the participants shared with us afterwards that during the visualization, she was feeling fear but through the process of creating her mandala she was able to move through it. For me, this once again affirms what I believe to be the power of art to heal our hearts and our world. This illustrates that it isn't about the denial of the fear (or grief, helplessness, anger, etc) but acknowledging it, allowing ourselves to feel it, transforming it through our creativity, and ultimately, inspiring us to action. 
 
When I arrived for the opening ceremony I wasn't feeling very hopeful (climate change, species extinction, political rhetoric...you name it) but by the end of the conference, I walked away inspired and believing that, yes, art matters more than ever now. That we indeed must harness all of our innate creativity in order to serve the healing of our world. Each of us a role to play and it is our job to claim that in whatever form it may take. To quote Buddha, "Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it." 
 
At the conference, when asked what can we as individuals can do, Grandmother Agnes Baker-Pilgrim, one of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, said, "Use what ya got. Keep your eyes and ears open. Then act on what you see and what you hear. Use your voice." Seems pretty straight forward to me! A friend just shared with me an example of this. Walking in a local nature preserve recently, she encountered a father and son carelessly walking through a bird-nesting area. She saw this, and out of deep love for the birds, pointed out the situation. They essential ridiculed her for this and a confrontation ensued, with the father shouting that she was insane. Bereft by their lack of concern, she continued to speak out and though it might not have changed their behavior, she is now in the process of working with local organizations to create some form of protection for these creatures whether through fencing or signage. A small act perhaps but as Mother Teresa said: "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
 
What is your work? 
What can you give voice to today?
 
I'm currently having fun preparing for an Art as Sacred Journey workshop that I am facilitating at Unitarian Universalist church in Vancouver on May 5. An annual retreat day for the women of the congregation, the day will focus on reclaiming art as our sacred inheritance, exploring the awe and wonder of creation, opening the heart through sharing our concerns/pain for the earth, practicing art-as-meditation, and finding ways our creativity can serve our world. For more information on my workshops visit my web site here. I'm no longer offering day-long workshops at my studio due to space limitations, but I am available to come to your church, organization, or community. Contact me for more information.  
 
I am also excited to be in the process of filming my large scale painting "Lovers of Creation" or a short documentary/video currently titled, "Journey into the Creation." Thanks to filmmaker Deb Rodney for co-creating this vision with me. As many of you know who have been following the creation of this triptych (3-panels), it was inspired originally by my grief during the Gulf Oil spill. The painting brings together symbolism from both earth-based spirituality and the Garden of Eden narrative in order to illustrate our interconnectedness in the web of Creation, reclaim our indigenous roots, inspire us to be good stewards, and to raise awareness (and funds) around of the plight of endangered species. And for beauty which I believe can awaken us to new ways of being, new ways of seeing.  
 
"Humanity's materialistic worldview must transition to a sacred view of Oneness with the environment and cosmos or risk self-destruction due to continued abuse of the life-web. Great works in the creative arts call us to imagine our higher unity as humanity evolves toward a sustainable planetary civilization." -Alex Grey, spiritual artist.
 
As always, I welcome your thoughts.
 
For love of the EARTH!  

A Prayer in Spring

"Pulgaria Mandala" ©Amy Livingstone
(soul-symbol mandala commission)

From my March Sacred Art Studio newsletter. To subscribe, visit www.sacredartstudio.net

A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Spring is gradually emerging here in the Pacific Northwest. The birdsong is abundant, trees are in bud, and the daffodils, in spite of the recent snow, are blooming. New life is indeed emerging after the dark days of winter. I love the interiority and silence during the winter months and yet I feel my inner child again when I venture into the garden, seeking out new shoots of life peaking through the mossy beds covered with leafy debris left in place last Fall to enrich the soil. It's this joy that fills my soul in times of grief and sorrow.

In my last newsletter (and last post here), I was preparing for my annual Living with HeART women's retreat. Twelve of us spent the weekend exploring our sacred creativity, connecting our inner knowing with the ancient wisdom of the medicine wheel, and finding sanctuary from the busyness of our world. It was a holy time. When I returned, I learned that a very close friend had died suddenly while I was away. He had been a close companion and was like a brother to me for many years, so it was quite a shock. Yet he had expressed his world weariness and financial struggles for as long and I do feel in my heart that he has at last found some peace. There will be a gap where his presence once inhabited my daily life but in his death, he has also given me a renewed sense of urgency towards life and purpose. So, in my grief, I find myself a bit impatient with the minutia of daily life and feel an impulse to make some extravagant change as I did twenty years ago after the consecutive deaths of my brother and mother. (I moved to Portland alone with no job, no friends or family.) This time however, it is holding to place, to community, to art, to being, to service...right here, right now. So, I find myself ever more present to the beauty around me in any given moment and to that which is most essential. Which is love as Frost expresses so beautifully in his poem, "For this is love and nothing else is love." As I've shared previously, I do believe, that it is through our grief, that we are able to open our hearts to each other and to the world around us. May all beings be happy. May all beings be loved.

What is most in bud for you right now during this season of rebirth, Spring? As always, I welcome your thoughts.

For love of the EARTH!

The above painting or "Pulgaria Mandala" is a personalized soul-symbol mandala commission. These are unique, one-of-a-kind sacred artworks that are expressions of your soul and support you on your healing/spiritual journey. Read more about these mandalas here at the blog or contact me for more information.

Living with HeART, Earth

Sunday morning rainbow from home.

From my January/February Newsletter:

January has been a time of stillness and spaciousness. Although I have been working steadily in the studio, attending to design projects, and preparing for the upcoming Living with HeART retreat, the month has unfolded slowly. After our annual New Year's Day sweat lodge ceremony at People of the Heart, I emerged out of the womb of the earth and felt that initial impulse, as so many of us do at the start of a new year, to make haste and manifest all sorts of intentions. Instead, I stopped, took a breath, and eased into my days. I have also been reflecting on our ancestors who lived close to the rhythms of the earth. January was a time of restoration, to store energy in preparation for the start of a new harvest cycle. How far we have come from that reality in our fast-paced, 24/7 wired world. So, for me there has also been lots of sleeping this month, 'resting in the grace of the world' to quote the poet Wendell Berry. Energy is now mounting and shifting outward once again, just as we reach the ancient celebration of Imbolc on February 2nd (Read more here.) This is the midpoint between Winter solstice and Spring equinox when our ancestors would begin to prepare the seeds for planting. This is an ideal time to plant the seeds of intention for your new year. What is your soul longing for? What is the heart of your longing? Playfulness, passion, purpose, or perhaps deeper wisdom?

Discover this in a sacred space with a wonderful group of women. I'm excited about offering you the third annual Living with HeART retreat. With my co-leader, Judy Todd, we will be guiding you through the medicine wheel and the four seasons of a woman's life. Drawing on our innate creativity, we will rest, remember, and return renewed, ready to plant the seeds and manifest our soul purpose.

So, why does this matter given the demands of our lives in feeding ourselves and our families? I think most of us would agree that we are experiencing environmental degradation during this time on earth. For me, and many other theologians, the ecological crisis is a spiritual crisis. Scholar Karen Armstrong writes: "Perhaps every generation believes that it has reached a turning point of history but our problems seem particularly intractable and our future increasingly uncertain. . . .Unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that can keep abreast of our technological genius, it is unlikely that we will save our planet."

This may sound dire, but I do have hope in human creativity. I believe that this spiritual (r)evolution will begin with each of us slowing down, being more present to life, reclaiming the Earth as holy, and drawing on all our creativity to serve our ailing, albeit beautiful world. That's my vision. Care to join me?

To register for the retreat, visit Judy's website. We look forward to sharing this sacred time with you.

For love of the EARTH!
Amy

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- Wendell Berry

For the Artist at the Start of Day

View from the studio. January 2012

For the Artist at the Start of Day
-John O’Donohue

May morning be astir with the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,

A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

Living with HeART Retreat

3rd Annual Living with Heart Retreat for Women

Exploring our sacred creativity through the medicine wheel

I co-lead this annual retreat with Judy Todd.
Visit her website for more information.

Saturday–Sunday, February 18-19
Location: Hidden Lake Retreat, Eagle Creek, Oregon www.hiddenlakeretreat.org
Cost: $220 includes retreat, organic food, restful and cozy lodging, and artmaking supplies. Program facilitation is by donation at the end of the retreat.

Click here to email me for more information or to register.

Winter draws us inward to remember our deepest sources of creativity and renewal. Remembering takes time, stillness, and preparation—gifts we seldom give to ourselves in the midst of busy lives.

We have designed this retreat to help you slow down while diving deeply into your place of intuitive insights and original perceptions. Together we’ll draw inspiration from the natural world, the four sacred elements of earth/air/fire/water, and the ancient wisdom of earth-honoring traditions.

Earth, or Gaia, will be our muse as we journey around the medicine wheel, open new pathways to our place within the web of life, deepen our connection to the cycles of seasons, explore and co-create in sacred circles.

“The Living with HeART retreat reignited the creative flame in my soul! Since the retreat I have been enjoying making personal art that makes me smile and brings more joy into my life. I recommend this retreat and its leaders, Amy Livingstone and Judy Todd, who inspire love for the beauty in ourselves and our world.” —Rev. Jayna Gieber, 2011 retreat