It was a big day of internal connections for me, but there is no 6×6 art to show.
There is, however, this post on one of my recently neglected blogs, Bad Asian Daughter.
And this piece of art, which was part of my morning ritual before I dashed out the door for my bike-to-hike this morning:
Face – acrylic, 11″x17″
The largeness, the spontaneity, the lack of hesitancy, the vulnerability of it are what I love. Yes I love her.
The bigness of today I will attempt to summarize as follows:
– I had an “Aha!” moment shown to me by the gift of a story from a former coaching client, telling me how a year after our work together, he has found his way into a job in his dream industry with no prior experience. A position he thought he would never qualify for but dreamed of and knocked on doors anyway. I realized that the work I love to do, the work I am here to offer as part of my life purpose because of the particular life I have lived, is to meet people at these crucial moments in their lives, when it’s a soul life-or-soul death issue. It’s not about “coping better with everyday life”, or “being a better person”, or “doing yoga poses”, or “eating healthier”, or “making more money”, or “finding a better relationship”, or “living by what the Dalai Lama says”. While all of those are worthy pursuits, what I am uniquely positioned to do is to be a witness for people who are at that crossroads when their soul tells them something and they know they have to follow it. They have to step off a path, make a U-turn, or a 180, and there’s a very real possibility that everything as they know it will fall apart. For these people, this is not really a “choice” but a soul imperative. A frightening and exciting moment that they must face alone but will affect everyone and everything in their lives. No one in their current life could possibly understand. I do understand. I know that feeling and I have lived it. And being able to offer a bit of sanity to them is like a lifeline, an emergency helicopter arriving on the scene at just the right moment. If you don’t get what I’m saying, that is totally OK. I know now that I don’t have to water down my message to reach the masses. If I can simply reach the people who are really flagging down that helicopter (metaphorically), to be that drink of water in the desert, that is more than enough. That is amazing, privileged work to be able to do.
– And for the other big “Aha!”, you can read the post on Bad Asian Daughter. It has to do with the recognition that my fear – in life and in art – is not of success or failure (neither really zaps me out totally) but of abandonment. Specifically, the constant nagging need to be “great” (whatever that means) in order to justify the greatest hurt I could possibly cause my parents (and all my ancestors) by claiming to be an artist, going independent, and risking everything. Just identifying that this is the weight behind it all, the gravitas that I have been chipping away at, seems to lift it a bit. Releasing that need to be great is a daily practice.
So it’s the small things that are big. Today was one of those big small days.
5050 Art 
Your day.