Dark Night of the Soul

As some of you know I have been reading Thomas Moore's book Dark Nights of the Soul for the last few weeks. Usually I breeze through Moore's books but this one has been an exceptionally hard read and one I must continue. There are a lot of changes going on in my life, my son is a senior and will soon be off to college and driving everywhere on his own. I seem to be at a crossroads with my work(thank you for all the thoughtful comments regarding Juggling). And I'm going through menopause which makes all of these things worse. It is like having one long bout of permanent PMS. And I've been trying to keep it all together especially on the blog which I try to keep sweetness and light(except of course when I am in a particularly dark night of the soul). Well I am up to the chapter on Temporary Insanities and I think this is the chapter that best describes me at this time in my life. I have to decide whether I am willing to accept the eccentricities of myself or whether I am going to hide them. This one sentence made me cry" Without the zany persona, you might be condemned to darkness, and that would be a tragedy". End quote first paragraph Page 259.

I've been doing a lot of blog reading lately and am constantly surprised at how universal all these feelings are. It seems we are either up(most of us) or down(most of us). That those things we try to deny we can't really deny and myself I love to read a blog where someone opens up their heart and says whatever is happening to them whether it is pleasant or not. It gives me the bravery to come and spill my guts to the masses(or at least the people reading my blog). I think all of us as artists have been given a gift and with that gift and the sensitivity it takes to open ourselves to the world we sometimes have to give up a little bit of our personal peace. Artists are complicated people(as I'm sure even "normal" people are). For some reason we would rather be "normal" and just like anybody else then our rather eccentric self. So from now on. Sweetness and light might not be what you see when you come here. I'm usually very clever and zany when things are not going well(I got myself through the whole Bush presidency with humor and irony). So hopefully at the very least it will amuse you.

Ok so now a brief description of my "black hole". It was my first artistic piece and the name of it is HOPE. It is a black hole with a hand coming out of the middle of it with a gold star and gold lines radiating out. In my life there have been a lot of times when the only thing I had to rely on was hope and that one hand out of a black hole. I don't even feel very black holish now but I'm tending to look at the message of hope in the piece that if I embrace my zaniness and idiosynchrocies I will be a happier and more peaceful person.

I am working on another piece and have a photo of a cross for tomorrow so I'm gonna hit the road and read your inspiring blogs.