Oil paint on stainless steel refrigerator door, with watercolor painted paper pieces.
Tim and John, whom I love so dearly, embody the concept of connection and bonding more than anyone I have ever known, both separately as individuals and as a couple.
Tonight, Monday evening, May 10, we count forty two days, which is six weeks of the Omer. This is my sixth refrigerator door painting for the series, “Sustenance in Exhile: Counting the Omer 5770/2010.
Last night, Tuesday evening, April 27, we counted twenty nine days, which is four weeks and one day of the Omer.
Day 29 – Chesed of Hod: Lovingkindness in Humility
“Hod”, oil on stainless refrigerator door, 2010
Once again, it is Anna who embodies lovingkindness, but who also represents humility, the acknowledgment of all that is out of our sphere of control, the knowledge that what we have is lent to us briefly, the realization of just how small we are and how big the world is. Anna is such an accomplished and beautiful young woman, but never filled with ego, never unaware of the magic and mystery of it all. It’s what makes her an amazing artist (levhardware.wordpress.com) and human being. That, and her incredible loving orientation to all who come into her life. Anna remains forever young and very wise at the same time. Her beauty is the beauty of Chesed shebe Hod.
There was another article in Discover magazine this week that influenced my thoughts on Hod: The article dealt with water on the moon, and how the man who first “proved” that water did not exist on the moon, has now been graciously acknowledging new information, with humor, that H2O is actually there, right where we’ve been thinking for fifty years or so that it isn’t. To me, this is Hod, the humility that tells us to remain open, ready to admit that we are wrong and change directions when we need to. It is not hesitation, or hedging bets, or not doing things to avoid failure. It is the full on willingness to participate and create, knowing full well we will be re-thinking a lot of things later!
Magnolia Tree in North B, oil on canvas board, 20 x 24″
Today is the 16th day of the Omer, strength and fear in Beauty.
Yesterday Peter and I were drawing in the studio, reflecting on his session sitting for the first refrigerator door for the Omer project.
He related that “it was an honor to sit. I was changed by that experience. Sitting changed me in that I am aware of the responsibility of observation, because I’m influencing what I’m seeing. You think you’re on the outside just observing, when, in fact, you are changing the world.”
Those words clearly express the essence of my Omer project: Sustenance in Exhile: Changing ourselves and the world through self-observation, both individual and cumulative—essentially, the power of art.
Last night I thought about his words again while I made my little micron pen and watercolor drawings on scraps of paper, aware of what I choose to observe—in the model, in the room full of comrades, in myself, and in my work.
Gevurah in Gevurah—strength and fear in strength and fear….boundaries in boundaries…..
Making decisions–ruthless decisions, gentler choices…but making decisions about where my attention is directed. Aware of the responsibility and power of seeing and being seen.
Last night began the ninth day of the omer–Gevurah in Gevurah.
Both paintings of today’s model, Heather, oil on board, 12″ x 16″.
Tonight we will say, “This is the eighth day of the Omer, chesed shebe chesed, lovingkindness in strength.”
Today I called my family in Denver to wish them a Happy Easter. We had coffee with the NYTimes and sportsreporters and Ina…the Sunday morning slow start. Ahhhh…….
And then we finally pulled on some work clothes and got started.
We worked on our list of home chores, taking care of the live things first. Toilet scrubbing and floor washing and paying bills and writing thank yous and making donations, both in things to pass on and in the checks we could write now. We prepped for the week and cleaned the fish tank and the litter box and filled bird feeders and cleaned out the gardens, watered and fed the plants, finally making lists for things that can’t be done today and how much we’ll need to fix or do them later—all the little and big maintenance things that keep a home running.
Today we “counted” the chickadees starting their nest in the little house just outside our backdoor as they do every spring, and the forsythia’s first yellow blooms. We counted the garlics and crocuses and bits of herbs and bulbs that all made it through another winter. They survived and so did we. We tested the fish tank water and put out the bird baths.
And then we had a good salad for an early dinner and went to a movie at our arthouse theatre where we are members.
I love this feeling of participating in my life, of doing it together with Jon. Of making a home.
Foundation in lovingkindness. We do the best we can for all who reside here with us and around us.
Two articles have greatly influenced my overall concept for the Omer project this year: Who Wrote the Book of Physics? by Adam Frank, and Back to the Future by Adam Magyar, both for Discover Magazine, April 2010. How did I read the April issue back in the early days of March? It’s a mystery.
Wandering is the time to question everything we once held to be true: laws, principles, …the underpinnings to the automaticity of our daily navigation. It is the opportunity to find what the sure thing(s) are upon which we can build our new life.
They say human beings cannot remember pain, and that’s why we continue to run marathons, have babies and make the same mistakes again and again. I thought about this today when I received the most painful shot I have ever had in my life: cortizone and novicaine into my knee. It seems impossible I won’t remember.
The subjects of this painting are not pain wimps like me, just the opposite: They are unbelievably strong, physically, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally. They embody lovingkindness and strength within that lovingkindness. And they are so gorgeous to look at that it can take your breath away. Beauty in Lovingkindness. I can never paint them as beautiful as they are.
But even the enduring, the loving and the beautiful must contend with wandering in the unknown and even they must be reduced to tears of despair and deep doubt sometime. The compassion these characters contribute to my life does not come directly from their endurance, strength and beauty,,,,,,but is constructed from the personal experience of stepping out into their journeys into the unknown and the possibly impossible.
The law of uncertainty tells us that we can never be certain where the constantly moving electrons are–as soon as we think we see them, they’ve moved!,,,,,And it reminds us that the very act of self observation, collectively and individually will change us. Seeing and being seen matters profoundly, whether we desire it or not.
Tomorrow I will work more. It is an intuitive process and one that is surprising me daily. I have never worked in quite this fashion before. I feel lost, upended, in disarray…all the things that are the opposite of elegant.
Now, as the sun goes down on my unfinished efforts for the day, I am filled with gratitude for my beautiful friends and heroes in this painting while I say, “Today is the fourth day of the Omer, Netzach shebe chesed, endurance in lovingkindness”.
I add as I work through the night….until I just can’t paint anymore, can’t see or balance on one leg anymore….will work more tomorrow…..
As lovingkindness transformed into strength in the darkness of the studio last night, I experimented with a micron pen and smooth drawing paper. Focused on what mark to make, what might be essential, these three to six minute drawings above led the way to something completely new.
The drawings below are on 2.5 inch strips of scrap papers from former projects. They called for a new kind of restraint, for staying within the small boundary while I sat for the first time while I drew. This injured knee wrapped in the funny velcro brace kept me into my spot on a chair. My crutches waited on the floor.
Working small and tenderly with the fine point of that lovely brown pen, adding just a little watercolor here and there, unable to move easily from my seat, I drew the body of a woman much older than me, a gorgeous woman with a confidence I wish I had.
Last night I undressed with my full and lovely weight supported by only my already overburdened left foot, looking at my own scarred and scared body in the mirror while I said, “Tonight is the second night of the Omer.”
This is the map of reality for wandering in the wilderness over these seven weeks.
This year’s step out of bondage and into wandering began with turning over the seder to my daughter Anna’s capable and beautiful hands. It was amazing.
The first count of the Omer is this small watercolor and reed pen/ink sketch of Anna and Dylan while we were waiting for the tacos to be delivered. We made the executive and collective decision that this year, corn tortillas are not chametz since they do no rising at all.
Anna and Dylan = chesed shebe chesed (lovingkindness within lovingkindness). They represent an opportunity to love bigger, to include broader, to continue to stretch the family and friends elastic boundary to include more ways of being, more folks to love, more information about my own stubbornness and shortsightedness to correct. How can I love Anna bigger? I can love who she loves. How can I be a more loving citizen in the world? I can watch my political language and make sure it says what I really want it to say, that it calls out the apparent or seeming injustice for examination, but does not belittle any human being (Thank you, Dylan). How can I love my body bigger? I can rest this injured knee and give it the care it is crying out for. Even while wandering. Even if the time is inconvenient. Anna is the embodiment of lovingkindness…she loves like no one else. When you look inside her love you find more love. Chesed shebe chesed.
Today is the first day of the Omer, chesed shebe chesed, lovingkindness within lovingkindness.
It takes seven weeks,
Every day is supposed to count
But Don’t count those hatchings before acquiring some chickens
climbing the upside down tree of life
I am the unforbidden fruit—
White flavored Loving-kindness
Solid Red and gold Strength
An odd Orchid in the cold northeast,
Pinkish pale fleshy Endurance and ambition
Splendid Fuchsia petals protecting pods of Humility
Orange you grateful for this rainbow Foundation
I am the Prussian Blue Manifestation
climbing the upside down tree of life
Whirling molecular destinations
on the map of reality
Measure once, cut twice, measure again, and again and again
What to cut, what to keep
Editing is Everything.
DNA, spinning helixes,
stay with the direction of travel—-
Along the tricky Triangulations of integrity and energy
Make ready, prepare the soil,
Influence the factors that are in control
Rain, get me wet
Sun, make me warm
Home, please manifest
Not because I say so
Because this is the way it works.
Emotions look like cuts and bruises,
can’t feel them at all
Shoulders are what ache
the whole abdomen feels empty
Measure the need, try before you buy
I am the unforbidden fruit
climbing the upside down tree of life
Can’t you Help me out– just a little bit?
Kiss my thighs with eyes wideopen
And then bring me sustenance into bed
I want to rest these joints
and sit on this ass
in the unkempt doorway of liminal nothingness
Too exhausted to think
Too tired to fuck
Too fucking tired
Triangle of Wisdom
Up The abyss
Finally getting to
The root of the situation
I am the unforbidden fruit
Forming on the tree of life
I see without my eyes
My ears have transformed into winged blossoms
And I’ve got no skin on at all yet
Wisdom is whack
Understanding’s under attack
creative impulse Crowning
Cobalt blue and cerulean Manifestation
Tangerine hued Foundation
Deep pink hollow OF HUMILITY
Beyond the pale of pink ambition and Endurance
Post traumatic purple Beauty
sweaty, bloody strength
silver and wild white Loving-kindness
Understanding umber that’s raw and that’s burnt
I smell like Wisdom’s wife
Fresh from the Creative impulse
Crowning, then
Breathing in and out
The formation continues
The garden brings me
Back to the Garden
I am the ripe and unforbidden fruit
falling upwards from the branches
of the updside down tree of life
after seven weeks.
This poem is in honor of the Omer group from Congregation Beth El after our seven week journey together through counting the Omer.
First and last insert pages of my omer book for this year:
Viola Moriarty
(American, b. 1958)
Modern Expressionist painter and poet
