I have a gift that I discovered in my twenties. I could read art and know how the people who made it felt when they made their art. This gift has developed a great deal since I started working with people to lessen their suffering, using art-making in the process. Today much more information comes to me through people’s art. And more still comes through my own art-work, done in people’s presence, or when I am aware of them.
I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator. I wrote for children and a little bit for adults. I came to NYC in 1985, 40 years old, married with three children and started a new career as an illustrator only. A few years later I became involved with Chan Meditation Center and studied meditation and Buddhist knowledge with the late Master Sheng-yen from Taiwan. For twelve years I was in a process of deepening my meditation. I had many more experiences and insights and my life changed. After having illustrated more than 40 children’s books and writing two of them, I left this career too and went to NYU to study art therapy.
ByGiora Carmi
Creating Mountains and rivers and sky Means Daring to be me. I am nothing but a sage sitting And these days Here I am learning to take space with colors To draw lines and fill them up With tints of ancient roads Eternal Every day. Every little bit of self knowing leads to a…
ByGiora Carmi
The soft lines of ploughed earth End at the foot of the hills Where the flow of green Also stops Red in the sky warns you That it can turn black And even here At the beginning of your trip Where you can touch the earth With bare feet There is a branch across…
ByGiora Carmi
The way the roots develop Is by inclusion of the earth That is around them The earth drinks the thoughts of the sky And if you look at How the earth is speaking body language You’ll see That the intensity of your pain Is gone Your fields are organized and loved Your heart is green….
ByGiora Carmi
The little kid Is walking an ancient path The rocks become brittle And turn into sand The little hill Loves to feel his feet on its back The little hill and he Are good, loving, friends Sometimes it rains And memories of old friend river Turn to memories of old friend mud But he walks…
ByGiora Carmi
1. The Green 2. The Habits and the Flow 3. The Human Condition But he is overwhelmed and afloat The river flows rigorously by him And everywhere else He remembers the river from a dream The browns are curious, supportive and showing the way Just as the lines of his drawings are And…
ByGiora Carmi
From here down it is earth But earth does not exist From here up it is heaven But heaven does not exist So what does? The immediate experience here now And what does it say? The light has given birth To the soft flesh The soft flesh has separated And parts play with parts Imagining…
ByGiora Carmi
In this upside down world Where shame is king And the beauty of the evening moon Breaks your heart Isn’t it natural That we choose to make art? There is a mountain range up in the sky And there is a mountain range down We are just waiting for the bird To sit on a…
ByGiora Carmi
This is what we can do and this is what we are here for as therapists or healers or whatever. We only have to assist everything that comes from inside of us in going its way out. It will go if we let it go. It is all so simple. So here is what I…
ByGiora Carmi
The night was torturous. The pain, which used to be concentrated in one place, spread to bigger areas and to both feet. I don’t know how to describe it so that you will be able to really have a sense of what it is. It is a big experience. Waves after waves of tremendous energy…
ByGiora Carmi
I came to my desk at around 5AM again. I made the drawing that you see here. I wrote what parts of the drawing conveyed to me. I scrambled the sentences and rewrote them in a new order. I read. It did not make much sense to me, so I left it on the desk,…
ByGiora Carmi
I sat at my desk at 5 in the morning. I slept well till then and it made a big difference. As I made the lines in this drawing I knew that I was very patient and that I listened to every line as it was made. There was no decision about where the line…
ByGiora Carmi
I haven’t written for the blog for a while. I kept drawing every day and reading my drawings. Sometimes I drew more times than in other days. Basically these are all processes that you have seen me doing before. Discovering blockages and dissolving them, expressing experiences of expanded states, asking intuition and getting answers. Doing…
