Fear and Shame

Something strikes me now. In the blue drawing of a man being defined by what he is not, the lines in blue around the body feel like that fear, described in the previous posting. You see? The drawing knew it before me. 

Here is the drawing I at last made, late at night, of what is in the space in the middle, among those blue lines. 

As soon as I made it I did not like it. It represented some weakness that I did not feel comfortable with. I did another one, which I’ll show here in a small size.

When I did this one I felt a little better. But I still did not like it, so I drew another one, which I’ll also show you in a small size, just so that you know what went on and you can have your own thoughts about it. I’ll speak about this last one in the next posting. 

 

I had to have a day pass before I looked at the first drawing in this series again and this time I decided that even though I do not like it, it represents what was going on inside of me when I made it, and it deserves going-in-with-words. Going-in-with-words is not thinking, but the same intuitive process that I did in this article.

I moved my eyes over the drawing and collected words that came to me, relating to different parts of it. Here is the list. 

Bubbles

Water plants

Spreading

Holding on

Grabbing

Horns defying

Cane

Please hold my hand

Coming into each other

Hanging

Cripple

Walking together

Close. 

I decided to scramble the words so they will be in a different order. I wanted to go as far as I could from having anything planned. I scrambled them in a way that I’ll explain in another posting, or maybe not. It is not important how you scramble the words. Then, just as in this article, I started making sentences out of the words to see what would come out. I was too tired to finish and it just went with too much effort, so I left it for the next morning. When I came back to it and took a look I immediately felt there were two more words that I would have to add to the list. They were fear and shame. I placed them at the end. Being fresh in the morning, the story or poem was fluently and easily made. In one run through the words it took its shape, and with only a few touch ups, this is it: 

My horns grew too wild

And made it hard to move.

Please hold my hand

And pull me out.

I’m crippled

And floating with

Dead water plants.

My parts are bumping into each other

Like pieces of debris

Holding on Instead of letting go.

 

To walk

I need a cane.

A few bubbles of life still pass through me

Stopping to hang out with each other

Coming close together, like pub friends

Walking slowly in my main street

Grabbing what they can

To make themselves forget

The density

Of fear and shame.

 

 

I used to be a graphic designer and an illustrator.  I became involved with the 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 New York University to study art therapy.

You can see more about Giora’s work on his blog and website