The Purge and The Knowing
A living metaphor
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This is not the post I intended to write today, having scheduled this time to work on the next excerpt for the book, but it is the one that wanted to be written. I write this introduction before I know exactly where the thoughts forming this post will take me, trusting the knowing that is stirring me to lead . . .
In this season I’m learning so much about listening to my own rhythms and following the cues of my own knowing. Learning which, let me be clear, does not easily equate to the implementing or doing. Caught up, as I’ve been, in a cycle of feeling defeated by chronic illness and an ever present awareness of the complexity it brings to my life, a creeping sensation that I will never ever achieve my goals, let alone any semblance of stability pervades. The voice of the critic rises and breathes its lies into that sense of defeat. “Give up” it says. “Give up all this trying to make something of yourself. Give up the notion that life will ever be different for you. Give up. Give in. You are making a fool of yourself and you are the only one that doesn’t know. Give up!” it says.
I’m sitting with these words for a moment. Waiting for the shock of seeing them spelled out on the page to wear off. Here is the crux of it. Here is the heart of the matter. Here, underneath it all, is the core of the lie. The one that wants me to believe that nothing I do matters. Nothing will ever change. The one that has bound me to the fear of what other people think.
The lies we believe deep in our hidden places rarely make an appearance in such overt and obvious ways. Lies are crafty and manipulative and have tentacles and roots that creep in and around our core truths, an invasive vine adorned with beautiful flowers and foliage to distract and camouflage, until they begin to choke out the life of those they invade.
I am not a gardener, but having grown up in a family full of them, I know that tending to the weeds and the invasive species that threaten to take over is an essential and ongoing practice. I avoided this good and honest work in my grandpa’s garden as a child as much as I tend to avoid it in the metaphorical sense now. “Enough already!” I protest. “Why must I tend to these weeds again?” This one and done notion of being free from the obstacles of life is yet another lie designed to lull me into complacency and self-defeat.
My body has become a living metaphor, revealing the stories it contains through physical traits and symptoms. Healing is slow and unsteady. Ailments linger without readily available solutions. Or return with a vengeance just when I think I’m through the worst of it. In the same way, my life has become a living metaphor, revealing the stories it contains through my physical actions and reactions to my circumstances.
Last week I woke with the knowing that I needed to do another purge in my studio. A truth I’ve been avoiding for quite some time. My body, after multiple major exposures to mold and mycotoxins, coupled with a genetic disorder effecting the way my system detoxes, is now hyper reactive to levels considered negligible to most. And much like the body, the old books and salvaged papers I love to create with have a memory for the places they’ve been, bringing with them into my studio, the damp basements and abandoned houses of their prior residences.
I have negotiated with my body and my mind to avoid this task. I have convinced myself that there are ways to manage without taking such drastic and permanent measures. I have spent a great deal of money on products to clean the air and detox my system to enable me to keep these things. And I have spent a great deal of time living in denial, detaching some of the tells in my body from the truth I didn’t want to know. I have become severely allergic to these materials I have built my art career on.
Facebook memories remind me that this is the tenth anniversary of my most serious exposure to toxic levels of mold, one that could have been avoided had I listened to my own knowing. It is also the seventh anniversary of the publishing of my book focused on the art of collage using these very materials. Our memories are like mile markers, reminding us of where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, encouraging us to keep going when there seems to be an endless road ahead of us. Memories are also inconvenient truths when we find ourselves at the same crossroads of knowing and denial.
With very few exceptions, I hauled box after box, of fodder to the dumpster. Filled up trash bags full of beautiful papers, documents, books, lovely old illustrations, cards, handwritten notes. My body moved swiftly and with conviction in spite of the protests flooding my mind. I countered each message seeped in old lies, with a new truth as I worked.
“These things have value!” I cried inside. “I HAVE VALUE!” I responded out loud.
“Not that! That one is important!” my pleading continued. “I AM IMPORTANT!”
“This is not trash!” countered with an immediate “I AM NOT TRASH!”
On and on this internal battle raged as I dumped each bin, letting go of items I’d cherished and stored for well over a decade. Not fully comprehending in the moment, the importance of this physical action as a necessary ritual to the healing of my mind until the last bin turned over and I saw something I couldn’t help but retrieve.
Even now, as I look at this image it hits me, the relevance of the moment. This purge of the studio, as necessary as the purge of toxins from my body and the lies it stirred in my mind. This message waiting for me when I decided to take action, would not have been revealed had I continued to live under the cloud of negotiation and denial, brought on by a lifetime of ignoring my own knowing. A metaphorical death to living according to what other people might think, what everyone else expected or believed, to ignoring my own voice if “they” disagreed. The pulling of old weeds, the removal of all that is no longer healthy, safe, or good for my own body and soul.
I don’t know who this next moment will call me to be or where it may lead. I am letting go of any notion that it will all be smooth sailing from here. I only know that there is no longer room for the old lies that bind me in guilt, shame, and fear. I recommit now and as many times as it takes, to rooting out the lies and limiting beliefs, and to becoming the truest most authentic version of myself that I can be. Here’s to the start of my own perfect finish.
Today the comment section is open to all, something I’ve been contemplating doing since adding more benefits for those subscribers at the paid membership tier. I’d love to hear your reaction to this post. Thanks for reading!
The symbolism with letting go of the materials and how that relates to your self is huge. Your art practice has been about using what is often discarded because it has value (just like society often judges and discards people, missing their inherent value) and YOU JUST HAD TO DISCARD IT. You just discarded the materials of your artist metaphor. Yes, so aptly put, discarded and retrieved fodder, it is the Start of your Perfect Finish.
You are so very brave...putting into words such raw feelings and then acting on them. However, I personally think you are very hard on yourself too. Give credit to yourself for these struggles in understanding what is happening in and to your life- trying so hard to handle it, to understand it and to move on it. Your purging is certainly difficult but being a type of cleansing for you it will hopefully lift some unnecessary gilt from your shoulders. Have you thoughts of working in a different medium other than collage? I'm sure you have. I love that you are doing more with your writing but do understand that your teaching is a vital part of your income at this stage. I'm praying that all of this will fall into place and that the paths you are led to will be positive, warm and full of even more creativity and happiness. However I can help my heart and arms are open.