This Week’s Month’s Inquiry
(next inquiry coming to you beginning of October)
Death is a part of Life. Everything and everyone is born/created, lives and dies.
This week’s inquiry is "how does exploring death and dying support you with living more fully?"
Art-Making Inquiry
Print the passage below from Stephen Levine’s book "A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last".
Gather your journal and art materials. Read the passage. Sit quietly for a few minutes. Create an image as a response to the passage. Write in your journal about the process. What came to mind? How did you feel? How does your body respond to reading this?
Repeat this exercise each week. Beforehand, reflect back on your past week and make note of how exploring death and dying created space for living more fully.
A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as if it Were Your Last
by Stephen Levine, page 10
"So I committed myself to living a year as though it were my last. To practice dying. To be fully alive. To investigate the dread of, and resistance to, life and death. To complete my birth before it’s over. To investigate the part of me that refuses to take birth fully, and hops about as though it still had one foot in the womb. To enter the healing I have seen so many times as miraculous growth during a final illness. To place both feet on the ground at last. To live with mercy and awareness in the midst of the consequences of love, or the lack thereof. To explore this ground, the ground of being, out of which this impermanent body and ever-changing mind originate. To cut through a lifetime of confusion and forgetfulness. To undertake a life review with gratitude and forgiveness. To explore that which holds to its suffering, and cultivate a heart that cannot be distracted even by death."
Warm up Exercise
1) Pause on the in breaths. Move on the out breaths. Create a quick collage of random colors, textures, forms, and words. On the back of the collage, write about your experience making it. Sit quietly with the collage for 15 minutes noticing your thoughts, feelings and body sensations come and go. Afterward, rip the paper into a thousand bits and let it go.
2) Think about your death and dying. What emotion(s) arise? Create a collage that expresses that emotion(s). Write about your experience with the exercise.
My Art Work as Inspiration for Your Art Work
I share my artwork here with you to inspire you to create your artwork. It is through your art-making that you will discover more about who you are.
 |
 |
 |
| 90108-2.jpeg, magazine images & paper, 2008, 12" x 12", |
83108.-01jpeg, magazine images & paper, 2008, 12" x 12" |
80308.jpeg, |
You can click on an image or its title to see a larger version within the online
gallery.
I always welcome a connection with you. If you would like to share about
the inquiry, art-making or other things happening in life, please feel
free to contact
me.
Previous inquiries are online at www.artasaccess.com/resources/inquiries
Have
a great week and live in the remembrance that in all of time, there will only be one you. Your greatest gift to yourself and the world is the expression of your authentic self. By using art-making to connect deeply with yourself, may you find the courage and strength to share your beautiful, joyous self with the world.
-Ryl
Who do you know that would benefit from reading this?
Please share it with them.