Circling Back to the Circle

In my last post, I wrote about having so much creative inspiration and ideas and yet not knowing how to express them in my post-stroke body, which is healing slowly. There are moments (like when I wrote that post) where I get caught up in thought and trying to figure it out, trying to push it, trying to go back to the old me which no longer exists. Then I remember the Circle and how it feels to paint it when I have the energy to do so.

After the strokes, I can’t quite describe the state of mind I was in for many months, and still am a lot of the time now. It is more a state of being. BE-ing. I could, and still can sit for long periods of time looking out the window with not a thought in my head, nor a need to do. I hear birds, see the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves on the trees, and sit in perfect stillness - seeing, hearing, being. Perfect for times when rest is imperative. Quiet, stillness, peace is the state of being in my empty head. I say ‘empty’ not in a derogatory way, but in a good way. When I am here in this space, or this space is in me, there is no struggle and no suffering. Words don’t come and I am okay with it.

When I am in this state of BEing, talking feels like pushing. Words don’t quite come. When they do, they are slow. The fast-paced culture I live in feels like a different reality going at speed that I am currently unable to understand. When someone wants to talk with me, when I feel I can, there are often frequent pauses. I have to ask others to speak more slowly because I almost cannot understand them at the pace at which they normally speak. Even music that is fast is almost painful, as I cannot listen too quickly. I listen slowly. I walk slowly. All has been stilled, within and without.

This is the state of being I have been in most of the time after the strokes (especially right after), and when I began creating circles. The first circle was drawn in pencil. A friend led an online meeting for artists to create together, so I felt I would attend to see what might come. I had no desire to create, as everything I felt I might want to say already existed albeit perhaps not materially. Everything already is, so why do? I had been feeling this even before the strokes. In the online art meeting, I remembered the mandalas I created a few years ago and thought I would simply start by drawing a circle in pencil on paper. I found peace with a hard pencil that made soft gray marks and I used it to very slowly and blissfully create a gradient around the interior line of the circle. And it was complete, which surprised me, but I accepted it. That is what I did for half of that meeting before saying farewell to the artists, turning off my computer, and returning to rest.

I called that first circle a mandala. Only yesterday I learned that the word ‘mandala"‘ means circle in Sanskrit. The circles I create are empty in the center, and yet complete. In each moment we are here, we are not what came before and we are not yet what is to come… although what will come has already come because that is the circle of things. We just can’t see it yet and trying to see it, pushing to see what we cannot yet see will only cause suffering.

My state of being after the strokes has fluctuated, especially as I heal. Recovering is not linear and each day is different from the next. In my last post I was very attached to all I have done and want to do and it was causing me grief. That is natural, I think. I do have endless stories to tell, ideas to express, and mediums to explore and play with. And I DO want to DO. But this blank state of BEing that descends like a soft veil or emanates like the surface of a still pond is a gift from the strokes. It is a way to peace and to acceptance of myself as I am right in this moment. Right here. Now. I want to remember to reach for it when I begin to suffer by trying to see ahead of myself in the circle of my life.

Starting the Year with a Jolt

As many people do, I had big plans for 2022. There were things I was going to build on that I had already started. There were things I was going to resurrect in a new way. There were things. Then on the morning of January 21st, I had a stroke. The right side of my body was becoming paralyzed, quickly. I kind of knew what was happening and reached for the phone, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to speak and move as I tried to reach out for help. Thankfully, I got through and help came.

Long story short, I made it to the hospital quickly enough to be administered the drug TPA which, in ischemic strokes, can reverse the effects. That’s exactly what happened while I was still in the Emergency Room and I remember the absolute joy at being able to move my hand again, smile, speak, move my leg. But, recovery takes a very long time. I walk very, very slowly and with a cane. My right hand is still a bit weak (one of the reasons I push myself to draw and paint as often as I can, to use my muscle memory to rebuild circuitry in my brain). Dealing with details is still challenging. In April I had another incident, this time a TIA, and it put me a few steps backwards. But I am recovering.

In February, not long after I got out of the hospital, I went to a friend’s art group on Zoom, not knowing what I would do, if anything, but just wanting to reach out and see what might happen. I drew a circle. I remembered the mandalas I was drawing in recent years that brought me so much peace. This time it was a mandala, but only looked like a circle. Even though the center appears to be empty, it is complete.

I began painting circles after that and you can see the ones I have created so far in Gallery 1 here on my website. In the video I made about them, I am speaking a bit better now than I was in the video, though there are days when the fatigue hits me so badly that my speech slurs. It will be a while before I recover fully, if I do. Here is a link to the video: https://youtu.be/a4ddKTg5InI

The circle continues to be my main subject matter. It is so many things. But, most of all, it is healing. It is a way to find peace in the present moment.

'Round and 'Round

So far 2019 has presented me with some intriguing art experiences that have brought me new inspiration. The form of a circle, the never-ending path of the spiral, and the labyrinthine inward turning of the mandala are in me and my art.

I do a lot of art now. I paint small circles with watercolors and add pen and pencil to them to create enclosed little worlds. Using colored pencils, I draw mandalas which do not look like the mandalas most people are familiar with, but I anchor the design on the central point even if it is not immediately noticeable. I’ve always liked the ‘tween times and ‘tween spaces, a dancing around of sorts.

In January I went to visit the Guggenheim to see the art of Hilma af Klint, which deeply resonated with me in a million ways, most of which I wouldn’t be able to explain in words. Around that time I worked with a fellow shamanic practitioner who invited me to draw a mandala. Before the new year, I had already been creating small watercolor circles. I remembered Carl Jung’s Red Book. All of it came together.

I continue to create mandalas as a way to find peace. I turn to the circle for solace and self-understanding. Oftentimes these days, my art feels like a self-prescribed balm for health issues I face, as I am being treated for chronic Lyme and also require more eye surgery in coming months. In Lyme, there are spirochetes which are spiral organisms that invade the deepest crevices of the joints and organs and are hard to eradicate from the body. Perhaps through the spiral and circular forms I create, I can find a way to the corkscrew-shaped life forms, and a way to make peace with them somehow. There has been a saying that to catch a fish, think like a fish. I’m not sure if this will work for me, but at least drawing the circles and mandalas brings me great peace while I’m doing them. Creating them calms my mind when my thoughts begin to race with fears of how I will get through this, how I will regain strength, how I will get rid of the excruciating overall pain in my body, and how my health will be restored. The whys are clear… nymph deer tick bites all over me in September, 2016. I pulled almost twenty fully engorged ticks off of me and had over fifty bites all over. They were small and stayed on despite showering. It took me more than 48 hours to discover them all. I became severely ill within days - difficulty walking, thinking, seeing, intense light sensitivity, a racing heart, slower breathing, the development of a facial tremor. One friend who was a nurse saved my life because she was the only one paying attention, calling me frequently to check on my symptoms and suggesting I get on a course of doxycycline asap. I did a 21-day course which got rid of the symptoms, but two months later symptoms returned and worsened and more symptoms appeared. The why’s are clear, but the how’s are not. After going to several doctors for help over the last 2-1/2 years, I am currently seeing a Lyme specialist and I have some hope as I continue forward.

So I sit with spirals, in the great labyrinth of life walking to and fro toward one destination. And I draw. A compass creates the circle around a central point. The pencils smoothly glide across the paper and the harder I press, the more vivid the colors. With a steady hand and two sets of eyeglasses with still no clear focus, I find my way around.

Robyn