Shadow Play
“There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”
~Amanda Palmer
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It’s been a long journey to wholeness and it’s ongoing as most of you know. The insecurities creep up all the time but if you listen, observe you will see your shadow is always there lurking but I’m getting to know it. It’s a slow deliberate acceptance that you can’t outrun the shadow you cast. It’s like the more you fight it, the stronger it’s presence becomes so I am learning to befriend it! I am on the long path to integration, not eradication which was my approach back then. To remove or to try to kill the ego is impossible and futile. A brutal act against yourself.
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Interesting enough it makes itself known more now that I give a shit about things, now that I reclaimed the artist within, that I admit to myself, “yes, I want to be seen & known as an artist, as a valuable contributor of wisdom, beauty and hope in this world.” And as soon as I try to change the old story it rears it’s head and tries to drag me back to that dark place I have outgrown.
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But here I am and I’m doing the work. I am making my art. And I have to remind myself of that. Of how far I have come. I have to validate myself from the inside because it’s easy to depend on the external world to do it for you, especially in these weird times we are living in, where our gaze is always turned outward.
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I sometimes lose sight of what is important but then I regain it. I remember. And it’s this back and forth spiraling. It’s not a perfect linear way forward. No right or wrong path. The only path I see is the one that brings me closer to my true nature. To give it expression and let it live through my actions, my words, my visions. If it reaches one person and makes then feel less alone, inspired, hopeful, makes them also remember then well, that’s what matters in the end!
