No Art, No Heart

No Art, No Heart by Stephanie C. Weaver

I love writing. The joy of writing for me cannot be over stated. My life’s purpose can be summed up in my passion for writing.

Writing has saved my life too many times to count. For me writing is the breath of life, and without it I am deliriously lost. It is the life-giving source as pertinent as water to the ecosystem. Writing is the gold that pulsates through my veins, that inspires the variance of flow to happen in the first place. Writing is the lighthouse in the distance that ushers me home. It is the garden of solitude that I escape to, as often as I can. As I write the weightless feeling of existential opportunity bounds through me like children skipping along lush green hills on warm spring days, with cascading beams of sun softening everything into a golden glow.

Purple Mountains Majesty by Stephanie C. Weaver

It sounds silly, but I've written since I was a toddler. I had no idea what letters or words were, but I still would scribble small thin spirals across blank pages. Stacks of paper would develop as I sat at my plastic toddler table working away writing my stories and ideas; I was a writer! Then I learned how to spell and read. Before, I knew it I was exploring the world around me, writing all that I was experiencing. Knowing I was meant to write, I grew up soaking up any advice that I would accidently stubble upon to advance my craft. 

When I was seven, my childhood therapist Vicki introduced me to stream of consciousness writing; journaling I call it. It was this form of writing that would save my life time and again throughout my teen and adult life. Journaling is my ballerina's balance beam. The place I come back to when I need to regroup. Years of journaling would flow into poetry, alliterations and even a couple sonnets. I loved making them up as I skipped home from the school bus. Writing them down in my composition notebooks as quickly as possible, before I forgot them. My notebooks were where I could explore and reflect, and loved collecting them as archives…I had archives! The more I wrote the better my confidence grew. Then I realized that others were taking notice.

When other’s took notice, my writing no longer was a place to escape, it became a place of torment. “Do you know how a raven is like a writing desk?” That stupid question rings in my mind some days louder than any condemning church bell could ever toll. Yes, I do know how a raven is like a writing desk. Every writer knows the answer, though some may refuse to acknowledge it. The mockery of such a question; honestly!!

The Witch's Hour by Stephanie C. Weaver

I don't know what to say all the time, I sound much smarter in writing it's true. Some days the words simply do not come and the scream of the crows that live nearby send in the cries of mockery. In these times of doubt, I turn to a new page and pull out my paints. It’s time to play again! I know whatever I use to move the pigmented liquid across the page, will bring that joy, that spark, that glimmer of joy I need to thrive. Watching the colors blend together as they decide where they should lay, the thousands of words inside me align into cohesive ideas and sentences.

In the chaos and riot of color, I find the strength and courage to articulate, seemingly symbiotic in nature. I let myself into my inner garden through a passageway known only by a few; painting. The colors can safely blend to unbind the knotted mind. Undulating the words inside to cascade like the waterfall of unending possibility. My writing fingers are inspired to scrawl across that blank page, no longer filled of ravenous mockery. Nevermore will the taps be plugged; a new doorway into the garden has manifested. In so forging the words flow from me and I am writing again:

As I bring focus back to me, I find peace. 

Breathing deep and playing

I find joy in every step of this life's journey. 

I am at peace with myself and I am at peace with the Universe. 

I vibrate into an interconnected collective consciousness

Finding beauty love acceptance and support. 

I'm alive with love and light. 

The promise of summer glimmers just passed the early spring clouds

Making way for a full life to emerge and flourish everywhere.

Soothing dew from freshly emerged blades dampens my feet

Resting in the cool Earth; Winter is past now. 

Time. Time brought peace. Time!

Slowing down to come back to myself to focus on right now.

The world stops with me and brings that bright glow,

Of a harmonious Northwest Spring Day. 

As I learn to play, I release the need to control. I allow for mystery to be my ally as stories and paintings unfold before me. No longer do I feel the need to rely on such stagnant ideas that only hold me back from my true nature. I can fully embrace my mental and emotional power. My creativity is my liberation of the encumbered mind-body-and-spirit. When chastised for my expression I find myself imprisoned with a block around my neck, stifling my creative power. The old ways of maintaining the illusion of control can no longer bind me. The inner creative is a wild stallion that must run free, no matter how dangerous it may seem. So, I write!

  Needless to say, my journeys have led me back to therapy and psychology. As I delve deeper, I learned, or realized rather, that my writing was my therapy. In times when I wasn’t writing or creating, my world would crumble and life became a chasm of despair. When I would return to that elusive exercise of journaling things would quickly change. Through writing about my experiences, I was capable of releasing the grief from all the carried sorrow. When I wrote out my questions about this life, I was capable of finding my inner peace.

A Happy Little Canoe by Stephanie C. Weaver

The more I wrote, painted and crafted, the brighter my life became. By allowing myself to play I learned how to nurture and love myself. Soon I found myself capable of extending myself towards others naturally. The more I explored and allowed my curious mind to wonder where ever it wanted, it seemed the closer to my ambitions dropped down for me to take hold of, and the more connected I felt. Through the simple acts of journaling, painting and crafting things that brought me joy, while avoiding the unnecessary stressors, I curated a life that nurtured my recovery; a tendency towards light if you will.

Art is about taking risks just to see what happens because a horizon unexplored is the bed of regret that accumulates in the end. As an artist traditional paths of living are left in leu of the less traveled path. Or worse, a path personally forged with no certainty at all. Any parent would be concerned if their child came home ecstatic about choosing the artistic lifestyle.  The ups and downs of economies that value profit over intellectual stimulation. Still, an artist does not really choose their path. The muse comes and swipes the artist by the collar demanding honor and reverence or else… So, the artist obliges flowing as guided to a tune only they can hear. Creating a message of freedom to guide others by.

It’s the freedom to play and experience this life as the innocent inner child an artist is, that allows for that expression to be manifested. The safety of allowing that space to develop and grow without need of accomplishment or achievement is when the creative power is at its richest. This unadulterated creative power has the ability to change a person’s life and living situation. Despite the backlash or wayward assumptions that spectators cannot help but find themselves venomously spewing. It is the simple-minded need for productivity that kills the soul and causes the inner rebel to buck in hostility:

Do any of you care? Do any of you understand?

That your opinion don't mean a thing.

That my art, my words

Strung together are not for you to peer and jeer at. 

They’re for me!

If I didn’t, I would die; perish in the wind! 

Cease to be human at all! But do you hear me? 

Do you feel me? Do you see me at all? 

I stand on my soapbox screaming “GO play!” 

“Have fun! Liberate and live!”

But all you see is an expression. 

A performance. A work of art. 

“Don't you get it? Don't you get it, you dumb f****?”

“You're going to die! Rebel! Take haste!” 

“Flee with your life still intact! Go and live!” 

But you applaud and say “Well done! You got your 15 minutes!” 

“You can get down now!” 

So, I step away from my soapbox and say, 

“It doesn't matter; they don't get it anyway.” 

And recoil to my lab and studio, 

Of experimental experiences, 

Understanding the Ecclesiastic expressions. 

And I create and art, because this is my life's breath 

This is what it is; I'm an artist not a spectacle! 

Across the artistic community there is an understanding that many of us “art” because the alternative is death. Death of our spark! Death of our souls! Death of our will to live, until Death itself takes us. To challenge that notion, we instead choose art. How we express ourselves is of course an individual affair, but we all agree, that if not for the love of art, we would not and could not be. Weather you were Frida Kahlo with constant pain, Van Gough accepting the loss of his ear for reasons still not truly understood, or some average jane trying to get their foot through the door, creativity and art are the nectars of the Gods legend about so long ago. Yayoi Kusuma’s love of pumpkins serve as the modern example of the power of art as a therapy. Kusama’s ongoing interactive instillations and gourd sculptures represent the path to sanity is through creative expression. The outcome is pure unadulterated joy; joy for the artist, and joy for the spectators. The artistic experience stokes a common hunger that is felt between artist and spectator, a hunger that only the artistic experience can fulfill.

Inner Child Crossing by Stephanie C. Weaver

Spiritual fulfillment is the power of art. For the trapped soul, creating brings light to shadowed corners and fresh air to stale halls in need of clearing. It is the liberating expression that allows possibility to fill every space inside. The whimsical elation of a child playing and exploring without fear or even awareness of their expressive energy. This is the solace art promises. Simply allowed to be their most genuine authentic selves, allowing the ideas and movements to flow through them freely, this is what living art or the artist lifestyle really is.

Tapping into your inner child and allowing exploration, questions and permission to make mistakes is the spark that keeps the artist fulfilled. Enjoying every step of the process because each step brings you closer to that ultimate mission in life; to love openly through your vulnerability. Learning to allow yourself to say “I love you!” to not only those that are easy to love, but to yourself. To love the wider, grit filled world that grinds the skin raw, leaving only emotional turmoil and psychological decay. The power of the artistic process, is that healing wash, that rejuvenating bomb that allows for our collective to evolve into the next steps of our species existence. A time where emotions are accepted for what they are, and we all are safe to feel them.  

My Mountains by Stephanie C. Weaver

As a neurodivergent individual, I'm an advocate for art therapy. Exploration and discovery of the self through artistic and creative expression literally saved my life when pharmaceuticals were ready to see me end it all. Only by prying myself out of the lulled stupor those little oblong tablets brought and placing pen on paper in the form of journaling, did I begin to regain my life and joy for living. Art as therapy challenges pharmaceutical companies. This is not news. Studies are regularly released now, showing the intrinsic positive impact the creative and artistic processes have on the human mind. The effectiveness is undisputed in clinics across the nation, but anyone who lives art could tell you of its life-saving nature. So let this stand as my rally cry:

Silly mortal man, do you not understand who I am? 

I am the dew drop on a morning sprig. 

I am the glistening beams floating in the atmosphere. 

I am the soil that breaks with new life emerging. 

I am the ember of life that swims throughout all and among us. 

I am the warmth of a thousand generations tender embrace. 

I am the dancer from within, that flits from here to there. 

I am the undulating desire that rolls through your spine. 

I am the ancient Kundalini that rises evermore. 

I am so much more than what I seem and yet you question my dare to dream? 

Silly mortal man, do you still not know who I am? 

I am the bringer of undying unadulterated lust.

I am that hunger that must be fed.

I am the trembling finger that dares push forward.

I am the audacity of some people.

I am the three sisters interwoven into the tapestry of life.

I am the liberated you, waiting to be released.

I am the beginning, middle and end.

I plot in the thick of the demand and bring light where I can.

I am so much more than what I seem and yet you question my dare to dream?

Silly mortal man, you will never understand?

I cannot be encapsulated; I cannot be brought to my knees.

For I have no knees, nor need for knees.

I float beyond what you think I can,

I continue despite your reprimand.

Silly mortal man, you cannot extinguish my plan!