JON PEDERSEN, PhD
I don’t find myself painting to express my feelings about a certain internal or external event, as I might with poetry. Making art is therapeutic, though, in the sense that it keeps me engaged in the present and facilitates a state of “flow.” But I paint or draw or color, or cut, assemble, and solder glass because I enjoy the process—making the design and seeing what comes of choosing the colors and combining them, in one of a few mediums. I know it’s an expression of myself, and in retrospect I can sometimes see what emotional state a piece arose from. And if I am in one of my many-flavored moods, the concentration involved in making art usually pulls me from wherever I’ve gotten stuck. But most of all, I look forward to creating something out of myself, struggling with it, being disappointed, and eventually, hopefully liking it.
In the case of this little beetle, I was taken by its complexity and beauty and wanted to see if I could not just re-create it but make it mine, too. I’ve learned that artists don’t actually paint what they see, as craftsmen do, but paint what they see. So after drawing it out, putting down the bronze ink, and painting on the gouache and watercolor, this emerged. And I have been enjoying living with him since, as he takes the role of reflecting back to me an unconscious part of myself.
Untitled
(Ink, Watercolor, and Gouache on Black Watercolor Paper, 5” x 6”)
Notes to a Young Soul Healer
(inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke)
You ask if I have advice for your audacious undertaking.
Let me state this above all--
There is no more Sacred calling.
If this is business to you, rise from your chair, walk out from your office, and close the door behind you.
You hold Hope and Trust in your hands and words and heart.
The Soul before you may be taking her greatest, maybe her final risk, to rest in the care of someone again, someone at last.
In all your Imperfection
you must be an Anchor,
the Immovable Island
on whom he can find Safety.
For he likely survived swells and storms to be before you.
Look to Proteus.
At times you must grow
wings, to carry her above her sorrow, fur, for comfort,
thick hide to allow and endure his rage, a belly for laughter,
and teeth, yes teeth, which are often the last to grow.
And know this—
The Healing is not in the words.
Words are heavy things. If birds could speak
they couldn’t fly.
--Native American saying.
If you are to be a Safe Harbor, a resting place before new journeys, delights, and dangers, You must know yourself.
The village has had no rain for many months. The fields have hardened and starvation is near. Desperate, the elders gather what little they possess and send for a Shaman to save them. When he arrives, he enters the tent they have prepared, but does not come out for one day, then two days. The villagers are afraid and angry. But on the third day of the Shaman’s seclusion, beautiful rain begins to fall and soften the fields. When the Shaman at last emerges from his tent, the people accost him. “Why were you hiding from us when we gave all we had to summon you, and the rains came anyway.” The Shaman replied—"How could I have balanced the forces of nature about me if I had not brought peace to the forces within me. As it is above, so below. As it is within, so without.”
Sit and rest and risk
before your own Healer, indeed Healers
who have wielded their craft for longer
and in more ways than you.
Learn the games of thinking
from the masters of Reason,
And the challenge of simple Being
from those who can sit for long hours alone,
And matters of the Heart
from the wounded and vulnerable
who know the Joy and Sorrow
of Love.
Be with them Alone and
Be with them with Others--
for the I knows itself only through the
mouths and arms and eyes
of others.
Retreat from the City, progress
to the Wilderness.
Expand your Mind in the vastness of the stars
and the subtle movements of the sands.
Explore your Senses,
the pleasures of the body,
and bodies, and your body.
Celebrate the sensual.
Your purpose is not to serve the State
to produce well-balanced
well-behaved citizens.
Subvert.
To Nurture an Individual is the greater challenge,
one who can give of himself,
see through others’ eyes.
Help her to say No and Yes and I Want,
to walk among the needy and
keep her ewer full, and her heart.
Help the boy to become a man,
who remembers his youth, what it was
to be afraid and wounded.
Be grateful.
For you have been blessed
with work that weaves you
into the heart and mind and gut
of the world—which is Life,
being alive, which is reason enough
for Being.
My Dear Young Friend,
Do you have the Patience
To wait till your mud settles
And the water clears?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?
The Master does not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present and can welcome all things.
--Lao Tsu