Life Artist Course
Day One, Lesson One: Introduction
In my late twenties, I had a complete mental breakdown. Spoiler alert, it became a breakthrough, big time even and really was a spiritual opening, but we will get back to that later, just wanted to be clear up front that there was a positive result to this process. What I did first was I went through a tumultuous time of disarray feeling listless and useless. I was going through mental illness, Depression with a capital “D”, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, homicidal and suicidal feelings and a generalized extended discombobulation in my mind and life. I struggled to get out of bed, brush my teeth, feed and clothe myself. I started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I abused alcohol at points and was drinking discordantly. I was in and out of psyche wards at hospitals for a couple of times. I went through various trials using different types of prescribed medications some of which were dangerously unbalanced when applied to my personal physiological system. I tried and failed to connect with many different therapists and felt like in general I had no traction in my life to effect positive change and bring my life into order. I was hopeless, clinically Depressed and got down to zero dollars in my bank account which of course then I had to close. I was living with my parents. I had no context in the world. I could not work because my mind was so disordered. I would spend time at NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) meetings that were kind of like group therapy that truly were a Godsend. It is important to note here how life art does not have to be religious or even spiritual, but I do believe it has to be life affirming. You will get the sense of this as we go along this journey of wellness.
I share just a glimpse of this in a powerful way to connect with you on a level of truth that shows you how I was ensnared in these types of disrupted energy states and discordant mind paths, corrosive habits and listless life situation that really left me in a weakened victim mentality where I felt life had dealt me a sour hand and was leaving me to rot in it. Little did I know that this trial I faced would lay the foundation for an existential transformation that brought me leagues and leagues in a good way beyond where I was before the breakdown occurred. It was support for the meditation that became my life. Realizing that living your life as art can open a channel to use the creative muse as Love in your life to fuel a better day of functioning is a very true Godsend. It uses the trials of your life as combustible sparks for learning and developing greater wisdom to propel you into a renewed and better life situation but also more importantly the understanding and direct experience of yourself as Love with a capital “L” and a sovereign being that is meant to bring you to as good an experience as possible in and as your life.
We will discuss all of this in this course. And it is important to say that you do not need to have experienced any of what I have just described in order to get something out of the life art modality. It is for anyone who feels or thinks that living their life as art might help. Hopefully, if you have found yourself in those types of experiences or even currently do it will help to hear that someone else has gone through that or at least something similar and you will find hope and inspiration in what is possible in the human spirit to persevere, rise above and transcend. If you have not had those experiences directly, hopefully your compassion is widened for having heard that account and you will experience an even deeper sense of gratitude for your current health and well-being whatever may be that state or condition that you are in, drawing forth the immense positive potential that we each hold within ourselves. That after all is the essence that we are learning about here and learning to harness.
I will say that I really went through life for about a decade amid mental illness to varying degrees before I got basic, fundamental aspects of my health in order so that I would have a foundation to build up from in a way that would suit me the most. This amount of time could be shortened I feel if I had had the knowledge and wisdom that I offer to you now. Self-care is the foundation, the structure and scaffolding that forms a basis from which to build your life art. And I should say that that self-care is really an expression of realizing the Love with a capital “L” that you are. You are co-creating yourself with the Universe in this way. With life art, you are going to use your artistic proclivities and creative sensibilities and transfer that energy into and as your everyday life to make your life better by thinking and acting like your life is the most important work of art you will ever have a chance to work on and experience because it really is! That precious vitality is you learning that your artist soul is meant to grow in this life. Life is for you. At the center of self-care is your artist soul which is the seed that you are growing and nurturing, supporting and stewarding through self-care and ultimately life art practice.
But truly you do not even have to be creative in order to do life art. Know this deeply and you will begin to understand what life art truly is. We all are creative just in our human nature, but you do not have to identify as an artist in order to create the life that you want for yourself. We’re painting with reality here, but you could also just think about it as creating the reality that you most prefer through human intention fueled by the Universe with a capital “U” itself. It is very important to say that the word art can be completely let go of at some point or even from the beginning if you find it does not serve you in the highest. The key to that is to have irrepressible enthusiasm while having absolutely no expectations in whatever words you find work for you the most and in the highest. Simple but hard. Challenging but completely doable. And utterly worthwhile! You must be super excited about living your specific life no matter what illusory limitations arise in your mind and cultivate gratitude every step of the way for what actually is. But we will get back to that later as well.
It is also very important to say that I cannot be a doctor for you. I am not a physician, psychologist or psychiatrist. Nor am I a nutritionist or personal trainer. I am not a therapist either. If you feel you need those services, you will have to seek professional help from professionals in those fields. What I offer is life coaching, spiritual coaching, life art coaching, spiritual life art coaching from the perspective of someone who has gone through what I have mentioned, severe mental illness, arrested development, a mindset of lack, worry and doubt and the dismantling of the ability to envision what I truly wanted for myself in my own life and an ill-founded dedication to art as pain, suffering and resentment that impeded artistic and personal development. The truth is though, your trials and tribulations could have looked radically different from mine. We all face our own kinds of challenges in life. We all come from vastly different places in life and have walked a path that is individually all our own and yet I do believe there is something Universal with a capital “U” that binds us all in the end. Life art and moving into limitless living could still be of great benefit to you, regardless of where you are coming from in life. It is a chance to renew yourself. It helped me immensely to get myself into a stable mindset and physically supportive life situation, which included in-depth time spent with professional care givers such as medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and many others that helped me get myself aligned.
Of course, I cannot give you any kind of medical advice. It is possible that it could be a benefit to incorporate these life art teachings into that period of professionalized care, but it is very important to say that the teachings I have here are not meant to be a substitute for clinical and professional assessment and treatment of your individualized health scenario. I know that if I had gone to therapy and had faced my mental health issues earlier in my life, I may have saved myself a whole lot of trauma and unrest. Once you find a place and way of balance for the fundamental nature of your life and life situation then you can begin to fine tune your capacities and abilities through dedicated life art studies which in the end is an expression of the wellness that you will have thus cultivated. You will see from the studies that I went from a place of living an art life mentality where artwork was everything to me (at the expense of my own wellbeing) to a life art mentality where everything became art and eventually where I am now which is in between life art and what I surmise as limitless living where I may be in a time beyond or away from art altogether though art remains in my root system just like a tree reaching for the sky and the sun as it grows its roots deeper into the darkness from whence it came.
My studies of the life art modalities are ongoing. As mentioned, there may be a benefit of incorporating the life art mentality, habits and practice even at the outset of mental distress and when things are most turbulent. It may be possible that a helpful quality can be had in an instant by understanding fully that everything can be art. It is about giving youself permission for this to be the case, rightly. I think there is a powerful potential for that, and I need to do more research, perhaps even clinical research if I can go further with university studies to develop the life art modality as a clinically accredited healing modality. I want to at least get the work that I have uncovered so far out into the world that is ready to be of good use and can help at least at the stage where a person has established a sound mind, safe and supportive life situation and is ready to start rebuilding the totality of their mind, body, heart and soul connection through the type of life art coaching that I offer. Of course, really all of that in the natural archetype is beautiful as it is. It is just a process of revealing that we are going through here. Nature is the master artist. We become cocreators with its majesty as we awaken to ourselves as an aspect of its innate genius. Life art practice helps us to lean into this and find equilibrium while staying vitally creative. Thank you for being here. Let’s begin the course.
Day Two, Lesson Two
Self-Love
Self-Love is the absolute most important part of all of this. I cannot emphasize it enough! It is the foundation. It sets the tone for all that comes after it. It already is in consciousness, in actuality, in being and Being with a capital “B”. You do not have to go out and get it nor do anything per se. It is through a process of awakening, through tuning in your conscious patterns to the resonant frequency of the Love with a capital “L” that you actually are. That is all it is. It means letting go of obscurations in the mind like fear, doubt, worry and shame, allowing for the Love with a capital “L” that you are in actuality to be perceived clearly by your intuition and senses, your true heart, mind, body, soul and spirit. This truth is what sets you free from the illusory nature of strife, struggle and worry.
I am sure you can feel the truth of this resonant frequency as you listen to these words. The Love is very, very real in its efficacy and presence. This feeling right here that you are experiencing while reading these words is just a glimmer of the infinite Love that you rightly are in your spirit. An endless Love is at our disposal always and forever. As we wake up to this, it becomes easier and easier to begin each day and live our lives more fully.
For me this came about through understanding that everything could be seen as an artistic process. This switch flipped on in my mind illuminated dormant parts of my psyche that were caught in the illusion of thinking that my full soul and spirit could only be brought to the fore when I was in a formal artistic practice like painting, drawing or sculpting and so forth. Realizing that everything I do can be realized as art was the absolute change maker in my life. Very important along with that realization simultaneously was and still is the understanding that Love with a capital “L” is what and who I am at my true core and that everything I rightly produce comes from that core and the understanding of that core.
This combination of epiphany, realization and deep inner knowing is how I healed myself from the torturous tumult I was experiencing previously in my life. As I mentioned basic life practices of health and well-being began this process like setting good habits with my diet, sleep pattens, employment commitments and devotion, exercise, meditation, therapy, medication, family relational renewal, reading about loving kindness and the spiritual path in general, volunteering in the community through a process of transformative service and much more that helped to situate my foundation from which to grow. Life art kicked in along the end of that leg of my journey and seamlessly melded with my healing path to create a lattice work of interwoven understandings and practices built from the core and foundation of Love to help me rise into my full potential and leave behind the struggle and challenges I was experiencing. The anxiety fell away. The stress fell away. The doubt, worry and shame fell away. The static in my mind fell away. The fear of daily life fell away and I was renewed in my efforts to live the life of my dreams in a full, new, fresh way that in the manner of transformation was more of who I always, already was in my core. This I say again was and is the Love of being or Being with a capital “B” itself.
Knowing this is simultaneously the All and the self-Love, which translates as Self Love with a capital “S” and a capital “L” in the actuality of being, human or otherwise. It is an all-pervasive isness that is present through experience but also existent beneath and beyond experience cradling as it were in its bosom the maturational process of a human life and its learning. One day you will fully realize that you are this entire maturational process. You are not simply what is maturing. You are maturation itself. Knowing this deeply takes away the primal fear of death that many experience along the way. We already are the before, during and after no matter what that ends up being. It is an ineluctable isness, a through-going that one can take refuge in by realizing the reality of it. The truth is we always already are this in our nature at the center of being. Our mind needs to be appropriately let go of in order to allow for the isness of ourselves, the presence, the being and Being with a capital “B” itself to alight and delight in and as the infinite eternal now, otherwise know, as Love. Self and Love are one in the same as many have articulated throughout the ages. When living becomes eternity the channel is aligned and the before-to-the-during-to-the-after runs clear, clean and pure and you have nothing but unbridled gift-energy flowing through, as, from and by you. For you are the infinite eternal now at your core which for human being is best known through the word Love at the current maturational step in our specie’s evolution.
Reading or listening to these words can help to unlock a knowing inside of you that is a kind of knowing with the heart or what is more the very center of being which cradles as the Love that you are, the heart, the mind, the body, the unfolding being of Being that you awaken in. These understandings of the heart unlock the mind-way that align mental potential and faculties in a resonant shape that ecstatically connects our multidimensional present through the substrate of presence itself, the isness, the suchness, the being of Being.
There are so many ways that you can access this state, the state: being of Being. Meditation is a good way of doing this. There are so many ways of meditating, so many traditions and styles and formats. Something like a simple breathing exercise, a mindfulness meditation can be extraordinarily helpful. As I have learned the essence of meditation is awareness. The effects are many times calm and peace but those are effects. The essence is awareness. Knowing this you may enter a meditational practice where you simply concentrate on your breathing with mindful, attention. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh talked of a way of doing this where one simply says to themselves silently while breathing in, “Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in.” and then while breathing out, again silently saying to oneself “Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out.” Speaking of Thich Nhat Hanh, who has since passed, he was the author of a book titled The Art of Living which I highly recommend to you, especially in the context of this course and the fact that you found your way to this teaching. The wisdom, insights and knowledge that he shares in that book are very, very much in line with what I teach in life art.
It may not be clear right away how focusing on your breath will bring about self-Love. What I will say at this point is that it helped me tremendously to become more aware, aware of myself, aware of my surroundings, aware of living. What came from that process was the capacity and capability to identify and acknowledge my own Love that I was, am and follow into the future. I could see it so to speak as I developed my ability to become more aware at a deeper and deeper level. Mindfulness meditation helped me do that. I started with the Headspace app and its cofounder Andy Puddicombe and then moved on to meditating with the guided work of Jon Kabat-Zinn through videos and audio recordings found through the library and online for free. Eventually I moved on to the Insight Timer app which gave me many options to choose from in terms of meditational styles. You can search in any of these capacities for guided meditations on self-Love. I went through this process for a very long time or at least relatively long. I worked on meditation testing for five to ten years keeping what worked for me and letting the rest go with Love and grace.
Another key method for cultivating self-Love is the process of journaling. Again, there are many, many different styles and ways of journaling. I worked with the teachings of Julia Cameron, author of the Artist’s Way. Her method of pages which consists of just a mental dump every morning for three pages in a row was very helpful to me. I will not try and recount all her insights here but rather suggest that you look into her work if this sounds like something that might help you. I also got a tremendous amount of value from doing gratitude work that Derek Rydall teaches. He teaches about writing down what you are grateful for each night just before bedtime. He calls this the Night Pages practice. He has some categories that he uses but even the act of simply making a list of five to ten things that you are grateful for in a journal will truly begin the process of healing that you need and begin to gently open up the divine blossom of your heart to become the fearless and fierce self-Love artist that you are meant to be as a life artist.
Yet another key method is the use of affirmations. You can of course come up with some of your own, but it may be helpful to use a guided list that is already set for you by others. I recommend making sure you feel aligned with the affirmative messages that you take in. There are a lot of them offered online and through apps such as the ones I have mentioned. You should get a general intuitive energetic sense when you have found some affirmations that align with your inner most being. This process is typically where you bathe your mind in positive messages where someone is reciting them via audio recording or video. Go gently through these waters and find your way to the messages that speak most clearly to your heart. Certainly, there are many on Loving kindness and self-Love, but they do not have to use those words explicitly to take you towards loving yourself more rightly. Positivity in most forms is a benefit to your soul, spirit and being and as you bathe your mind in constructive, life-affirming messages you will begin to light up in your being and attune to the Love that you are.
All of this takes practice. Again, I did this off and on for many, many years during my recovery. The more consistent you can be, the better the impact in regards all three of these practices: meditation, journaling and affirmations. They will help you. Stay with it and keep an open mind for health and healing to come through. This is not a one and done quick fix method here with the life art studies. It really is a way of being similar to the way Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness or how people speak of walking a spiritual path. All these methods and practices are training your mind, body, soul and spirit to arise and arrive in the world in the most majestic and holy way that is non-religious and only fleetingly spiritual. Life art as a healing modality is made to rise to the challenge of existential amendments that are called for by the nature of evolution and our inherent unfolding through the mind, body, spirit and soul. Take refuge that the awe-inspiring, curious, yet appropriate evolution of life on this planet as the consciousness it facilitates is best known and acted upon through, in, as and by the word Love and will mature like any other form of life by taking on many forms in everyday life.
Day Three, Lesson three
Love is Life Art
Once you have your footing in terms of a solid mental, physical and emotional foundation by doing whatever it is you need to individually do like therapy, getting on medication, sticking to an exercise regime, resolving family relations, seeking volunteer options and employment options, socializing, tapping into something higher than yourself which does not have to be in a religious way. It could be spiritual or simply just life affirming. Changing bad habits into a set of better ones towards the best ones is good also. Reaching out to friends and finding your very own center is what, as discussed in the first lesson is the first step. Then in Lesson Two we focused in on Love but particularly self-Love, the love and Love with a capital “L” of self to illuminate how you actually are Love at your center and core. We talked about three action steps you can take to cultivate and develop self-Love including meditation, journaling and affirmations. There are many, many other ways to cultivate self-Love. Walks in nature are good. Also just making something creative like a nice dinner for yourself, Loving yourself. In this third lesson we are looking at what it is like now that you have a solid foundation for your life situation, and you have learned of the Love that you rightly are. It is at this stage that one can begin to channel the creative muse as Love into life. This is the practice of life art.
This right here is the key to life art. It is when you realize that you can be yourself, your Loving, natural, funny, silly, super, brilliant, quirky, endearing, marvelous self and that you have nothing to prove. Most importantly you have nothing to prove with your art. You already are amazing the way you are. And realizing this and beginning to identify yourself as the masterpiece you are cocreating with the Universe itself, with Nature itself, is the point at which you can allow all the Love that there is to unfurl as you in a wonderful blossoming of Love billowing out from a center that is also Love itself. The Love incarnate that you are in 3D, spacetime reality is an extension of the Love that you rightly are by nature in the infinite eternal now that always is, just as it is, always. As you get this, as you really get this, and you might just be getting it right now while listening to these words you will get just how awesomely powerful this realization is and how it unlocks everything. It unlocks everything for everyone but especially for artists who have been living an understanding that conceived of actions in a studio as the primary or perhaps even only way to do art and be an artist.
The truth is everything is art. And the key and why we have looked at the different facets of the diamond of this understanding in this order is that Love is at the center of the art that we are. Getting this, truly getting this will not only blow your mind and expand it rightly but it will help to raise your vibration in the world and bring you the deepest kind of solace, Love, care, support and knowing that there is for an artist of any kind. Loving life art unfurling into the world is the art of our times. It is a fully aligned understanding. It finds resonance and vibrational alignment with all the practices and modalities that are prevalent today through spirituality, manifesting, visioning, consciousness raising, chakra work, auric understanding, cosmic contextualization and so much more. And as we see that Love as art while living is arising through and as these practices and modalities, we see a way of understanding our current age and the current state of art which finds a nexus point bridging the worlds of art world and world art. Everything is art. This is the transformation. It is deep and it bears repeating. When everything is art, and you identify as an artist you are in the driver seat for your whole life. And in truth these words art, artist and life are the ways in which a life artist will identify, at least in a certain registration.
Love itself manifests in endless ways on Earth. That diversity is the joy and splendor of life. Spontaneous, abundant diversity is the most natural thing in the world! It is something to be celebrated. It is emblematic in all the religions, cultures, cuisines, architecture and of course art that lovingly flourishes all around the world. Love goes by countless names and in countless ways. It is many doorways and windows into the same place, Love. As such this healing modality, life art, is one path, one way, one way of knowing, one way of being, one way of manifesting life in a purposeful and beneficial way. Know this deeply and you will identify with any and all who come from a place of Love. You will just get them. Regardless of their window or door, the boat they took to the shore of understanding called Love that many times lies on the other side of the waters of transformation. It is quite simple and is the basis for a global coherence that can transcend the planet’s strife and struggles. Jesus was one messenger of this but there are countless people who have the Love code of God in their heart, and in fact actually everyone has this capacity, facility and potential and embodies it naturally when all is in alignment and divine timing is honored rightly with respect, dignity and honor. Honor your true Self with a capital “S” through yourself and you will unlock this massive, timeless gift of Loving Being in your heart, that will fuel a transition into your best and highest self, connected to who it is you show up as in the world on a daily basis. This is what it means to be a life artist. You can feel it in this writing and these words being read, being spoken. The Truth is here, right here in these words. And the many truths that lead to it, the doors and windows and boats and bridges and countless forms of chrysalis are all this Truth in their inner most center. You are unlocking it right now if you want to. It is yours. It actually is you. It is your divine birthright to be the Love that you are in life, now and forever.
Day Four, Lesson Four: Painting with Reality
As we have seen, Love with a capital “L” is the foundation and throughline for the life art modality. Life art is a healing modality and a way of being. There is a transformation loaded and encoded in its understanding and activation. That transformation which is shared by many other archetypes of transformation is one that goes from victim to victor, from darkness to light, from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. What we are doing is unlocking the true potential here of the seed of Love that we each rightly are by nature. As we do that, Love in action begins to naturally unfold as our lives however as cocreators we also play a role in its unfoldment and maturation. We are a fractal of this Love, meaning a part that resembles the whole. This life art realization literally brings source energy of Love into the expanse of everyday life, our own life and the lives of those around us. This Love then is the paint that we speak of here as life artists. We begin to paint with reality in this way, cocreating our best and highest selves and sending out positive energy and vibrations into the world around us to promote health, healing and optimal life experience.
It is now that we can get into the mechanics of this, the artform of it, the way of applying the paint of Love to the canvas of reality to create a living picture of health and healing for not only ourselves but the entire world. Do you feel the radiant frequency in that statement? This is a most powerful understanding and practice in the world. It is the power to reshape oneself and the world for the better or more rightly stated welcome in the natural unfoldment of our innate nature into the world through unobstructed mental, physical, emotional and existential or spiritual understanding. This power is always with us, this natural force for good but for various reasons known and unknown it gets impeded. Life art is an understanding and a practice that unlocks this potential and stewards its arrival into the world through care, resilience and deep inner wisdom to create the greatest known living work of art this world has ever seen: our Life!
What this breaks down to or I should say breaks through to is the conception and practice with what is known as reality techniques, ways of thinking, acting and being in the world that steward this vast and immense potential into life in a calibrated and balanced manner. The practices that we touched upon for self-Love are a part of this including meditation, journaling and affirmations. The work of self-care and tending to the interiority of the self whether you identify that with the word soul or something else or even no word at all is that which can be likened to watering a seed within the ground by watering the ground and allowing that water to seep into the eARTh and know itself as the very seed to which it travels. There are a whole host of actions and activities that one can do above ground so to speak when nurturing and stewarding the growth of a tree as well. Perhaps the constructing and placement of a supportive structure like a beam of wood may be called for in the case of a youngling tree. Certainly, sunlight is going to be essential and so placement is a part of the process as well. Eventually, there is pruning to consider and the collection of the fruits of the tree if it is fruit producing or the use of its shade or the sight of its beauty that becomes the very Life that we are living.
In this way we see how there is a connection to what we do “underground” so to speak and “above ground” to what can be called the Tree of Being. Life will continue to go on and we want to remember and stay connected to our roots but simultaneously nature itself calls upon us to grow away from our roots and venture into the open air that surrounds, drawn, pun intended, by the light. Life art gives us a way to see the connection between this under-going and over-going. It demystifies the concept of darkness and shows the natural beauty of darkness rather than warping it conceptually into something that is bad or evil. It is only an outdated evolutionary primal fear of darkness that stands as a maladapted understanding of this quality of existence to fuel unsavory behavior and actions through what is ultimately an unconsciousness, an unawareness of the one true Life that is fundamentally good. I will say openly and honestly that I have spent quite a bit of time with the work of Eckhart Tolle, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Derek Rydall among many others who have eloquently elaborated on similar themes to the one in which I am speaking here however I truly feel and know that the words here take those ideas and practices further, integrating them or rather revealing an illuminating quality that is even further within the nature of being particularly for an understanding that identifies itself as art.
To bring it into an everyday sort of thinking and acting in the world, reality techniques are like the colors in a palette from which you can take dabs of and use directly or mix with one another to help create positive and constructive effects in your life (it is important to note that this can include the lifework of other people as I have thus described). Another dimension of this is to think of this as cognitive art where habits of mind help to establish the mindset or palette from which you and nature draw from as the maturational process unfolds, as life art is made real. Another more contemporary way of thinking about it is considering how artificial intelligence can only learn from the data set that we human beings give it. Such is the cultivation of our own mind and soul. Garbage in, garbage out. Light in, light out. It is very simple but can be hard to do. See for yourself how you have agency through habit building of the kinds of reflexive thoughts you have that will prime your day, week, month, year and life. You have agency! This is enormously important and worth saying again. You have agency! Realizing that you are a life artist spontaneously reveals the palette of your mental, physical, emotional and existential or spiritual potential to begin to literally, pun intended, draw from to make the life that you want to be living in tandem with what and how it is that nature itself, life itself, wants to express in, as and through you in the world.
The practice of mindfulness meditation, that we have thus spoken of, is a way of cultivating awareness. Awareness is the essence of meditation. And as such we begin to see more clearly the palette from which we are drawing each day, which if we are not careful is sometimes very unconscious, that is determining the color-scheme as it were and thus the emotive quality of the atmosphere in which we are living our daily lives. Our heART is really the brush and as life is truly good in its nature, light, Love, peace and goodness are the collective artwork that ultimately wants to have its say in and as life, now and forever. Knowing this truly in your heart primes the eternal swirl of color billowing forth from your being to be ones of jubilant brilliance, clarity and fortitude that ultimately connect your inner present and presence with the ultimate present and presence of the world, in the nature of reality, in Life itself. This is something that I have referred to as P2P in the past. This stands for present to present or presence to presence (or even present to presence and vice versa) where your oneness with all that there is, is identified and thus realized as the part resembling the whole, the particular resonating with and as the Universal.
This then as you can begin to notice is the connecting of the maturational flow that stems, pun intended, from the infinite depths of the within to the infinite depths of the without. When we identify this flow as Love and what can be conducted by, as and from the creative muse, this is when we tap into our Genius as life artists, our true Self. Life, Love, peace, hope, goodness and strength are the natural emanations of this realization. To put it in Einsteinian terminology we realize that our minds are fractals of the mind of God, of the Universal Cosmic flowing that inspires and stewards the maturation of all potential into what we know as reality. This right here is how and why life art is life affirming! It honors the gift that life is and sees that It’s wonderful art is to be cherished and made whole through our individual cultivation of the miracle that we each stand as, as Life, such that an interconnected global coherence can be realized and we can finally begin to work together collaboratively not only as a species but as an entire living isness known as eARTH, the biosphere, Cosmos and whatever lies beyond our conception and the lived reality of our present-day terms.
Day Five, Lesson Five: Practice
So, what does this actually look like in life? How does this actually manifest in the world and how do we experience it? What precisely is meant by the phrase “the practice of life art.” Well, this in Truth is beyond what I can tell you. You will have to know this for yourself. That being said, I can describe a little of how it has manifested in my life as a way to give a gentle, good-hearted indication of the types of things that may transpire as one surrenders to the power of their true Self and allows for the innate gifts of life itself to unfurl from source energy into the everyday expanse of 3D, spacetime Newtonian reality.
I will say this again because it is very important. Love must be recognized, embodied and completely communed with, by and as itself as our Life in order to truly connect with pure potential. Refer to earlier statements about cultivating Love in and as you. Meditation of some kind that works the best for you is also a tremendously helpful way to essentially raise consciousness, awareness through and as oneself. The awareness itself is something that can be described with the words Love and Life and for life artists even the word Art. Many times, people will claim that if multiple words are being used to describe the same thing that it can muddle the discernment of that which is trying to be understood and in the everyday sense that is true. However, there is another interpretation that can see this phenomenon as something hinting at one bottomless, limitless, burning piston of reality-generating, deepest-possible, furthest-possible, realest-possible existential energy that multiple words begin to try and be drawn to, getting drawn into and reflected by it like sparks from this cosmic-flame-process indicating something that is bigger than the mind, bigger than words, something bigger than the whole known Universe. It is something that we actually are! It is the presence, the isness, the Light of Life and Love and here I propose the Art that we all seek but paradoxically already are in our innate nature. Seeking is finding which is awakening to what was always already there within the whole time.
You see as I have stated in previous writings and videos that I have made, I believe that art/Art can be the craft of life meaning both a manner by which and as which materials or essences are constructed to produce something of merit or value or even sovereign dignity and autonomy as when a human life is created and in this way and also others how the word craft means a vehicle as in spacecraft that can literally steward and transport Life in the coming years. The body in this way is an everyday space craft, navigating space as we walk around and simply exist. As such it becomes very clear how evolution has shown amendments to the biological status of being, similar to how the scientific method has yielded verifiable and actionable new knowledge and the United States’ constitution has sparked interpretive updates all as time has unfolded so does such an understanding as life art mean to be only a humble rung on the ladder of the collective and individual s/Spirit as it unfolds by the names Nature, Love, Life and Art into horizons and vistas that we cannot yet fathom yet hold within us, within the gift of b/Being itself which is imminently true. Like petals of a flower that open and eventually fall away to express and reveal the vital nature and center of Life itself in botanical form, so too do movements and schools of thought come and go, fall away as we hopefully learn better and more from our individual and collective experiences allowing more and more for the One True Life to come through and be made manifest for now on Earth but really anywhere in the Cosmos and beyond, that Life is destined to travel, to be.
I cannot give you an explanation of how this all works. I can only give you hints and pointers that are reflections of my own maturational process that shares in the same illuminating quality of your own light. Reading is a practice that helped me. For me specifically reading a lot about science and spirituality and art and society, history, technology and studies of the future. Choosing books was like choosing tubes of paint with which to draw from as I painted with reality. I learned knowledge that reconfigured the mental model or conceptual sculpture of the world that I had. One book would add something to my knowledge. Another would take a little bit away by altering my perspective. It was like with each book I was crafting my relationship with reality. Choosing things to learn about, things to acquire knowledge about added color to my life, brought some things into focus, deemphasized others. That is the life art that I speak of. And then using that knowledge, putting the knowledge into action to serve the values and causes of my life in new and exciting ways, enriching ways. This is the life art of which I speak. It seems simple. Read. But know this deeply that such a practice, such a skill is truly some of the most practical and powerfully good-hearted magic this world knows. It’s actionable. It’s alchemical. It fused the idiosyncrasies of your own life with the factually emotive, spirited, fictional stories of the world that somehow through potency gain an efficacy in the world as that which drives people to action by perking them up and getting them buzzing with natural ineluctable desire. I could write much more about reading as a color so to speak to choose from the existential palette while painting with reality, but I think you get the idea here from my relating it.
Cooking from scratch and even making a creative endeavor of grocery shopping is another part of it. As you reach for the colors of fresh produce in the grocery store or market it is like you are reaching into an edible palette of functionally transformative delight. With flavors and textures that literally fuel your animation in the world. This is the life art of which I speak. You are literally helping to bring yourself to life. You are fueling it. You are cocreating it with the Universe itself, as the Universe through the choices and decisions that you make.
Of course, the endless world of romance is always an option. Just remember that the Love of which I speak is bigger than any romantic relationship you could dream of or imagine. It is the special delight that holds within it such gifts of interpersonal enrichment. Value it when such opportunities present themselves but by no means make romance your only concept and lived reality of Love. The Gift of Life is tremendously vaster than that and is meant for you to fully make use of rightly, with integrity, knowledgeably and with a true heART that expands outside of and beyond your immediate romantic longings when they happen to arise. This is critical to this work. We cannot save our love or rather Love only for our immediate loved ones. We have to see beyond our own life as it is lived and see that we are a part of something so much bigger. Yes, we want to have a human, personal, individual life and at the same time we want to recognize that we are an aspect of something so much vaster, drawing from immense power and giving to it as well.
The way you sculpt your body is another way of bringing this life art into play. The clothes you choose to wear. These are all ways of crafting the dispersal or transmission of the One True Life that you rightly are at your core otherwise known as Love. Knowing this from the outset will literally save you a world of hurt and despair. There is nothing else other than Love. Anything that unfolds as something other than the One True Life’s genuine, authentic, true Love is an error, a missing of the mark as it is said though there is no judgement per se with such things there is a necessary way of holding oneself in a certain regard in order for the natural dignity of the One True Life to be made manifest in the world of everyday appearances. Freedom is not about doing anything you want to do. Freedom is about being who it is you truly are, the natural beauty that the Universe, nature made you. All else is delusion sometime manifesting as illness. Know this rightly, quicker and you will reap the benefits of this knowing in ways that you cannot even imagine from the tumult of a victim mentality.
There is nothing really other than Love. Know this now and the world is brought into focus as you become personally aware of its truth, the Truth. Be the artist of your life! Create the life of your dreams and remember that you do not have dreams but rather you are dreams! Creating is achieved by learning to fully awaken to this and at that point your natural gift that is yours and yours alone, while simultaneously being in the company of others, will illuminate and you will not only give light to others, but you will also give light from, in and as yourself. You are the light of Light. You are the self of Self. You are the being of Being. Now you know, the knowledge of all knowledge that makes you real now and forever.
I hope you have enjoyed this course and received the Truth-Gift that is loaded and encoded in it, in you. The practice of being a life artist is truly a way of life and a way of being. The more you care for the practice the more illumination will be generated both within and without. Go slowly when necessary. Pick up the pace when called for. Feel into the natural awareness of all that there is as you intuitively and with reason discern each new step mindfully and with an artful nature to paint with reality and be the artist of your dreams.
Take care. Namaste. Jon.
For more information about my teachings, my life and my Love please visit www.jonkeppel.com. Thank you.