Journal 4/23/95: One of the insights from Susan is that it is my body that is my teacher. This was an “ah ha” that I had long known and even talked about but which was revelatory and affirming as she said it. An interesting part of this whole process has been people discovering things about me through my paintings - often, as in this case, things I have long known, but which come to me with a new light when voiced by others. Plus, I’m continually shocked and pleased by how much comes through unconsciously.
Having finished “Going Inside” I immediately began another painting. I dove into the tunnel which began as the birth canal but which, part way through, became deeper in the fallopian tubes - that passage between ovary and uterus where a hopeful egg travels - where sometimes it is fertilized. I ached with longing as I painted. Sometimes I was the ova. Sometimes the voluptuous folds themselves. The middle - the end (the beginning?) remained empty until the last minute. I had a fantasy that some answer would be revealed to me - some knowledge of the journey’s end or at least its meaning. Was it me the artist? Me the spiritual seeker? Me in community? All, of course, and neither. And no answer. The journey - the process - is all.