Becoming a Channel of Consciousness

It's a warm, foggy Monday and I am comfortably seated in the small public library near my apartment, where faded sunlight is filling the dreary room with a gentle glow. The librarians are milling about, speaking to patrons with mild condescension, while the security guard is stalking the room with a foreboding stride as hip-hop and soul music blast from the cars driving by outside. It can be difficult coming to the public library to get work done when you're a penniless, institutionalized thirty-something artist with a dream. The attitudes of the staff and the shabbiness of the environment are constant reminders of the formidable obstacles one must overcome in order to achieve success.

I attended a talk on spirituality last night that a dear actress friend of mine gave at one of my favorite bookstores. She channels beings from other dimensions and is a serious meditator. It is so affirming to have a friend in my life who is as committed to her spiritual practice as I am. We often think of art as coming from an inspired source, and indeed it does. Art is a labor of love, and at its best it channels transcendent streams of consciousness in order to create works that remind us of the best of what we are, and can become. In order to create it, we tap into vibrations and levels of awareness in Jung's collective unconscious, the collective unconscious of humanity.

As such, artists have to remain pure channels of this consciousness, unhindered by unresolved, trapped or stuck emotions or thoughts. The more constrained or burdened an artist's consciousness is by thoughtforms of pain, fear, and so on, the less it is able to consistently latch on to the feelings or vibrations that accompany streams of inspiration - feelings of bliss, attunement, and acute awareness. Creating art is a futile endeavor when one is not tapped into the visceral experience of love, forgiveness, understanding, empathy and compassion.

As someone with such a history of trauma, poverty and illness, it is really difficult to tap into those vibrations. In fact, I have little clue where to start. For now, I am doing things like reading books of poetry about people who have faced situations similar to my own. Seeing the stark words laid out on the page, capturing the events of my life with such a compassionate voice, really helps me begin to touch the tragedy of my life and awaken my heart. My hope is that this process of healing will help me to rediscover inspiration and produce transcendent new works of art. I'm really grateful to Sydney for paving the way for me. As I continue to heal, my spiritual practice will undoubtedly help me to tap into wellsprings of emotion and change the world in my own way.

Welcome

We all know what people have to say about artists these days. We're lazy, irresponsible, selfish and self-indulgent. We chase pipe dreams and don't contribute to our communities. We're childish and immature and don't want to grow up. We represent the very worst of our generation.

That's a heavy burden to bear. However, it's nothing to a truly determined adult who wants to develop creatively not to get famous, not to acquire wealth, not to avoid working hard at a "real" job, but instead to heal herself and her world by tapping into her power. Meet ME. I'm a thirty-five (yes, thirty-five) -year-old woman living in New York City. After a childhood fraught with child abuse of all kinds, bullying, poverty, homelessness and a consistent lack of love, and an adulthood wracked by serious and persistent schizophrenia, chronic homelessness, chronic underemployment, isolation and poverty, I have decided that there is no force on heaven or earth that will succeed in diverting me from my path again. At thirty-five, I have discovered my power, and nothing will stand in my way.

Most of my adult life has been marked by failure. While I have always been hard-working and ambitious, driving myself to work part-time jobs and putting myself through school despite struggling alone with schizophrenia, until recently I was not able to manage the most important aspect of success - facing down my demons and, as Christians put it, shouldering my cross. Every human being fights the flesh in a different way and has feelings, thoughts, or urges that haunt them. Until I was thirty-four, I was unable to deal responsibly with mine. However, today I have faced what haunts me and can happily say that I'm on my path again.

So what does my future hold? In my opinion, the key to creating a satisfying life for myself is giving myself the space to truly become empowered - finding my own personal power and riding that steed into the sunset. Despite pressure put on me by others, I have resisted the urge to stuff myself into a full-time career right now. I feel that, energetically and personally, I am not yet ready to pursue that path. Instead, I am focusing on tapping into my power as a woman and as a person, learning to take up space, learning how to use my voice and my body.

I am an aspiring actor, singer and classical guitarist, among other pursuits, and, unlike many others, I am not seeking fame, fortune, or even conventional success as an artist. Instead, my art is a way for me to heal my body, mind and soul from the life that I have led, to prepare me for whichever vocational path I end up traveling. My goals are modest: to sing in a choir, to act in an off-off-Broadway play, to be a singer-songwriter playing small cafes. And yet my passion for the arts is so great. For me, the ultimate goal is the experience of creation, not the reward I might get for what I create. And so, even if I decide to work full-time as an event planner, art will always be there, feeding my soul, helping me grow.

This blog will follow me on my journey of self-fulfillment. As I pursue the path of an artist, join me as I stumble, fall, leap and soar. Laugh and cry with me as I discover my potential, connect with others on the path, and battle a society which insists that adults who pursue the arts instead of full-time work at McDonald's are worthless wastes of space. Instead of becoming physically, psychologically and spiritually sick by forcing myself into a McJob, I am choosing to heal my wounds so that I can build a better, more sustainable life for myself and my descendents.

I take responsibility for the mistakes I made in my 20's. But to those who insist that I don't have the right to claim a better life for myself now because of them, I offer an exuberant middle finger! I have the right to overcome schizophrenia. I have the right to heal my wounds. And I have the right to succeed!