Phenomenon of the Image
A woman looks at herself in the mirror, polished and with a bit of an artsy edge. The woman also springs forth in pure white like a zen spirit. The woman also wraps herself in creativity and rolls forward in a giant wheel. Butterflies are present to all three forms of the same woman.
Collage, created on May 26, 2020, in San Diego, California.
I Work on Something
Today’s expressive arts invitation was to discover the question or inquiry that most wanted my attention. Strangely, with all the craziness going on in the world the only thing I could latch my mind onto was how I wanted to present myself in the world from a professional standpoint. Everything else was just too overwhelming for my brain to address, I suppose.
Something Works in Me
Sitting in meditation, I observed the various forms of my professional self as others have said they see me. Some people view me as a hard-core creative type. Others view me as a patchouli-scented spiritual hippy-dippy type. Still others view me as a magical business badass and skillful facilitator. Some even view me as an evolved Zen Buddhist type of person. While they are all facets of myself, no one version feels “right” for my question. No one version feels right for…what? A renewed online presence? An evolving professional and academic persona?
Something Comes Into Being
From meditation I transitioned into movement, with arms gently receiving, lifting up, and giving out as my body swayed and my feet moved to the music. Receiving, lifting up, giving out, over and over again. These three motions, united into one.
I Come to Know Something
As I sit down to explore my thoughts more through collage, I reached for a Neiman Marcus catalog. Flipping through the images I find a images of the same woman, different clothes, same photo shoot. Three images speak to the three main aspects of my self that I see and express: the Professional, the Spiritual, and the Creative. I save these images and keep flipping through magazines, knowing that another piece was waiting to be found.
Something Becomes Seen
I stumble across an image of hands flipping the bird, and in an instant I hear Maeve’s voice from Westworld saying what she tells every client…only this time she’s saying it to me. And I know how this all comes together.
I See Myself
How DO I want to present myself? Out there
Creative? Spiritual and Zen? Confident and Grounded?
Website, LinkedIn, Instagram?
If I follow another’s path, I become another
instead of myself.
This is the New World, Darling.
And in it I can be whoever the fuck
I want.
I am all three. And More.
