On Coloring or the Spiral of Self-Discovery

A text came, asking, “Do you ever ignore a call, like something the universe is trying to tell you?” Probably, but I do try not to…

Have you ever come to the end of a book and wanted to reread it right away? Maybe it's my choice of reading material lately but it happened again last week as I reread don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements. After describing the agreements, he explains ways to break the old agreements we accepted when we were being “domesticated.” (I love that descriptor!) Not for the first time, I wondered about my most authentic self. Who am I when I stop pretending to be the way I think “they” want me to be?

Years ago, I began this unlearning in part by collecting phrases like “stepping out of the box” and “coloring outside the lines.” Last week while processing Ruiz’s words (and painting the garage), I thought about this way of coloring and realized that I haven’t colored in years and don’t, in fact, enjoy it. 

The previous owner didn't have a tall enough ladder to paint the gable green.
My aesthetic sense suggested I keep it and even add a couple more courses of white.

Friends color. They make beautiful mandalas and other pictures. It’s meditative. They relax as they use purple here and green there. Not me. I could never color in the lines well enough to meet personal expectations – it was stressful to try – but I wasn’t able to intentionally color outside the lines either. I gave up my crayons at the earliest opportunity. I still get out the watercolor pencils occasionally. They set around for a couple months before I put them away again. Whether I keep them to torture myself about inadequacies or out of a hope that someday I’ll be able to enjoy using them, I don’t know.

What this says about me, I can’t say. But I’m guessing you’ve experienced something similar in your life at one time or another. Anyway, I have issues with coloring. Remember that and that I try not to ignore the universe’s calls.

This morning’s church service was led by four women who meet monthly to share their spiritual journeys. (Just seeing them brought a “yes” to my awareness. I missed my covenant group after moving to Wausau five years ago but the feeling faded. I forgot. It’s time to be open to another group’s pull on my heart.) In her story, one of the women mentioned coloring outside the lines and my ears perked up.

When I met with Sister Gabrielle during my retreat in July (I wrote about it here) she was excited to hear that I play piano. “How? … classically-trained … how often … oh, that’s perfect!” Seriously, she was like a kid with a new toy as she assigned me homework. Every day I was to spend fifteen minutes playing like a small child with no experience or training, ignoring the internalized voices that tell me music has to sound a certain way. “Play a note, then another. Try this, then add that. If you follow a melody or find yourself thinking c-minor or harmony, stand up, spin around three times, and start over. Set a timer and just do it.”

We spent a good while discussing this. When I asked why she wanted me to do this, she explained that I need to break myself of the things that have ruled my life for so long. Since piano is where I received my deepest training, I need to start there. She’s a classically-trained painter, she said in passing, and this saved her life.

Huh. Okay. The first time I sat at the piano, I was able to play this way for 6 ½ minutes. Then my head hurt. Through July I gradually extended the time to nine minutes but was astonished again and again at how mentally exhausting it was. I didn’t enjoy the exercise but it was homework so I did it anyway. As I did, a funny thing began to happen. Since returning from the Boundary Waters I haven’t been regular in my practice and am not using the timer, yet I notice that I’m enjoying this odd homework and looking forward to the next session. I find myself wondering what will happen next. (Interesting, since “I wonder what will happen next” is part of my mindfulness practice.) Without meaning to, and while actively working not to imitate anything, I’ve begun hearing structures in this plunking and playing that seem similar to Bartok’s simple piano pieces or to what one hears in contemporary movies.

I’d been talking with this spiritual guide about a yearning to discover who I really am, what I like and need. That’s what led to the assignment. Now it seems that everywhere I turn, I hear that I need to undo the domestication of my early years and the ways I was expected – or thought I was expected – to conform in order to fit in. It’s funny really. I thought I’d done this work. Revisiting it wasn’t part of my plan. I guess it’s like I used to tell Orville and the other 90-somethings I visited. As long as we’re still breathing, God isn’t finished with us.

When we open ourselves to the holy that’s in us and around us, well, Frodo Baggins isn’t the only one to learn that “It's a dangerous business … there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”