I used to feel an impossible sadness inside of the things I wanted most.
Deep inside the thick color of paint or a beautiful design coming to life, there was my dread. My grief buried behind the pigment and the thread.
I would turn my head away. I would close my eyes tightly and grasp at my heart, trying to find my breath.
Anger!
“I hate you! I hate your beauty!”
I would stand, transfixed in adoration at a beautiful creation. And inside, I would begin to weep.
“I could never have this. I could never create beauty.”
I would imagine the colors flowing through me turning to ash on the canvas. That beauty would travel through me and become a deformed, wretched thing.
“I would kill you, if you were mine. You would become nothing.”
The thick layers of oil paint clogging up inside my throat as I stared into their colors.
Repulsive!
I was mocked and cursed by the spirit’s call to beauty.
‘Create.’
It says.
‘Adore.’
It says.
And I would follow the path, always leading to beautiful things and the same hollow grief.
“Spirit, why do you mock me in this way? Why do you curse my heart in this way?”
One day, I began to embrace the hatred within. It wasn’t easy. I felt as though I was a clawed demon, trying to scratch through the doors of my holding pen.
I would cry out, clawing at the shadows that circled me.
“Leave me alone!”
How did I get here, why was beauty on the other side of this horrific pain? How could I ever get there?
The path seemed wide and endless. Perilous.
It seemed to want to eat me alive.
How would I survive?
Months of trying left me feeling like a rug hanging over a balcony railing, the dust thoroughly beaten out of its grain with a broom handle.
Suddenly, there I was. Creating. Moving, gliding. Feeling the edges of my inner canvas.
Feeling where the desire to destroy began, and where the desire to create ended. They were on the same continum it seemed.
The fire that leapt from me into beautiful color and formation, was the same fire that then came to claim its creation.
Where does creation end and its destruction begin? I had to discover.
Both had been entangled within me. The desire to create and to destroy. The thirst for beauty and the repulsion of its presence. They lived inside of each other.
As I walked those treacherous fields around creation, I allowed myself to understand. I allowed myself to feel the story unfolding and to breathe deep, as the story drew to its conclusion.
I saw that it wasn’t the color or the shapes that I loved. It was the breath of creation that drew me in.
And deep inside that breath was the story of destruction, too.
Was I able to dance along the edges of the volcano of creation without falling in? Could I walk the tight-rope of emerging beauty without collapsing it upon itself.
We are all creators, masterful in the artistry of balance. The light touch of the creative mind.
We are all destroyers, unparalleled in our ability to decimate. When we seek to destroy, we do so with wild, primal abandon.
Where do you tread with artful balance in your life? Where do you feverishly create and then pull back when its time-allowing your creation to live out a life before its destruction?
This is a beautiful skill to hone, and one that is yours to behold.
You’ll dance along the edges of life’s breath with masterful ease.
You’ll adore your creations and breathe as you let go and let them have a life of their own.
You’ll know the vast expanses of your inner canvas, and where its boundaries are.
And in this, you’ll Play.
With Love,
Heba
Love: 