to feel safe; to feel validated; to be able to choose enough vulnerability not only to allow someone to fully see my pain, also to reach out and ask for help.
Then there is the vulnerability unasked for. Unwanted. Forced. Leaving me feeling exposed, naked, and in terror. Someone satiating themselves with my body.
What is it about physical pain today that leads me back in memory, in these waves of past, forced, exposed, unasked for vulnerability. And I just want to run hiding.
I stay though, because I know I am safe. I know I have learned the difference between what is forced upon me, and what I get to choose.
I know what is safe and unsafe. I learned true intimacy. It is beautiful and warm and I get to live it every day. I get to choose it everyday.
Instead of desperately trying to cover myself up, I leave myself with my hand stretch out and my voice speaking in the words of “I am in pain, please help.”
It is f$%king scary. It is not the terror though of the past.
This is where this painting is birthed. Her eyes staring out, steely and soft, and looking directly out. Mask of hiding and covering up falling off through her words. She sits insecure and open.
Choosing to be scared, and vulnerable at the same time. She is tough and finding her way through.
This is what pain had to say today. This is the Story Within Her.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower
I touch against no wall, she said. Holdfast to the light, sweeping as a moment present. CKS
I have started a new series called Stories Within Her. I do not know where the series will travel, evolve, end, or not end.
It is about the blending of the Now and the Then. I am curiously fascinated at how dealing with the severe physical pain of today, can bring me back to both physical and emotional pain of past experience.
I am sitting with that; meditating, praying, conversing with pain.
It is not the same. Certainly not the past. Where as once I created coping skills of self-destruction, now, I sit with the neutrality of joy. light.
Here this figure is; holding fast; and experiencing peace simultaneously.
This painting went through a lot. From 2 figures, to a portrait, to this single figure swept in light.
Her head is upright, bathing, seeking, looking, listening. She needed a moment to herself, away from yet deeply in.
Breathing. What did pain have to tell me this day? She told me to maintain that firm grip on seeking solution; also let go in the stillness of nothingness. Quiet can quiet pain. Let her soak and wash within the light.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower
I watch myself forming Oneness is calling It is always Advent somewhere. Feeling the depths past meeting presence freedom, safety, and voice abound.
I Preparation. Waiting in conversation with oneness. Advent of my life I look within you in harmonious completeness.
II Unholiness I was terrified of you. I let you in because you said so. But you are a lie, your name is abuse. Twisted reality, making me believe what you did was okay. I hated myself because you said I was as gum on the bottom of a shoe You lied, you said you could take my very breath away. That I would not survive without you. But light kept standing by, waiting, and Looked you straight in the eye as Strength stood up with my sustenance walking away from your lies and abuse.
III I watch myself forming. fear of an unholy birth defeated This feeling of brokenness finished I am undamaged and undone.
IV Peering out into decidedness Oneness calling is calling Completeness speaks me whole. CKS
Oddly enough, these days I am revisiting my past in very different ways. Coming to understand how much of my self sabatage of dreams, giving up of my voice and freezing into shut down of silence leads to one place; the old messages I thought I left behind and let go years ago.
And I did, and here I am within a new level of letting go and being very aware of these moments and literally pivoting in making different choices.
Two things, I started therapy with the intentions of helping me work through some of the grief of my body’s limitations and living with a chronic and severe illness. I believed this would help me in pushing forward in action of my goals. Instead where life needed attention was something different.
Visualization like no time before, one of the stand out moments was at Acupuncture. She placed a needle in a particular position and it was guttural pain and abject terror, and yet quickly as she was massaging out this little voice said, “You don’t need to be here.” and and old old song from years ago by Shaina Noll, played in my head. the main words of the song, You Can Relax Now
“You can relax now, Go on and open your eyes, Breath deeply now, I am with you.”
I felt myself in this safety and freedom that none of what I continue to deeply believe within myself, that I am gum under the bottom of your shoes. that I could never be any kind of “success” because I am stupid and incapable.
What nonsense. A deeper knowing in my bones of the lies that its true name is abuse, and that is not mine to take on.
These experiences these days. The totality led me here.
It creates a consistency I choose one day at a time. I choose freedom and safety. So I look out in a deep stare, fully meeting your eyes with mine. Umbuntu – I am, because you are. in which my soul includes itself – I am because we are.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales This Crooked Little Flower
To know me is merciful Here I sit to visit engraved
I gaze upon the forever all for love, all for being.
patterns of mute and fear, I grow roots.
Roots opening arms giving taste of heaven
heavily I carve my being collages of vivid-softness.
to know me is the mercy of each line beyond me;
and we arrive, together,
becoming, all for the love of being. CKS
This miniature is from the series, All for the Love of Being, a Visio Divina meditation with the words of Hafiz of Shiraz. Visit the link to read more and listen to the introduction to the series.
Reoccurring within my reflections were themes of grace, and providing myself a safe place to experience giving myself grace; giving myself the gift of roots made of breath enabling me to carve me into the bones of this earth.
I am a part of this world; not realizing I had excluded myself from the we I draw so often; still making myself unhealthfully meek, small, and frail.
I believe you might know this experience. Many of us do. Not all, but many.
It started with three graces. and turned into the prayer of St. Patrick’s breastplate:
Christ be with me Christ within me Christ behind me, Christ before me Christ beside me Christ to win me Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
A friend gave me a rosary and wrote a prayer based on St. Patrick’s breastplate in a time I was desperate for safety and journeying in a very darkness of terror.
I had no idea what my future held. I didn’t see myself alive, and was separating little by little from abusive place, and discovering my personhood.
I prayed and held and wore this prayer through my skin. Here I sit once again praying her into my skin, as she is worn into the soul of the paper.
She began as a digital drawing, and after I printed her, I continued with traditional media as reverse painting on glass, because I attached her to the cabochon. She grew roots more and more until she set herself into walnut; gazing upon forever.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower
Air stillness inhales eyes of the entrapped cosmos — before breath held just CKS
(haiku and drawing originally published in Haiku Hub)
A portrait of change from the series Heal Me Open; meditating with words from Jeremiah;
“heal me and I shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.”
After my 2nd major attack of NMO, leaving me a quadriplegic, I adapted into digital painting and drawing. After my first major attack in 2015, I went looking for ways of adapting. My hands were weak. My legs were weak.
Then in 2018, after my next major attack, with help and meditation, I fell in love with digital mediums as I drew myself and grew into the grief and acceptance of this new life.
It was numbingly difficult to be turned in bed every two hours, to be cleaned, to have everything done for you in ways you never imagine until you are there.
This was nothing like after my cancer surgery in 2008 when I needed help with dressing, and general assistance as I was not allowed to lift, bend, etc.
But this, I ate through a tube coming out of my belly; I peed through a tube coming from my bladder; I moved with the movement of others.
My sister in law came and spent a month and a half by my side. Setting her alarm at night in order to wake and turn me every two hours in order to prevent skin breakdown.
My family and I grew in an intimacy like no other, and I was confronted with my own modesty and my sense of privacy where there was none.
My community came together and volunteered, sitting with me; bringing their gifts as we got to know each other in new ways.
In this way, there was such beauty, and this allowed me to explore and grieve and find beauty through learning this new way of connecting with the Creative.
I work on either a Surface Pro 6 or a Surface Studio 2 computer, and my two favorite programs are Sketchable and Rebelle 4. I use both a Surface Pen with soft nibs and the Surface Slim with its hard tip.
I either use an adaptive tool to hold the pen to my hand, a mouth stick so I can hold the pen in my mouth, or I use my eyes using eye tracking technology on a Tobii 4c tracker.
She is the gaze between us before breath is held and then exhaled.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower
Today, sweet compline, can you experience the light that is yours?
The wholeness of who; to have passion; a nearness held Close?
Allowing the collision of love as an invasion into your life?
In the early middle night, she grasps allowing life to be. reaching forward;
Hidden by her own protections today needs no justification;
smiles and griefs, her anger and joys living in the wetness of her breath.
Lies drenching from every pour as truth becomes her way.
waiting. breathing.
she sweats away time, melting the swelter within her soul. CKS
I wanted to see the grace I know is there. It is just that some days I am plain worn out. I am sure you know those type of days, because I believe we all have them no matter where you are in your life journey or season.
Sparked by an invitation to participate in a very cool project called #passtheblackbook. Where many artists of all levels and backgrounds etc. were coming together creating art in one digital sketchbook using Sketchable, a very cool drawing software for Surface PCs. Here is a link to check it out and learn more: Pass The Black Book
I began drawing on my page, and one layer led to the next and the next and. . . you get the picture. And what grace in this time with no great time limit, and the gift to be where I am, in the space I am in.
Let’s face it. I just have not been feeling my best lately. I just said to a friend today that I felt like my sparky spark is not so sparkly right now, and that I need to refill my glitter tank.
And that is okay. Not that long ago, I apologized as I do often for my state of being. I said to my hubby, “I am sorry for being a bump on a log.” He replied quite simply and lovingly, “You are fine, just the way you are.”
I pause now days when I find myself wanting to apologize. What am I really apologizing for? I have no idea. Just something ingrained in my existence. To apologize for my existence.
That I have no right to breath. That I am lazy and I should be better; do better. and not wanting to get in trouble.
This is a ghost of my life experience. The ghost of being the sexual play toy of very sick people as a little girl and growing up. This is the ghost of not knowing I was anything more than property. The ghost of fear.
I speak slowly because I wish I could come up with another word. It took years to curb my desire to ask permission for every single movement or action.
May I make a phone call. May I get something to eat. May I go to the bathroom. Somehow the ventilator and its programmed breaths can ping itself to a time when I was told how many breaths per minute I was supposed to breath to be appropriate and being punished if I did not breath appropriately.
Somehow pinging back to not wanting to get into trouble and wanting to say no, all at the same time. “I am in control. I will be in control. You don’t own me.”
Nope.
Funny how much you can frolic along life and wham! A ghost pops up beside you without even realizing it.
There are just those things so ingrained in our experiences that they walk with us from time to time.
Funny to me how often in this season of my life, as I walk with grief and joy in the flowers of illness and a failing body; funny how often I am walking with ghosts of my experiences past. popping up here and there in ways I never imagine.
What do you do with your ghosts?
I do as I always have done, I draw out the ghosts. We dance in paint and charcoal. They show me such grace in their existence. Show me so many beautiful ways of being. I show them it is safe to be who they are.
How I live now. The love of my family, my friendships, and acquaintances. The fullness of laughter, and true joy.
The okay-ness of being right where I am. With this, one action at a time, I see life in a different way. An action of rest. An action of a dish being washed. An action of stillness in the flowers.
It doesn’t mean the sparkle instantly beams on high, but it does comfort the fear; and gives it rest.
Please, enjoy this meditation, The Grace of Our Ghosts, resting in practice of being.
paint much love, always, Connie Karleta Sales a.k.a. This Crooked Little Flower
