A poem by a friend of mine. I just love it and wanted to share. Can you share the whole, real you?
You will find her here if you would like to read more https://www.facebook.com/haikuofireland/
Alternatively you can find her here https://instagram.com/haikuofireland?igshid=fx8zcqahm9yc
Visit https://stacieamelia.com/being-human-in-lockdown-2020/ to view the artwork.
After request I shall release a Part 2 of the exhibition on September 30th. You will find this release on the same link above.
I have been working on a particular painting since 2016 and begun with deep feeling but no idea where the piece was going. I just knew it was something I needed to express…. read more here https://staciereflects.com/2020/07/26/the-unfinished-piece/
Today I was wonderfully reminded of a quote that was incorporated in an earlier post on my general blog called In Search of Meaning (ii), it still resonates deeply and was a delight to read once more. It is still as pertinent to this creative journey I am undertaking, so much so I wanted to share it once again.
“The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two “hungers”. There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning…
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you’re happy or unhappy. You are content – you are not alone in your Spirit – you belong.”
~ Laurens van der Post
This poem was inspired by an interpersonal exchange this week.
Inadvertent Incognita
When you think, feel and know that you lived, there’s a story of what happened but nothing to prove that it did.
Nothing of substance than can be touched to say for sure ‘yes’, but you know it was there, you know! ‘yeah’?
Solid evidence is absent, you won’t find it. Not a trace nor even a tiny fragment.
Where is your proof they ask, is your life contrived? Where can you find it? From where did it derive?
When you felt what you felt and still you remember, but all that exists is only sense and no ember.
When there are traces of memory felt in your body, was it ever really there? Is there a hard copy?
When you cannot utter words because there is no definitive truth. You know it was there! but where is the proof?
Memory is all just sense of a truth. Ever evading, no map, no road, no objectivity that’s aiding.
Such grief in the soul because what was there is now missing. Elusive in essence, like some sort of omission.
Did you ever exist? Is your life true? Only those whom were there are those that knew.
Nothing to corroborate senses and feeling, no solid host. Was it ever there? I feel like a ghost.
Nothing is real they say, without objective evidence, so what was there?
hesitance…
~ By Stacie Amelia
THE GRACE IN BEING HUMAN
The Beginning Of What Felt Like The End
“Ashes” a song by by Celine Dion https://youtu.be/CX11yw6YL1w
It has been 5 years since my life and all of the hopes and dreams I had imagined were blown apart.
A diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis and… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2020/06/05/the-grace-of-life/
Where is our map?
There has been so much that has occurred since the end of last year that has deeply and profoundly affected my heart and being. I don’t want to get into detail for now but it has me thinking about our lives and when we are no longer here. Where is the evidence of our story? How do we leave our mark? In what ways… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2020/03/04/where-is-our-map/
So it is that time of year again. I begin the follow up rounds chemo treatment in November. I feel prepared. This will be the last for a few more years (or at all). It is amazing how treatments for long term immune conditions are improving. I am wondering what it will bring this time around.
My whole sense of ‘being’ shifted in this last year… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2019/10/23/being-present/
I often reflect on the moment in Alice in Wonderland when the caterpillar asks ‘who are you?’ It is such a big question.
Her reply is “well I’m not sure, I’m not myself you see, I’m not the same person I was when I woke up this morning!” and ” How puzzling all these changes are! I’m Never sure what I’m going to be from one minute to another“
In each moment of our lives we have some sense of identity but this identity is ever evolving or unfolding. We are conceived then we are born and grow until… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2019/08/25/identity/
Why here? Why now? Why at all?
This blog post is more on a personal note than the others. It is more a pulling together of everything to date so I can consciously move forward into a fuller focus and commitment to this work. I hope naturally though that the posts that follow are more widely reflective than this one. As mentioned in my initial blog post, with regard to this art project, I was gradually waking up into a world not of my choosing… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2019/08/12/in-search-of-meaning-ii/
It has been an arduous task trying to define most precisely what I have been aiming towards with this work. I have spent many months in a sort of hibernation, tossing and turning towards understanding my real intention here. This is it. Fundamentally I am searching to… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2019/08/06/in-search-of-meaning-i/
In order to begin exploring the labels that we attach to our sense of identity we must begin by exploring what sense of identity is, asking what is it that ‘I’ am attached to and the ‘stories’ given behind that. This is the beginning of a very interesting journey, I have had conversations with people about their emotions, their clothing, their families, their bodies, their health, their preferences and…read more here http://staciereflects.com/2018/11/20/but-who-in-the-world-am-i-alice-in-wonderland/
Finally today I begun my chemotherapy treatment. It has been a long time in the waiting, many hurdles none of my own making however the day has been and gone the first two pills taken. I have not been one for medicines as previously mentioned but I just have to believe this will make a difference. I had been coping with my illness rather well and had been accepting and adapting along with it, even in times of needing to use a wheelchair. Lately however it has been a different story. I learned I had a small window before progressing into a Secondary Progressive diagnosis. It seems… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2018/11/10/d-day/
Ok there has been a delay with regard to some treatment I was expecting to have had already for my illness. I have twice tried to come away in the past few weeks, first time I was not really in the best position to leave home and the second time I was sharing a hostel room with a lady whom was extremely sick throughout the night, I decided not to go on with the trip and returned home. So third time lucky…..or was it? My bus arrived into Glasgow 20 minutes late meaning that I was two minutes late for my train… However I am quite familiar with these travelling unexpected adjustments now… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2018/09/01/well/
From Seeds Once Planted
So much has happened, so much experienced and processed. Life has a wonderful way of occurring regardless. I’m forever writing and rewriting this blog post and yet not publishing it. I have been in and out of heart and thought, everything keeps shifting, changing and I’m forever doing my level best to understand and have a sense of things. I have come to the conclusion that this is impossible and I would do best just being and letting be.
Read more here… http://staciereflects.com/2018/08/18/seeds-planted/
“In transitions, we must learn to be still. Being still is, in part, about learning to be comfortable with ambiguity” ~ Janet Rebhan, Creative Options For this past while I have been considering different creative methods and trying my hand at some new approaches. I love working with clay, oil and acrylic paint and have reconnected after a long time with pencil and ink drawing. Digital art, photographic blending, mixed media involving paint, ink and drawing and altered surreal images are also a favourite approach of mine. However I have begun experimenting with… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2018/08/14/reflections-on-ambiguity/
This process between heart and mind can be pretty messy. I have always struggled with uncertainty and have needed things to make sense. But I have been learning these past few years that things mostly do not make sense, that there isn’t always visible or easily detectable rhyme or reason. There is logic there however if we look deeper but it won’t stand out or fit easily into the perception of… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2017/12/26/existential-beauty-2/
Emotion
It seems more often of late that wherever I turn I find a heart offering from the universe. It got me thinking about emotion, what is it? How does it affect us? How does one capture and express it?
Dictionary definition
Emotion is a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. A sensation. An instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.
Scientific perception
“An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response.” (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2007) Emotion is experienced by all sentient life. For us humans however, emotion, as well as being a physiological phenomenon, is subjective and although there are (as believed) basic universal emotions (e.g. angry,’ ‘happy,”sad,’) regardless background or culture no two people have the exact same experience. That although we label emotion to make sense of it in a social context it is very much a unique, multi-dimensional and complex experience… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/10/05/the-heart-of-it/
Part of my life turning upside down was learning I have both a rare health condition called Transverse Myelitis as well as Multiple Sclerosis. Neither condition can be cured… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/25/medication/
I have had to hold and work with a lot in this life, as too have so many others. There comes a point where we say enough! When we begin to chose what is important to our hearts, we chose to work with and through what matters most dearly at the end of the day.
I was faced with a challenge in circumstances that arose recently… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/15/adversity-when-enough-is-enough/
In the still moments I find I am sitting with much grief. Grief has to be the most painful emotional experience… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/14/in-the-still-moments/
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust
This first trip has two purposes, to explore the ‘beingness’ of humanity and also to find some space within myself to be with my own soul… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/09/connection/
Travel around the islands was a challenge so in day two I hired a car and the choice offered vast opportunity. The views along each road were breathtaking! The journey between Lewis & Harris had me driving high up in some very large hills and the were hills rolling for miles… read more here http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/08/lewis-harris-the-open-road-and-i/
For the first time I have experienced travel sickness, the plan for today was a trip to Durness’ Smoo Cave however a short leg of the journey had me unsure. Seems the roads are more twisty than I was prepared for. Adjusted the itinary and have settled for a day of down time in Ullapool… read more here: http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/03/question-of-time-in-ullapool/
Arrived in Drumnadrochit last night to find I was invited to share a very special birthday moment with someone I had just met. The backpackers lodge has just been taken over by new management (and their adorable baby), they had prepared a birthday cake for a member of staff and just as I arrived…. read more here: http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/02/existential-moments/
The journey begun early and after some cinema in Glasgow I am now aboard my connecting bus to the first stop of this trip, Drumnadrochit. I was surprised to discover I am travelling on a luxury bus! A nice flow of free refreshments, I’m feeling fortunate….. read more here: http://staciereflects.com/2016/09/01/the-journey-begins/
