You are faced with something: an experience, a difficulty, or a happiness... It opens the circle.
And if you are careful, you will see around you the signs.
And then the experience, the difficulty, or the happiness comes to an end. You have learned what you had to learn. You have paid what you had to pay.You have lived the gift you were given.
The circle closes.
And you get, once again, if you are careful, a sign.
About a year and a half ago, my life was a total mess.
I had married someone I knew since about a year, and just after our wedding I had discovered the truth about this guy, and his dangerous addictions. He got violent, left, came back, threatened, left again... every day was difficult.
And my health was a mess too !
Though I had at last got a diagnosis for my sickness, I had come to a dead end in France : the medications that could help me were just unavailable in our country,
and I discovered then that the entire French health system is in fact crumbling and now unable to help,
I know some of you dream of a State owned health system : please don't fall in that trap !
When the state goes through an economic crisis, like most occidental countries since 2008, if the system is state owned, you have no idea of the difficulties sick people encounter to get even minimal health care.
I have been told very frankly (but discreetly of course) by one of my doctors:
"anyway you will never get a written diagnosis about your sickness ; it s a chronic disease, it means the French state should pay you a pension, and now they just won't allow it. You will be told by all doctors here, including me, that you have nothing, and you won t get the medication you need , because you cost too much to help.
Everybody will lie.
Just go somewhere else if you want to save your life"
And believe it or not, I am not even speaking of a terrible and dangerous disease , rare and difficult to treat ! No, I have a quite common genetic disease which is easily diagnosed in the Us and can be taken care for without much trouble
(by the way, read in the right column of this blog the article about von Willebrand disease ! you will learn more about this very common blood problem and maybe save lives around you by spreading information)
We all know the ability of States to lie for 'security reasons' ... So take my advice on that : better not give them your health responsibility, State is not the best surgeon !
So back to winter 2013 : I was in trouble for my job, my marriage, my health, had of course money issue and... strong doubts about what to do of my future, evidement ....
BREF
as we say in French
to make is short
I was in deep sh..., life was tough and I had to be really strong,
And one afternoon, I felt this sudden urge to paint that catches me often, but with a very precise idea : i wanted to catch the beautiful movement of an owl whose picture had caught my eye a few weeks before.
And I did this painting which I really love (which is quite rare for me, for I am ALWAYS disappointed with my finished work- you know, that feeling that what you did with your hands is just never exactly what you had dreamed with your head before !)
and then I realized I really had the feeling that this owl was me,
facing the blowing wind, the snow, the night...
all these difficulties that I had to face at each of my steps, every day.
It has been long time since I finished that picture : more than a year, spent to work hard to prepare my trip and my next project here in the US
and it has been difficult many times (my dear husband has even sent me to hospital twice, and there is a police procedure pending),
and the Night of the Owl was always with me : i had it on my iPhone case, and I looked at it everyday, thinking "there is a time when night and winter come to an end, and you are just as strong as this owl'
And I did it : I am free. I am here. My divorce is on its way.
and I am even now on the path of health recovery ...
So since a few days, I thank morning and evening Heaven and my (slightly tired) guardian angel for getting me here safe and helping me through that difficult time.
Somehow I know it from inside,
my winter has ended,
and I enjoy life and the freedom to work I now get.
And today, I decided to take a few hours to go to Dallas 'Indian Expo' which was taking place in Arlington this week end (thanks to the nice guy at Petco who told me that ! and by the way, nice guy, you should keep that baby parrot you have so much fun with at Petco, he loves you and when you play with him, you shine !0
OK, this fair is very commercial, and that's probably not about the best of native art you can get in the US,
I am aware of that,
but I just wanted to have a look and see what was going on in that sort of event here. you never know...
I really loved one of the painters there (Arthur Short Bull, he is Sioux and does wonderful watercolors and very good animals portraits too),
and the sand painter who was working there as if the rest of the world did not exist anymore (Wallace Ben, Navajo, from Shiprock).
I know that feeling, and I love to see someone lost in beauty and calm whatever happens around :
By the way, I have discovered only recently that sand painting is a traditional american native art. I only knew the tibetan sand painting, which is just as spiritual and beautiful.
In Paris, a long time ago, tibetan monks had spent months working on a magnificent sand Mandala near my place, in the North of Paris, at la Cite de la Musique, and I have
spent hours then watching them work on a huge perimeter with slowness and concentration. I was just fascinated, and I had no idea of what was to happen with that splendid piece of work.
At the end of the process, when the Mandala was completed and perfect,
the monks in a long ceremony blew all the colored sand meticulously dropped during weeks of hard work
put all in a bag,
and went down to La Seine river.
There, they threw everything away.
It was a precious lesson of humility for me (in our society where, with the development of numeric storage possibilities, we tend to preserve and keep everything) :
Yes you can spend hours, days, weeks of your life working, creating beauty and perfection- and then accept to see it fly in the wind and merge in the river without even shivering.
because thats how life goes.
impermanency and changes is the law.
Just as I have read recently it is for many of their languages...
All these people have the same roots and heritage,
the more I travel the more I find this striking.
SOoooo, back to Dallas , this morning, at the Indian Expo...
I was walking in the alleys, trying to ignore the junk and spot the good things
when, at the back of the large expo building, I suddenly spotted a special stand.
a place where life and movement were different...
Birds ! Raptors ! Bald Eagle, Falcon,
and
yes
at the back of the stand,
a snowy Owl...
a ravishing, tender, ghostly snowy Owl giving me that extraordinary look only birds can give you : that look that goes straight to your most hidden self and asks frankly
'Hi, who are you ?'
I had my picture taken with this owl.
Yeah, probably a bit of a tourist thing
but God, I was so happy to be beside this beautiful animal, able to watch it closely
and realize suddenly that this moment was the sign, the symbol...
I started this post by saying that life goes by circles,
and you had a sign when a circle opened... and another when it closes.
I think this picture marks the end of the Night of the Owl for me.
The Owl is awaken, and she is now turning right, looking into the future, ready to go.
And so am I...
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