LISA CHUN

Let Your Life Speak

"We arrive in this world with birthright gifts - then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain approval of others.

"We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then - if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss - we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed."

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, Listening for the Voice of Vocation

Coming from Love

Words of Encouragement

I don't know how it is in your town but in the world I live in, surrounded by artists and independently minded people who are trying to run their own small businesses, i know an awful lot of folks who, because of changing economic times, have had to make drastic changes to the way they do things. I know people who have already made big changes and I know people in the middle of making changes - to their lifestyles, to their business infrastructures. Things as drastic as quitting their lifestyles and quitting their businesses. I know people who can't pay their bills and are wondering, on a daily basis, what to do next. I know people who have had to give up their family homes. In fact, I know these situations and people like this on an extremely personal basis, where in some cases it's been like I've been going through it myself. Well, I'm highly empathetic - or is that empathic? - or is that like a subtle downshift from pathetic, haha: em/pathetic, making a joke. Anyway. What I'm saying is, for some people - and I know it's not everywhere - it's hard times. It's wondering what to do and what is life for and how do I survive, and what about my dreams and what about what I came here to do?

I was just writing to a friend who, because of difficulties that arose in what was such a long, hard winter, had to give up her dream business and I was saying this:

We don't have to ever give up on our dreams. We can see everything that's happening as contributing to an eventual greater unfolding of our higher selves into the world. We can be still and not be rocked by the waves of change all around us. We can be resilient and we can see how these situations open us up to more love, more possibility. By not being attached to how things look we can sink deeper and more easily into the moment. We can love doing the dishes and be thankful - hey, I have dishes! I have a sink to wash the dishes in! I have hands that do the dishes! I have a beautiful mind that allows me to experience doing the dishes!

And we can feel confident that as the force of life flows through us we will be guided to the right place at the right time, we will be supported when we need it, and especially when we need it most - and we can look forward expectantly to how the force of life which loves us so much will surprise us with this love.

It's already there. It's in us all the time. We can be thankful for all the ways we are already being supported and loved - because more of this comes when we recognize this.

I'm realizing this more and more and more to be true - all these things. It's the same stuff that's been said already a million times, but it bears being said again and again because we live in a world of forgetfulness, of trance. We only need to remind each other - that that's all we need to do. We just need to remember.

Something Beautiful

Creatively speaking I've been printing photos in the darkroom...yes, in the antiquated way that is nearly obsolete. I like to create that way - physically rather than computer-ly. I like the physical experience of swishing the prints around in the chemicals, in the water, in the same way that I like to make collages in real-time, using feathers and stamps and buttons rather than just pictures of them. It's not a criticism of computer generated art or of digital prints, I just feel that more of me gets expressed when I work kinesthetically.

I've also been working on a couple of writing projects. One is bringing the collection of poems and collages I put together last year into a book form and the other is writing a longer piece of fiction (perhaps a novel or novella). It's a love story. A lot of traveling happens in this story in which the main character is alone. The story is getting paired with some of the sepia photographs that I've been printing in the darkroom.

Last year I was writing a series of spiritual poetic prose while I was in a hyper state of transformation which involved heavy doses of meditation and walking. During this time - when I was questioning this work that I do and my life in general - an artist that I'd been in some of the same venues with and who had moved away came and visited me at the flea market. Apparently she'd been going through a similar kind of heavy duty inner transformation and I think because of this I hardly recognized her. Do you know how someone can change so much that they seem to be composed of entirely new (cellular?) material, new ideas and so they don't hit your radar at first because you've only ever perceived them in the old way? Well, this was like that. I might have even written about her here already - I can't remember - but everything about what she was and is doing and also where we both were at the moment of meeting again really moved me. She, like me, has been staying steady on this path no matter what the difficulties, trying to make something beautiful, to validate from the inner and let the outer validation catch up if it wants to - but this doesn't matter. It's about being as true to the spirit in you as possible. To take direction from a higher source and not the personality, the ego. To let everything else be organized around that. And to take the heat, or the wind, or the loneliness or the fear, or whatever it might be, that comes up as it all gets reorganized according to a higher plan.

Here is her beautiful work:

http://www.enchantedlivingarts.com/

May we remember to live in beauty, as much as we can and to find out and then DO what we were born to do.

Dealing with Fear

It's spring now and this is good.

Longer days, warmer weather, not much to complain about.

What I'm thinking about lately is how fear is what really stands in the way of us and pretty much everything we want. Peace in the moment. More love. Miracles. Everything we want comes to us in the moment. And fear causes us to constrict around the moment. Then we are not present with ourselves and what is happening. Then we cannot hear the glimpses of inspiration or intuition that might lead us down the next, right path.

How do we release fear?

Here is what Pema Chodron says about it in "When Things Fall Apart":

"No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear. We are very rarely told to move closer, to just be there, to become familiar with fear. I once asked the Zen master Kobun Chino Roshi how he related with fear, and he said, 'I agree. I agree.' But the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away.

"We don't need that kind of encouragement, because dissacociating from fear is what we do naturally. We habitually spin off and freak out when there's even the merest hint of fear. We feel it coming and we check out. It's good to know we do that - not as a way to beat ourselves up, but as a way to develop unconditional compassion. The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment...

..."So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear. When I was first married, my husband said I was one of the bravest people he knew. When I asked him why, he said because I was a complete coward but went ahead and did things anyhow."