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| \'When your thoughts are like runaway horses\' |
By:
Celeste Varley |
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Do you take the stress from other situations with you when you get the time to work on your art? Maybe you've had an argument, felt criticized, or experienced a difficult exchange with someone. Your hands may even be a bit unsteady. How can you calm your troubled thoughts so they don't spill over into your art?
Think about times when you are working on a passage of your artwork which is very exacting. When you require steady hand control, watch what you tend to do. Many people hold their breath, or breathe very shallowly. Often the heart beats like galloping horses.
Doing work with fine hand control, you need to be quite calm so it's just such times as this when you want to be at ease. How can you relax when you're concentrating on a challenging situation and adrenalin is still flowing?
First of all, don't even try. Accept the fact that you're tense and it's okay. Like a team of horses, you can't calm them with force, but only with respect. So hold your horses gently, and not your breath.
While we can control our breath to a certain extent, we are totally dependent on breathing air continuously as long as we live. Though we cannot stop it completely, we can influence the pace and consciously slow down our breathing. Have you ever seen a horse trainer gently crooning or lightly whistling to an upset horse?
Try this: Before you start to work, settle in to being exactly how you are in that moment. Acknowledge your own frisky horses. Then take a couple of full, easy breaths. Picture your breath coming into your heart and hum gently to yourself. Soon your breathing will match your slow steady heartbeat.
When you feel collected, centred, and at ease, then start work. This only takes a couple of minutes, and will start you off with more wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. Softly singing, humming, or whistling will steady your nerves and focus your vision. Slow, full breathing and the matching heartbeat can become a habit and take place automatically with very little conscious effort.
Some artists coordinate hand-eye-heart by listening to music while they work. Some music, perhaps dissonant, or mechanical, could interfere with your inner rhythm. As long as the music matches your natural mood or pace this can be a wonderful help.
The Indian philosopher Aurobindo, who was also a poet, remarked that the consistent practice of an art, in the end, constitutes a kind of yoga.
A few artists, unconsciously whistle or sing while they work. They do it very softly, more or less in the rhythm of a slow heart beat. It is an instinctive way of regulating the breath in order to centre and detach themselves from the noises of the surface mind.
This might become something akin to natural prayer. You might talk to your brush or pencil or chisel and coax it to - - -
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About the Author:
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Hello, I'm Celeste Varley and have been an artist at
heart all my life. It is my privilege and passion to
help seekers move beyond self-expression, to access
the seeds of wholeness within. If you like this
article, you may want to see more “Fresh Horses”
articles on my website. Check it out and see if
it's right for you. http://www.heartsongstudio.com
Celeste Varley, Heartsong Studio, Helping
the Creative Spirit to Soar.
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