Painting

This is a detail of a painting I created a number of years ago. The process of painting is a wonderful illustration of one aspect of what I learned during my Search: to embrace the unknown.  When I started this painting I knew what was to appear on the canvas.  Although it was an abstract painting, it was thought out, planned in terms of color and composition and all in all quite well organized, in some ways I was about to realize what I had dreamed of for this painting.  The ideas were important to get me started.  

The finished product looks very different than what I had in mind and not only because of my limited painting ability. Something else took place as well. When I thought a painting was done, my teacher encouraged me to continue, to let the painting paint itself.  The result was often that I started with one idea and ended up with a different outcome altogether, often richer, quite beautiful, more meaningful and mysterious as if the road to getting to the result was contained in the result. 

The process was not easy.  Crossing the space from the known to the unknown, from what was to what could become is one of letting go, giving up and saying goodbye.  The next brush stroke is an act of destruction as well as creation.  There is this terrifying moment when the painting is already destroyed and not yet newly created, and it is not easy to put oneself voluntarily in this moment, it is easier to hold on to the known.  This process of creation and destruction and creation is happening all the time.  Perhaps it is just 'growing', or 'evolving' or 'searching'… What is particularly important to me is the intention of destructing in order to create, the choice of leaving behind in order to embrace and always with this terrifying moment - that sometimes last years - of not knowing. I have left organizations, family, friends and loved one’s, ideas, languages, work, religion, habits, parts of my ego, realities, ways of searching even... and embraced the unknown.  All of this as part of the search and often with results that I could not have dreamed.

Georgia – a precious person in my life from the group relations world – alerted me to this story once, which I see as another illustration of the same process.  It comes from the Dr. Seuss’ book On Beyond Zebra.  It is about a boy who challenged his playmates to stretch their imagination beyond the traditional 26 letters of the alphabet – from A (Ape) to Z (Zebra) to create an extended alphabet. 

In the places I go there are things  that I see

That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z 

I’m telling you this ‘cause you’re one of my friends 

My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends

 To be continued…

The Silent Space

The Search blog fell silent for a while.  It is not unlike me as my friends and some of my former friends know.  I truly enjoy my silence and sometimes I disappear for a while.  There has been many a time that I labeled it procrastination or laziness, but I have come to realize that although those labels fit occasionally, generally speaking I need my space, my silent space.  It is space that is not easily described. It is the space where I am, where I experience connection or sometimes disconnection with myself and mostly feel quite connected to other people, a space where I can reflect and think.  It is in this space that my intuition re-aligns, where my heart gets fed – it is a soul space where the troubled inner waters become clear again. Perhaps it is connecting to the Source, or perhaps it is simply about re-finding an inner balance. 

It helps me to distinguish the more important from the less important things.  It helps me think about the questions rather than trying to find the answers.  It helps me live from the inside out, to become more of who I am, to stay grounded.  This is important to me because I experience the world as a place where it is very easy to get overwhelmed.  I still walk out of bookstores because I cannot handle the number of books that are available, or have trouble going to the grocery store because there are too many choices.  Too many experiences and too much information have a paralyzing effect on me and it leads me to drifting away from information and experiences that are available inside. 

To be continued...

Background

I am on my way to Lausanne to do some work for the International Institute for Management Development, which among other institutions, experiences, professions, places and people has been part of the Search.  An initial answer to my search was my baptism at the age of twenty in the Roman Catholic Church, but it turned out that the answer only raised more questions.  A year later I was “reborn” and found God, which eventually led to entering the Society of Jesus.  Directing 30-day silent retreats and providing spiritual direction were wonderful temporary answers with even more wonderful questions raised.  Being ordained a priest, which I had so longed for was definitely not the answer, the way most people wanted or expected me to be felt like a prison.  Coming out as a gay man somewhere during those years was helpful but it did not satisfy the Search

The Search continued, leaving the Jesuits, working as a psychotherapist, falling in love and living with my love, starting my own liturgy, co-creating a business, being deeply involved in group relations work, adopting and raising children, working as an international coach and consultant, painting, writing a few articles, helping people find themselves … all are important, none satisfied the Search.

Encounters and experiences, people and places, music, movies and books influence the direction of the Search and help shape the journey. Some of those stories will be told on this blog, stories that help make some sense of the journey, the Search.

To be continued…

The Search

The search has always been there.  The journey is about discovering meaning and purpose, about living spirituality, about relating to the More, about understanding my silence, about connecting seemingly disparate phenomena, about living love, about making sense of the underlying principles in my life and other people's lives, about understanding the deep energy that is inside and outside of me and each of us, and about so many other things.  During this journey I have learned much, found truths and lost them again, encountered people and have developed a deep respect for The Search.  

Of course this search comes in waves, always present, calm, violent, beautiful, fierce, lulling, forceful and so on. In my life The Search shows in big and little ways. The story of my search is waiting to be told.  The search is quite present now, activated in a new and different way - a week after an event called the Collective Consciousness Conversation.

The event caused the familiar holy unrest.  Do I want to attend a mystery school, or do shamanic training, learning how to read auras, or learning how to channel my energy more productively, return to deeper silence, continue my Tarot book, write more journal, be a different kind of priest, change jobs? The holy unrest is helpful and shook me up, like a puzzle that suddenly multiplied in size and fell apart - waiting to be put together again.  The conversation with my friend H today was helpful in realizing that the drop longs for the ocean and already knows the ocean.

  

I decided to build on what is already present and expand on it, rather than learning something totally new.  I think.  The idea came to me of writing about what I already know about The Search and what I am discovering as I continue the journey of The Search.  That is what this blog is about.