Joe Brainard,
Artist,
Poet,
And by default philosopher,
Produced a small handmade booklet titled Self-Portrait in 1966.
In it he shared 10 sketches of individual hairs from 10 different parts of his body.
He then went on to write about these parts.
He'd go on from this to write many essays about other pieces of himself professing they were created as a means of sharing himself with his friends.
It was his way of giving himself to them.
He was comic,
Whimsical,
Introspective,
And above all unabashedly self-revelatory in these drawings and essays.
It is my belief that this is what we all do.
It is all we have,
Our self,
And therefore when we enter into the world as only the self of me can,
It is in search of our self for which we bother to take this step and go out at all.
These sensory self-explorations within my creative meditations are an effort to have us all show up in the world and find our best self so that we all give something back that is some tooth to it,
That creates revelation worth biting into and digesting.
The creative process at its best calls for this,
To step into curiosity,
To try new things,
To experiment and therefore to experience where others may not go.
You must be brave enough to do this exploration or you wouldn't be along,
So welcome.
I take this exercise inspired by Brainerd as a means to get underneath it all,
Try something that gives us discomfort with intention and then maybe even go on as he did to share it with friends.
So let's get started.
We're going to begin as Brainerd did,
Not with hairs though,
But with our face,
Yet not as we see it in the mirror,
As we sense it through touch.
We're going to take up our wand,
The tool of choice,
Pencil,
Pen,
Charcoal,
Into our dominant hand.
Wield it over the blank canvas.
Close your eyes,
Take a deep breath and as you exhale,
Feel yourself drop from your thinking brain into your heart brain and follow it even further into your gut brain.
This place of revelation,
Intuition,
Insight that takes us uniquely beyond the intellectualized thinking.
This is where we want to stay for this exercise.
With another deep breath,
Raise your other hand to your forehead.
Feel this space.
What is there?
Is there heat,
Texture,
Contour?
Do you feel color?
Draw the sensation of this space with eyes closed onto the surface before you.
Continue down.
Move that hand over the brow ridge,
Across the eyes.
What do you sense?
If your intellectual brain wants to grab hold and give you words,
Take another deep breath and sink back down.
What sense of this space do you have?
Draw it,
Sketch it.
Slide your hand,
Cheekbones,
Nose.
What do you feel?
Keep it warm with the wand before you onto your canvas and continue on.
Lips,
Chin,
Jawline.
What do you feel?
What sensations are about?
What intuitive hit speaks to you from that space?
As you move your hand across these parts of your face,
Slide around to left cheek,
Across to the right.
You might choose to come down into the neckline,
Contours of shoulders.
As you bring your senses to the full feeling of the face you have and you feel you've given it form on the canvas before you.
Rest both hands at your side and open your eyes.
What do you see before you?
Is there a likeness you can recognize?
Do you feel yourself there in the marks you've made?
Spend time with this drawing.
Come back to it gently,
Kindly over the next few days.
When it begins to speak back to you,
Listen.
Follow its lead,
Your gut's response to the lines and marks you've made and take a step back into where your intuition is taking you.
You need only follow this first step it shows you.
Perhaps it asks for some yellow.
Perhaps it asks you to turn.
The next will reveal itself as you step into this work.
Once you've exhausted all the insights your intuition has shared with you,
Once you've added those colors,
Sketched in more line,
Maybe even torn and reassembled,
Glued and formed at the starting point,
Thank your intuition for arising to participate with you,
For braving your years of neglect and coming back to consciousness.
Remember if you'd like,
You can find me via my profile here on Insight Timer.
By all means,
Try it again.
Work your way around your face and see what other revelations you can find and apply to a canvas before you.
I think as you try it more and more,
You're going to have some great revelations.
Thank you for coming along.
This has been a joyous journey.
One I enjoy putting myself to continuously when I feel stuck or I've lost a sense of myself and I need to return to that deep space where intuition speaks.
I'm Patricia Baldwin-Sagerbrook.
Thank you for being here.
