How loss helped one artist find beauty in imperfection

This was the first time I was introduced to vulnerability as a positive concept. When investigated with compassion, one can use their own vulnerability as a pathway to presence and compassion. This talk led me down a road of investigating how to relate to our vulnerability in a way that allows us to connect with others, rather than protect and defend ourselves.

I began my meditation practice by simply learning what it meant to be "in the now." I would practice finding the space between thoughts, curious to see where my mind would go next. It became like a portal into another kind of awareness – the one who is aware of awareness. From this perspective, it seemed to be possible to detach from reactivity and egoic fixations and contemplate multiple perspectives with equanimity.

I looked to Joan as the ultimate role model of how to be with someone who is going through the dying process. It was important to me that I give my mother the best possible experience there could be in this very difficult and precious time. I had no idea how. I had no experience. But I did research this topic as much as I researched Cancer itself and how to fight it. This book was the most helpful I read. Joan Halifax is truly a gift to our world.

Also, check out her Joan's TED Talk

This is another very helpful book that looks at death from a peaceful, enriching perspective. This book helped me to move away from the resistance and fear into seeing the possibility for a beautiful and limitless connection when there is nothing else to do but connect. There was comfort in that connection, greater than I’d imagined. And facing death in this way serves to enrich the life we have.

Taking Your Hands Off the Controls
Loving with a Wise Heart

My sister and I attended a retreat at the Omega Center with Tara Brach after my mother had finished her final chemo treatments. Tara’s lectures on quieting the mind, and loosening blame and reactivity cleared so much space in me to decide how I wanted to go through this loss. Her books and podcasts helped to solidify a clearer path to go through this experience in a present, loving, and transformative way. She describes a feeling of "coming home" and belonging when we tap into a greater strength beyond egoic striving. When my mother was sick, and I was living with her, I would listen to these podcasts every night. I continue to listen to her podcasts to this day, and trust her philosophy so much to help me find peace and a thoughtful and productive way to go through any experience.

This book is probably the most beautifully articulated example of someone facing complete and total suffering and choosing to remain peaceful and even grateful for his life, as difficult as his circumstances were living in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

This poem struck me as so accurate in explaining how my mother’s legacy truly was what she contributed to other’s lives, and she did so much. I realized that is truly what matters, and it’s inspired me in many ways to shift my own goals in life towards giving, sharing, and supporting others rather than achieving and striving for my own circumstances. And it has proven to be exponentially more fulfilling.

I spent a lot of time thinking about death during this time - first my mother’s death, then after she passed, my own. It consumed me for at least a year. I felt I had to figure out a way to live so that when the time came to die, I would feel the least amount of regret. This article was helpful. Specifically this part "if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

Another article about how to live fully I found inspiring. Experience loss of someone I loved so much definitely caused me to figure out what my true priorities are, how I want to live, and who I want to be. I’m working on these daily. It’s a practice.

This poem is one I revisit often. Like a favorite song can seem to be written just for you, it seemed to really understand how it felt to grieve. The last stanza tears me up every time. After four years now, I really understand what he meant here: "You will have learned To wean your eyes From that gap in the air And be able to enter the hearth In your soul where your loved one Has awaited your return All the time." It’s true now, I don’t look for my mother in the empty space her physical body once occupied, I see her gestures and hear her voice through my siblings and their children. And I feel her love always holding my heart.

This is such a perfectly articulated poem that basically sums up my talk without any specific narrative. "Bearing the truth" instead of trying to control the uncontrollable and the rewards of that practice are unimaginable.

I love Alan Watts’s lectures, particularly this one. He talks about the mind spinning and ruminating and how we must learn to stop the worry and distraction and thinking in order to hear new ideas, feel safe, sane, peaceful, discover life. And how to do this? "Learn how to leave the mind alone. It will quiet itself."

This is a video where I talk about making art as a means to connect to others through painting. I made this video shortly after my mother passed away as I was untangling how I could paint again after so much was different in my life and in my heart.

This is a letter from one who has experienced loss and learned to live with loss always being difficult. Ultimately, how lucky we are to have loved so much.

I really love Louis CK’s humor, but even more, I love his attitude. This particular idea he explains is about feeling the grief head on, not pushing it away or trying to make it stop. In doing so one experiences real joy and gratitude on the other side of that grief moment. This is a concept that Tara Brach and other Buddhist meditation teachers talk often. One I’ve come to embrace myself. It’s the struggle that causes suffering.