Pandora's Box in the Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve

2012-01-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

When I was invited to participate inthe Adam and Eve show I took it as a challenge.

The story is deceptively simple.

15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tillit and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You mayfreely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of theknowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that youeat of it you shall die."

18 Then the LORD God said, "Itis not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper ashis partner." 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed everyanimal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them tothe man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man calledevery living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names toall cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of thefield; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and heslept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place withflesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man hemade into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the mansaid,
    "This at last is bone of mybones
    and flesh of my flesh;
   this one shall be called Woman,
    for out of Manthis one was taken."
24 Therefore a man leaves his father andhis mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Andthe man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

[Genesis3]
Garden disobedience and punishment
1 Now the serpentwas more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God hadmade. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eatfrom any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent,"We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but Godsaid, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in themiddle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'"4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; 5 forGod knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and youwill be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the womansaw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to theeyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she tookof its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who waswith her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and theyknew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together andmade loincloths for themselves.

8 They heard the sound of theLORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, andthe man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD Godamong the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man,and said to him, "Where are you?" 10 He said, "I heardthe sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I wasnaked; and I hid myself." 11 He said, "Who told you thatyou were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded younot to eat?" 12 The man said, "The woman whom you gave tobe with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." 13 Thenthe LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you havedone?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
    "Becauseyou have done this,
    cursed are you among allanimals
    and among all wild creatures;
   upon your belly you shall go,
    and dust youshall eat
    all the days of your life.
15 Iwill put enmity between you and the woman,
    andbetween your offspring and hers;
    he will strikeyour head,
    and you will strike his heel."
16To the woman he said,
    "I will greatlyincrease your pangs in childbearing;
    in painyou shall bring forth children,
    yet your desireshall be for your husband,
    and he shall ruleover you."
17 And to the man he said,
   "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
   and have eaten of the tree
    about which Icommanded you,
    'You shall not eat of it,'
   cursed is the ground because of you;
    in toilyou shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns andthistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and youshall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of yourface
    you shall eat bread
   until you return to the ground,
    for out of ityou were taken;
    you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return."

20 The man named his wifeEve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD Godmade garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothedthem.

22 Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has becomelike one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach outhis hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and liveforever" — 23 therefore the LORD God sent him forth from thegarden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 Hedrove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placedthe cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to thetree of life.

(NewRevised Standard Version)

Whatdoes it mean, to have knowledge of good and evil?

Tome this suggests the development of the conscious brain. This is thenewest part of the brain, the part that allows us to reason, to maketools, and to think in the abstract. It is the part of the brainthat has permitted the development of the best and the most evil. (See the most recent episode of Charlie Rose's brain series.)

FirstI pondered on the most evil. What is the most evil thing man hasdone. At about this time I saw the PBS special “The Biggest Bomb”. It is about the development of the nuclear bomb, and the effect ofthe impact of the largest bomb had on the scientist who had developedit. The scientist decided to halve the power of the bomb at the lastminute. Even so the crater was three miles wide. The radioactivewaste plumed in completely another direction from that predicted,because of the height of the reaction.

Havingseen the impact of this bomb, many of the scientists involved beganto petition against the use and stockpiling of bombs, seeing that theentire planet could easily be made uninhabitable. And that ended thecold war.

Thismade me aware that the cold war was much more dangerous than we hadbeen aware. On at least two occasions false alarms should havecaused the release of nuclear arms, but the people who should havepushed the button refused.

Notehow interested the snake is in the bomb. He seems pleased andintrigued.

Forthe other side, the good, I did a survey to see what people felt wasman's greatest achievement. There were many opinions:

-cloningthe human genome,

-frommy priest, anaesthesia

-froma colleague, world peace (quoting Pinker's latest book)

-frommy piano teacher, music

-fromthe internet, Shakespeare,

Ihave some ideas and sketches for a painting to be entitled somethinglike “In pain shall you bring forth children.” With someonedrawing up an anaesthetic for the woman screaming in pain. But I didnot have the time to paint this before the show.

Fall Glory

2011-11-22T09:57:00.000-08:00

I went on retreat with other members of my church this fall, with the subject of 'centering prayer'.

It was just at the height of the fall leaf colours, which are really special in Quebec.

Based on my photos, I have done some paintings. The aim of these paintings was to produce a work for the Visual Arts Centre fund raiser. The painting was to be 12 inches by 12 inches, and painted directly on a piece of wood given for the purpose, or on paper attached, or anything else using the wood.

I decided to do a watercolor of the leaves, and to fold it around the wood. Which meant the main image had to be in the 12x12 square, and the painting had to continue some inches around this square. This was more of a challenge than I expected, I kept putting the areas of interest outside area that would be on the face of the painting. Shown are the final submission, and the other paintings on the way.

I had initially thought that 90 lb paper would be best, since the heavier the paper the harder it is to fold around the wood block. However the lighter, 90 lb paper, is generally hot press and does not have much of a tooth, and it is hard to do drybrush effectively on this paper. On reviewing the first paintings, I decided to go with the 140 lb cold press paper, and this worked better.

Fall Glory 2
17x17 inches
90 lb hot press watercolour paper

Fall Glory 3
18x18 inches
90 lb hot press Fabriano watercolour paper

Fall Glory 4
17x17 inches
Arches 140 lb cold press watercolour paper

Red tree
18x18 inches
Fabriano 90 lb hot press watercolour paper

Fall Glory as submitted
12x12 inches on wood block, image continues on sides of block
140 lb Arches cold press watercolour paper

Visual Arts Centre

2011-11-14T05:40:00.000-08:00

The Visual Arts Center is holding a fundraiser November 22 to 26 with the Gala Opening on the 23rd of November at 6 PM. The tickets are $25.

2011-09-22T01:21:00.000-07:00

Showing at the Mile End Gallery, vernissage September 29 2011.

2011-08-08T03:22:00.000-07:00

I have joined a singing group for patients with Parkinsons. The idea is that by learning to project song, we will be better able to project voice.

Never having been a singer, this is a great challenge for me.

(I lie. I used to play guitar and sing as a teen, but the only one who complemented me on my voice was a good friend who was tone deaf. And I sang for my babies, but that is a private parent affair. I even « made up » a lullaby for my kids, but funnily enough I later heard the same lullaby on a movie.)

We were asked to make up a song to sing for the others.

After thinking for a while about how I had never made up, never mind sung, a song, I suddenly channeled this song about homesickness for Manitoba. I had not been aware of feeling this way at all, so my strong emotional reaction to this was a real surprise. It reflects the feeling I had after I had spent a year in Seattle with my family, and as we drove out of the mountains returning to Manitoba we arrived back on the plains, and a great feeling of freedom came over me.

Par contre, et il y a vraiment un par contre, au Manitoba, mois de janvier c'est tellement froid que si on ne branche pas l'auto on le peut pas le faire aller.

Et on ne fait que du ski du fond, non seulement parce qu'il n'y a pas de montagne (le seul piste de ski alpin s'appelle "la rivière!") mais parce que on doit bouger vite pour rester en vie.

Black and White, March 2011

2011-05-15T09:58:00.001-07:00

Acrylic on Canvas
18 x 24 inches
Private Collection

2011 Watercolour Exhibit of Dix coups de pinceau

2011-05-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Tree
watercolour on paper
15 x 22 inches
framed
$350

The Beach at Atlantic City III
watercolour on paper
15 x 17 1/2 inches
unframed
$250

The Beach at Atlantic City II
watercolour on paper
15 x 17 inches
unframed
$175

The Garden
watercolour on paper
15 x 22 inches
framed
$350

Ice on the Lake
watercolour on paper
14 x 10 1/2 inches
unframed
$175

The Beach at Atlantic City I
watercolour on paper
14 x 10 1/2 inches
unframed
$175

Exposition 

Le groupe Dix coups de pinceau, groupe d'aquarelliste, vous invite du 26
mai au 5 juin 2011 à leur exposition annuelle à la galerie du Centre
St-Ambroise, 5080, rue St-Ambroise, Montréal.  Le vernissage aura lieu,
jeudi le 26 mai de 18h00 à 21h00 et une rencontre avec les artistes aura
lieu dimanche le 5 juin de 13h à 16h00.  Au plaisir de se rencontrer.


Pour information: Joanne Bolduc 450-508-6107

Watercolour Exhibit

«Ten Strokes of the Brush», a group of nine watercolourists, invites
you to their annual show at the St. Ambroise Gallery, 5080 St .Ambroise
St., Montreal, from May 26 to 5 June, 2011.  The vernissage will be held
Thursday May 26 from 6 to 9 PM, and you can meet all the artists Sunday
June 5 from 1 to 4 PM.  We hope to see you there.

For more information please call Therese at 514-484-0616

The first frost

2010-10-19T07:16:00.000-07:00

Salvaging the Plants, or One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Last night must have been the first frost of the year, because as I walked the Peanut this morning I saw several hanging baskets of plants left along the street for the garbage pickup. One looked as though the plant had been hit by the frost; others looked well. One was dumped under other trash, but several were undamaged.

My daughter has recently taken up the growing of indoor plants, and invested considerable time and money in potting, growing, cultivating her plants. It is her new hobby. The waste represented by these hanging plants seemed too much to bear.

I headed home with the dog. Alice was cleaning Jalapena peppers for muffins. I explained about the hanging baskets, and she put down her gloves and we headed out. “I can't believe people spend forty dollars just for a month!” We trooped back to the house with the two best baskets, and I went upstairs to spray them with soap while she went back to her muffins. The I found a place in the sun for the plants to recover, in isolation from our other plants in case of aphids or spider mites.

As I was picking off dead foliage and getting ready to move the plants from the bath to the sun, my husband called from outside; “Why are we taking other people's baskets of plants and throwing out our own?”

“What?”

I went outside and by our garbage and recycling there was another hanging basket. Not ours. One of our neighbours must have seen us coming back with the salvaged baskets and decided to add theirs to our collection!

We brought it in and started the process again. Now there are three baskets of plants recovering on the bureau. The third has the prettiest flowers.

2009-09-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

Dix Coups de Pinceau

To all of my friends:

I will be present at the show:

October 14, 6-8 PM
October 17 2-4
October 18 1-5
October 21 6-8 PM
October 24, 2-5 PM
October 25 2-4 PM

2009-09-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

2009-09-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

2009-09-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

2009-09-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Empathy, service at the Unitarian Church, 2009

2009-09-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Unitarian Church of Montreal
Order of Service
July 5, 2009

Gathering music

Welcome

Script

Lighting of the Chalice

453
May the light we now kindle
Inspire us to use our powers
To heal and not to harm
To help and not to hinder
To bless and not to curse
To serve you, Spirit of freedom
Passover Haggadah

Music

Rolling Home Eric Anderson

Opening Words

440

From the fragmented world of our everyday lives we gather together in search of wholeness.

By many cares and preoccupations, by diverse and selfish aims are we separated from one another and divided within ourselves.

Yet we know that no branch is utterly severed from the Tree of life that sustains us all.

We cherish our oneness with those around us and the countless generations that have gone before us.

Opening Song 80 Wild Waves of Storm

Candles of Joy and Concern

Gifts of Thanks

?

Song 192 Nay, Do Not Grieve

Meditation
In words
The prophet, Kalil Gibran, p. 47

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with
His won sacred tears.

In Silence

In music
Debussy

Or choice of musician

Address/Reflection

The four stages of Empathy:

As I prepare for the 35th anniversary of my graduation from medical school, I have been invited to reflect on what it takes to be a good doctor.

Is it a good bedside manner? But a doctor with good bedside manner but without knowledge is a charlatan.

Is it a good up to date knowledge base? Certainly this is necessary, but if you cannot relate to the patient, your advice will not be followed.

Is it the ability to recognize your limitations? Without this, any doctor is dangerous. But obviously this is not enough.

Is it empathy? Empathy is currently heavily discussed in medical education circles.

What is empathy? The best definition I have found is that of Simon Baron-Cohen. "Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person's thoughts and feelings, whatever these might be. (…) There are two major elements to empathy. The first is the cognitive component: Understanding the others feelings and the ability to take their perspective (….) the second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an observers appropriate emotional response to another's emotional state."

Empathy is the new by-word. Scales of empathy have been developed, and used to decide who among the hundreds of applicants with 4.2 grade point average should be selected for admission to medical, dental, and nursing schools. These scales are also used to test whether it is possible to teach empathy. And they are used to assess the changes in empathy in health care trainees as they progress through their training.

The experience of empathy involves a putting of oneself in the place of the other. In fact brain imaging shows that persons experiencing empathy have activation of the same parts of the brain as the person experiencing the pain. Individuals who are unable to experience empathy fail to show this activation.

Is it possible to teach empathy? How would we do that? By making sure our students have experienced a pain similar to that of the patient, so that they can understand it?

If this were the case, one would expect that an increase in life experience would result in an increase in the empathy of the medical trainee. However, the opposite seems to be the case. As trainees progress through their training their empathy, as judged by the empathy scales, decreases. Various techniques have been used counter this decrease empathy. These include mindfulness training, group sensitivity training, and courses in literature to help the students reflect on others' experience in life. But none of these strategies has been shown result in a increase in empathy as training progresses.

It is unlikely that these trainees are forgetting that their patients are experiencing physical and emotional pain. So what is happening?

I take a clue from my own reaction to the complaint of a journalist about a lack of empathy in her mother's doctors during her terminal illness.

The doctors had told her mother all about her mother's cancer in spite of her mother's express wishes. The doctors insisted that the family appoint a spokesperson so that information could be given in an efficient way, instead of responding to calls from each member of the family. The journalist accused the doctors of robbing her mother of her will to live by telling her the truth about her disease. She stated that only one junior trainee was felt to have expressed concern about the loss the family was facing.

My response to this letter was strong and defensive. In 1992 I wrote:

I read with sympathy the article by Ms. Davis-Barron about the death of her mother. However I feel the need to comment on two issues: physician empathy and informing the patient of his or her prognosis.
When I was a medical student and trainee I felt guilty that I did not feel what the
relatives of my patients felt. But in 1983 my younger brother killed himself, and at that point I learned what grief is. I also learned that one cannot possibly feel what one's patients and patients' families feel and continue to function: as physicians we learn to distance ourselves from such feelings.
Our job as physicians is to cure disease and to alleviate suffering. When cure is impossible one of the means of alleviating suffering is to help the patient and the patient's family to accept the inevitable and to say good-bye. The good-bye cannot take place until the patient and the patient's family acknowledge to themselves and to each other that the end is near. This allows them to thank each other for their lives and to say how much they will miss each other, and that they will get along somehow. The grieving process cannot properly begin if the patient and the family conspire to keep the coming death a secret.
I admit that physicians are not always as patient, kind, and sympathetic as we could be and that we could well learn to deliver bad news in a better way. But there is no way of making bad news good.

My writing from this time provides me with an important clue: "we learn to distance ourselves from the feelings of grief". This is an active process, an act of self-preservation. And a protection from the overwhelming feeling we have when it is our job to make the patient better and we are not doing it. The more the trainee feels he is failing when the patient dies, the greater the need for defence. Not to distance oneself from these feelings would lead inevitability to burnout. It is not a failure of learning, but a coping mechanism.

Is it possible to get past the need for this coping mechanism and gain a more mature level of empathy?

I think that it is. However it involves an acceptance of the fact that the doctor is not god, is not all-powerful in the face of disease, and should not expect to be so. After all, the outcome is always the same. I have never seen a one hundred and fifty year old patients. We must accept that we will all ultimately degenerate and die. That is part of life.

Having looked illness and the inevitability of degeneration and death in the face, I have experienced the feeling of a new kind of empathy. We are all in the soup together, and we just humanly do our best. And I try to accept that for myself and for my patient, while doing my best to make the present as good as possible.

Based on this experience, I have developed a model of the development of empathy, loosely based on M. Scott Peck's stages of spiritual growth.

Stage I. Pre-empathy. This is the newborn that is unaware of the other or the other's pain. He only knows his own primitive needs, and since he is not aware of the other or his pain he has no empathy.

Stage II. Natural empathy. This follows at a very young age. Even a small child will recognize the pain of another in tears and attempt to provide comfort. This child does not defend itself from empathy, there is no need. The child has the security of his family to back himself up, and can naturally empathize when empathy is called for.

Stage III. Withdrawal of empathy in response to overwhelming demand. This is seen in the medical trainee, who was selected in the first place for medical training because of a high degree of empathy, but is overwhelmed by apparently unrealistic expectations of himself or of others on himself, and needs to defend himself against these to avoid burnout.

Stage IV. True empathy. This is the response to the distress of others,which acknowledges our humanity, brokenness, and mortality, and which is able to provide a still quiet place at the bedside to listen, hear, reassure, and acknowledge the joys and the tragedies of life even if nothing can be changed. To quote Scott Peck talking of the fourth stage of spiritual growth, "They feel deeply connected to "an unseen order of things," although they cannot fully define it. They are comfortable with the mystery of the sacred."

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, and always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot to fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Closing Song 16 'Tis a Gift to be Simple

Closing Words

The golden rule and others

As we leave this friendly place (song)

Go now in peace, Go now in peace
May the love of God Surround you
Everywhere, everywhere, you may go

(French)

dix coups de pinceau

2008-09-06T03:09:00.000-07:00

Dix Coups de Pinceau

Gwen Spurll

Framed paintings :

Easter lilies
15x22 inchesfile:

Harriet Lake #1
11x15

Harriet Lake #2
11x10

Harriet Lake #3
10x8

Harriet Lake #4
10x9

Summer Lilacs
9x12

First Buds of Spring
9x12

Azelias
9x12

Spring Bursts Forth
9x12

Harriet Lake #5
8x10

Garden Retreat
9x12

Unframed in sleeve

Pat's Farm
22x30

The Storm
22x30

Light through the trees #2
12x16

Mount Royal Park
9x12

Coffee and Conversation
14x21

Spring Flowers
14x21

Spring Sky
10x14

Yorkshire
9x12

Girouard Park
9x12

Harriet Lake #6
8x10

Rosemary's Tulips
11x7

Richelieu River at Chambly
9x12

Spring Tulips
8x13

invitation

2008-09-05T02:27:00.001-07:00

UU service August 10, 2008

2008-09-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Unitarian Church of Montreal
Summer Service
August 10, 2008

Order of Service

Gathering Music………………………………………...

Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen, interpreted by k d lang

Welcome…………………………………………………

David Horan

Chalice Lighting………………………………………..

Gwen Spurll
,
Susan Howach, in her books on the Church of England, describes the second journey as "a time of profound spiritual growth characterized by the desire to let go of youth and move on to explore the rewards and challenges of middle age"

I invite you to join in listening to the story of my unexpected and paradoxical second journey.

Prelude…………………………………………………..

Opening Words…………………………………………

Hendrik Boom

From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

On pain:
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain,
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain,
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wonderous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with his own sacred tears.

Opening Song…………………………………………...

# 38, Morning has Broken

Candles of Joy and Concern…………………………...

David Horan

Gifts of Thanks and Commitment……………………..

Reading………………………………………………….

Gwen Spurll and Hendrik Boom

From the introduction to The Artist's Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron

Hendrik: When people ask me what I do, I usually answer, "I'm a writer-director and I teach these creativity workshops.

The last one interests them.

Gwen" "How can you teach creativity?"

Hendrik: "I can't. I teach people to let themselves be creative. "

Gwen: "Oh, you mean we're all creative?"

Hendrik: "Yes."

Gwen: "You really believe that?"

Hendrik: "Yes."

Gwen: "So what do you do?"

Hendrik: This book is what I do. For a decade now, I have taught a spiritual workshop aimed at freeing people's creativity. I have taught artists and nonartists, painters and filmmakers and homemakers and lawyers--anyone interested in living more creatively through practicing an art; even more broadly, anyone interested in practicing the art of creative living. While using, teaching, and sharing tools I have found, devised, divined, and been handed, I have seen blocks dissolved and lives transformed by the simple process of engaging the Great Creator in discovering and recovering our creative powers.

Gwen: "The Great Creator? That sounds like some Native American god. That sounds too Christian, too New Age, too…stupid? Simple-minded? Threatening…

Hendrik: I know. Think of it as an exercise in open mindedness. Just think, "Okay, Great Creator, whatever that is," and keep reading. Allow yourself to experiment with the idea that there might be a Great Creator and you might get some kind of use from it in freeing your own creativity.

…

I have worked artist-to artist with potters, photographers, poets, screenwriters, dancers, novelists, actors, directors--and with those who knew only what they dreamed to be or who only dreamed of being somehow more creative. I have seen blocked painters paint, broken poets speak in tongues, halt and lame and maimed writers racing through final draft. I have come to not only believe but know:
…
Your creativity is like your blood. Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing you invented, creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing that you must invent.

Song……………………………………………………...

#305, de Colores

Meditation -in words………………………………...

Gwen Spurll:

Freedom, Irish Jesuit's "Sacred Space"

Everything has the power to draw forth from me a greater life and love
Yet my desires are often fixed, caught, on illusions of fulfillment
I ask that God, through my freedom, may orchestrate
My desires in a vibrant loving melody rich in harmony.

-in silence
-in music

Reflection………………………………………………..

Gwen Spurll:

Pandora's Box in the Garden of Eden

Last year a reporter from La Scena approached my painting teacher about why adults study painting. This is my response. It is called « Pandora's box in the garden of Eden ».

I am a hematologist: a clinician, a laboratory physician, and a teacher. I am also a wife, and the mother of three. I have always been the scientific one in a family of artists: actors, painters, and illustrators. Although I was sent for art lessons with my sister who is now an illustrator, I was always far too self-conscious to express myself artistically. And if I picked up a paint-brush, my father would look at the results and say "Don't give up your day job!"

In 2003 one of my friends who is a psychiatrist, showed me a program she was following. The program is called The Artist's Way. It is a program for blocked artists. I decided to try the program, even though I felt like a pretender. After all I was not an artist.

The program consists of stream-of-consciousness journaling, called morning pages, and artist dates. The artist dates consist of time spent alone doing something to do with the arts.

What came back to me in the morning pages was an image from 20 years before. At that time Hendrik and I seemed unable to start a family. This was a very stressful time and at a certain point I was unable to go on with the investigations for infertility because of depression. I ended up in analysis. The image that came to me in analysis was one of myself, desolate and alone in a boat in a lake. I call it 'The Desolation of Infertility'.

As I went through The Artist's Way program I started looking for that image again in books of paintings and in galleries during my artist dates, but I did not find what I had in mind. Finally I decided to paint it myself.

I took out an old children's paint box, a paint brush, and some sketching paper. I painted a primitive version of what I had in my mind.

Having done that, I was surprised to see that the image, which had been static for over twenty years, started moving on in my mind.

The boat moved to the shallows.

The person in the boat got out and started climbing the mountain. The shoes, representing the path walked, and the pack, representing the burden, were left behind. What I ended up with over the next weeks was a series of paintings depicting this transition.

Did the journeyer reach the top of the mountain, or did she just discover there were more heights to climb?

I then decided that if I was going to paint, I should learn the artist's alphabet: drawing, colour, and technique. I took a drawing class, then a painting class. Painting became an important part of my life. As my daughter said in one of her college applications "My mother is a part time painter".

In 2005 I started to develop some strange symptoms. The first happened as I was walking across Sears with one of my children. I felt my left foot grip the floor, like a grasp reflex, but in the foot rather than in the hand. I asked my doctor about it, and she responded, “You would have to postulate something in the central nervous system”. She consulted a neurologist, and told me “It is probably just nerves”. She knew me too well, and did not add that he had said that if it were something serious it would declare itself. .

Then I noticed that my left arm was not swinging as I walked. My movements were slowed, and my left arm took a fixed position when I was not actually using it. When I told Hendrik, he said “Well you have to hold it somehow”.

There were small involuntary movements of the fingers of my left hand, particularly when I was nervous. And I fell. That was what people noticed the most. And Parkinson's is not the first thing people think of when they see you lose balance and fall.

For myself, I thought I had a brain tumor, and waited to have a seizures.

Finally, when the symptoms were not better after a holiday, my friend insisted I see my doctor again, and that I see a neurologist. The diagnosis of Parkinson's disease was made. I started on medication, which has helped a lot, but I have still had to make a lot of changes in my life: mainly to the pace of my work life. Painting allows me to express how I feel about what is going on.

I have always been a competitive person, and I find it hard not to be competitive about my painting. I have to keep reminding myself that the painting is for myself, and the important thing about the results are that I feel that they say what I want them to say.

I have started giving away some pieces of particular importance to others. I gave a painting of the coast of Iona to the person who started the process. She and I had visited Iona together, and the view shown was the view from our hotel.

I gave a painting of mushrooms, a classroom exercise, to someone who worked closely with me and left to work in another city. It is now hanging in her kitchen. She loves to cook.

I gave away another as an anniversary gift. And I have given some paintings for fund raising for breast cancer.

I nearly always use a painting as a background for the title slide of a lecture.

I used paintings to illustrate my application for a promotion.

In my presentation this illustrated the workplace as it was, with cloudy skies. And this, the work place as I felt it should be.

One of the interviewers was so inspired he has since taken up photography again.

I recently sold my first painting, and used the proceeds to buy a bottle of single malt scotch. And you will find an invitation to my first show outside.

And now the question comes to me: is it a coincidence that I started painting so close in time to the onset of symptoms of Parkinson's disease? Maybe not.

Oliver Sacks recently wrote an article for The New Yorker (which is the first chapter in his new book, Musicophilia) about the onset of creativity in patients with neurological defects. It seems there is a region in the frontal lobe which inhibits self expression, and lesions in that area can free it up. For example, Ann Adams, a scientist who took up painting during a hiatus in her work life, may have done so as a first sign of frontotemporal dementia.

So perhaps the painting presaged the Parkinson's.

A recent issue of the Parkinson Report, the newsletter of the National Parkinson Foundation, is entitled Creativity and Parkinson's disease. At the most recent meeting of the World Parkinson Foundation there was an art show featuring paintings by patients with Parkinson's disease — paintings either about their feeling about the disease or just paintings.

What does this mean? I don't know. But one can only follow where the path leads, whether it goes to the top of the mountain or not.

I do know that there are two times when I forget about the Parkinson's disease: when I am solving a difficult clinical case, and when I am painting.

Now, why Pandora? This is another rendition of Pandora's box in the Garden of Eden.

Pandora is to Greek mythology what Eve is to Hebrew mythology; the first woman. The name Pandora means "the all-gifted one." She comes from the underworld with a box, actually a grain jar, of gifts. When she opens the box, against instruction, all of the evils of the world are released. She quickly closes it, and only hope remains, cowering in the bottom of the box.

Closing Song…………………………………………….

#16, 'tis a Gift to be Simple

Closing words……………………………………………..

Gwen Spurll

I slept and dreamed that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted, and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore, as quoted by Steven Covey, in The Eighth Habit. (Find your voice and help others find theirs.)

# 414, As we leave this friendly place

Artist Statement

2008-09-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

undefined