St. Dymphna the Protector

St. Dymphna the Protector
Gouache on paper 6" X 7.25"

I made this painting to thank St. Dymphna, and to honor her works in the lives those of us who ask for her help. I was moved to make this painting because of the following incident:

There is a person whom I am deeply concerned for. Being a recovering co-dependent, I have learned that worry is wasted energy, but that prayer is pro-active. There was a particular day several months ago when my sadness and concern felt so pointed that I prayed very intensely and with great focus.

I asked St. Dymphna to keep this individual in her care, to help them see their path, and to bless them with peace and joy. I asked her to help them see that their being is a beautiful miracle, and to not let them be overcome by despair. From nowhere, the scent of flowers wafted over me.

I glanced around me. It was not just the lovely smell of roses, it was the movement in the air, that it came from a direction, as though from a presence, that got my attention. It was not bloom time, the windows were closed, there was nothing near me-flowers, candles, incense- that would cause this scent. No one was home but my baby daughter (asleep on my lap), my dog (asleep at my feet) and I. I wasn't wearing perfume, and I have to use plain soap, but I sniffed my clothes just in case. Nope, not my clothes. I breathed in again. The scent was so present, yet so inexplicable. Then I knew: I was receiving a message, my prayer had been heard. Things like this just never happen to me, and I felt deeply grateful and very blessed. In making this painting I hope to share with others the peace and comfort I felt that day.

I surrounded the figures with oak leaves and branches, to symbolize the strength we need to overcome our wounds. St. Dymphna is guarding the person's light, making sure it is not blown out by the storm that surrounds them. The words around the border are St. Dymphna's message: " Heal. Live. Remember you are loved. Remember to take care of yourself."

The truth is, that I need these words, and I need St. Dymphna's help, just as much as my friend does. To love and care about a person with an unresolved mental health issue is a practice in faith, in turning it over to my higher power and letting go of fear every day.

The Saint of Compassion

This shrine of His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was a collaboration between myself and my beloved husband, Marcus. He painted the figure, and I really love how he captured the Dalai Lama's beautiful smile. I lined this simple shrine with a nubbly woven pink silk and painted the halo with the Buddhist symbol for world peace, lotus flowers, and my favorite quote from my favorite living saint - "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."

Marcus and I have been talking about compassion in relation to the debate over President Obama's health care reform proposals. I am struck especially by two arguments that seem particularly wrong headed and, if followed to their logical conclusion, inhuman.

The first is: "it costs too much." Now I ask you, what should we be spending our collective monies on? What is more valuable, more priceless, than good health? Ask any person who has had their life curtailed by a chronic condition or any parent who helplessly watches their child suffer. Ask a terminally ill person with goals, dreams, and people they want to stick around for. Ask them what good health is worth. Good health is the basis for living the lives we want to live and we should be putting our money into ensuring that everyone's health needs are met. As a matter of fact, along with good food and shelter for everyone I can't think of a more important thing to spend our tax dollars on. I hear "my children will be paying for this!" Yeah? So will mine. And I'm glad they will be paying for something so worthwhile. I find this argument especially ironic in the face of the two wars the United States is currently involved in, needless wars that cost billions of dollars and the lives and health of countless people. We will be paying for that mess for a generations. And yet people argue that good health care for everyone is too expensive? Even worse, that good health care for everyone isn't worth the expense?

The second argument I have been hearing is the worry that "illegal" immigrants will benefit from public option health care. I say, I wish they would. Because a person in need is a person in need, regardless of, well, of anything. A person in need of medical care being denied for any reason at all is a cruel and terrible thing. It goes against the basic tenant of all major religions, and of anyone who is a decent human being: compassion. And compassion in practice is the care of the sick, the poor, and anyone unable to help themselves.

I leave you with these quotes on the subject of compassion from the Dalai Lama himself:

"Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival."

"I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed."

"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery… we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness."

If the Dalai Lama's wisdom were to enter the United States Senate we would have a completely reformed health care system and a public option in a heart beat.

Amen

St. Anthony of Padua, again

St Anthony of Padua Comes By Boat

9x11 Acrylic on Paper, 2009

St. Anthony Of Padua is the patron saint of lost things, whether it is a person, or faith, or an object. Loss is experienced in many different ways, and the most powerful losses involve the people we love, either through death, estrangement, or disappearance. Loss can also occur because of the passage of time, erosion, and change. We ourselves can become lost if we are overcome with feelings of sadness over loss or regret, or are unable to let go of the past.

I have found a certain weirdness in being forty, and I think that it may explain why some people go off of the deep end and experience a mid-life crisis, because it's pretty freaky and sad. A sort of looking backwards has been happening, an assessment of my life so far, and all of the people I've known and events that have occurred. I think that the weirdness comes from having spent, at forty, just as much time as an adult as I had as a child. The frame of reference through which I perceived the world, my memories, and my interactions has shifted. The finality of certain changes has come into very sharp focus. The past is a lot more distant. Primary relationships have changed as I have matured. I see people a lot differently than I used to. I am detaching from old notions of myself, they fall behind like discarded paper dolls. Mostly all of this is good, it's just...different.

During a period when these feelings were particularly sharp I happened to come across the photographs of Eugene Richards and Kevin Bauman. Their photographic portraits of abandoned houses on the prairie of North Dakota and the city of Detroit, Michigan resonated with how I was feeling. Every one of these photographs is a picture of loss. You can imagine the people and the lives that were lived in these places, but you will never know them. No one is coming back, ever. The dramatic landscape of the North Dakota photographs underscores a human absence so profound it is a presence, in and of itself. These homes are a black hole of peoples' hopes, loves, losses and disappointments, condensed, wrapped in questions, turned in on itself under a vast sky. The abandoned homes in Detroit are especially painful to look at, signaling the vanishing of whole neighborhoods and a community way of life. I could relate to them on a personal level, and they really helped me to gain some perspective and inspired me to examine St. Anthony and the nature of loss in a different way. "Saint Anthony of Padua Comes By Boat" is one painting so far in this exploration.

The person peering into the window is not able to let go of the past. Perhaps she really misses someone. Maybe she longs to recapture a happier time. Maybe she is haunted by questions about what happened here. She is so caught up that she does not see the beauty all around her, nor does she understand that her loss is part of the wholeness of the universe and that change is the only constant in life. Help is coming, though—Saint Anthony is out on the ocean, heading for the shore, carrying his light so that he can find her. The sapling, growing from the ruin and decay, looks as though it is signaling to him across the distance. This new growth is hope, and the good that can come from change, if she allows herself to see it.

The hope and growth we can find because of loss was put into words beautifully by Roberta Hiday , who wrote to me about "St. Anthony of Padua at the Guard Rail" :

St Anthony of Padua at the Guard Rail
9x11 Acrylic on Paper, 2008

"my spiritual journey has brought me from catholicism, to evangelicalism to the episcopalian church - where i am now. i enjoy living in the mystery. i'm in my late 50's so i have a sense of the value of just going for it! in my eyes your saint anthony is a happy, round monk wearing a brown robe - he looks approachable, and the way he is holding the light as he looks over the abyss is hopeful to me.

i live on the olympic peninsula...i drive on a road like the one in your picture and the trees look like the ones that line our 2 lane roads - so i indentify with it....loss comes in so many forms - my mom focused on items like keys, bills, money, etc. your painting helped me to see st. anthony in a new light - as one who can assist in the looking for lost relationships, & for people who have lost their ways, or for those who have lost their drive (pun intended), or their sense of hope....

as a spiritual director i know my clients will appreciate this painting as a metaphor of their "journey"....they have stopped on the road of life to look for what they have lost.......and as a spiritual director i see myself as st. anthony in the picture - looking into the darkness of people's stories...helping them to make peace with their shadow side and shining light on it...."

Roberta's words remind me of my favorite lyric by Ani DiFranco-

up up up up up up points the
spire of the steeple
but god's work isn't done by god
it's done by people

-up,up,up,up,up,up


I think that St. Anthony is working in mysterious ways and that he keeps coming up for a reason. I'm so glad that he is there when I need him.

Saint Agatha and Health Care

St. Agatha Mixed Media Shrine

St. Agatha is the patron saint of nurses and bakers, and is invoked against fire and diseases of the breast. She is also the patron saint of people who have or have survived breast cancer. I have her on my mind a lot lately as the debate over health care reform in the United States rages on. A really good friend of mine was just diagnosed with a malignant lump in her breast. One of my first thoughts was, "Shit. I hope her insurance company doesn't try to screw her out of her coverage."

The fact that that there are wealthy companies lobbying elected officials (who are supposed to be looking out for our best interests) has filled me with cynicism. I have, quite frankly, a complete lack of faith in the honesty of our senators and congress people, and in a system of government that has allowed this state of affairs to even exist. We are at the mercy of the health insurance companies who employ practices like rescission, purposefully cutting sick people off from their insurance and denying them health care, often at the time they need it the most. Why? To save money. In June the LA Times covered a congressional hearing on the practice or rescission. Rep. Bart Stupak said, "...some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back."

Act 3 of Episode 386 of This American Life is dedicated to rescission. One of the most heartbreaking stories comes from a woman who was denied coverage at a time when she needed an immediate double mastectomy to combat the aggressive cancer growing inside of her. Blue Cross notified her the Friday before she was to have her surgery that her chart had been red flagged due to an unrelated past dermatologist visit. The insurance company insinuated that she had hidden her past visit from them. Her dermatologist assured them that the skin condition was unrelated to her cancer and pleaded with Blue Cross to allow her to have her surgery, but they denied her. Why? They did this all to save some money. Sadly stories like her are all to common in our country.

We are being terrorized by big business piracy and many elected officials are being bought and sold. Their greed has wormed its way into our relationships with our doctors, has turned our most personal situations into a corporate balance sheet, has violated our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and has given strangers the decision over whether we live, die, or face financial ruin.


Access to quality health care for everyone should be first amongst our priorities, along with food and shelter. Isn't human life too precious to put a price tag on? Do we really want to live in a society where who lives and who dies is based on what is in your bank account?

The United States finally has a president who speaks frankly about the problems our country faces. I would have preferred to see universal health care on the table, but I am pleased that the president is even willing to undertake the arduous process of taking steps to keep the health insurance industry honest.

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

I am deeply disgusted by the partisan bickering and reactionary carrying on over the president's proposed changes. Shame on any elected official who is not supporting reform and regulation of the health insurance industry. This is a humanitarian issue, this has to do with compassion, ultimately. This is a class issue as well. The rich—politician and CEO alike—are jockeying desperately to protect their financial interests, employing scare tactics and lies. In the meantime there are sick people waiting, their conditions are worsening, people are dying, because of the greed and self interest of these few-all of whom can afford quality health care.

Check out act 3 of this episode of This American Life, about the health care industry's practice of rescission:
www.thisamericanlife.org/Episode386

Michael Moore's Sicko website:
www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup

President Obama's Health Care web page:
www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care

Saint Martin de Porres-Equality, Justice,Peace

St. Martin de Porres-Justice, Equality,Peace
gouache 5.5 X 5.5

St. Martin de Porres was well loved for his kindness and seemingly endless compassion towards the poor, homeless and sick of Lima, Peru. He is the patron saint of social justice and African-American people. Because St. Martin's mom was African and his dad was a Spanish nobleman ( a creep who abandoned his family), he is also the patron saint of bi-racial people.

As anyone with two eyes and a working brain can see, if you aren't white in America, a rich white guy even more so, then you really need someone to have your back, and St. Martin is your man. Because race isn't the issue in our country, racism is the issue, and until all the racist jerks out there decide to take responsibility for themselves everyone of color needs some special protection from above. Amen.

This particular St. Martin de Porres reflects activism, social justice and African-Americans in American history. Each of the symbols surrounding St. Martin de Porres represents an important person or event. I made this painting for my daughter, because she loves to point at everything and have us tell her what it is. It's a good way to start teaching her about history, literature, and social justice. The symbols stand for as follows:

Rose=Rosa Parks
Bridge=Ruby Bridges
Crown=Martin Luther King
Staff=Harriet Tubman
Wheat=Phillis Wheatley
Panther=the Black Panther Party, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, etc.
X=Malcolm X
3 Onion Flowers=James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Shwerner. The onion is a symbol of eternity, and the word derives from the Latin “unio”, meaning one or unity.

St. Francis of Assisi

St. Francis of Assisi gouache on paper 7"X9.5"

St. Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals and the environment. Known, and much loved for his wisdom and gentleness, he wrote the beautiful "Canticle of Brother Sun," a poem/prayer thanking God for all aspects of the natural world that He created.

During the process of making this painting I re-read the canticle several times and tried to choose a quote to express the particular aspect of St. Francis I was contemplating. Nothing was just right, and I couldn't move forward and complete the piece without it. Oddly enough the thing that brought my intentions into sharp focus was an act of hatred.

My wonderful husband, the artist Marcus Kwame Anderson, had run out on a late night trip to the store to get medicine for a sick friend who was staying with us. He stopped for gas, and on his way in to pay a woman gave him a dirty look and slammed the door on him. We live in the predominately white suburb of Clifton Park in upstate New York. My husband's long dreadlocks and brown skin frequently draw stares and at times openly hostile behavior from people who have allowed themselves to be backwards and ignorant. When he came home and told me about the incident my initial reaction was a deep, angry disgust. Though I know my husband can take care of himself, I still wanted to smack that nasty lady's face off. I fantasized about shaking her by the collar until her tiny little pea head flopped back and forth, yelling in her face, "get a clue, use your brain, read a book, and stop living like a complete asshole!" I wanted to confront her in such a swift and violent manner she would immediately be ashamed at being caught and called out for her terrible behavior. I wanted to hurl bolts of lightening at her and reduce her to a little pile of ash.

It was still on my mind the next day as I sat down to paint. I grimly tried to choose a quote but of course it just wasn't working out. Fortunately, the Dalai Llama came to my mind. Then Jesus. I reminded myself that their way would be one of detachment, compassion and prayer. I thought of how horrible it would be to actually be that lady, someone so sick, so messed up, so morally backwards and so spiritually out of touch that she would treat another person, a total stranger, my incredibly kind and compassionate husband no less, in such a way. What a terrible way to live. So I prayed for her. I asked God to help her be a better, happier, non-toxic human being, for her sake and for the sake of others. Then I prayed for my husband, that God protect him from racist shitheads, and that God help those same shitheads to take responsibility for healing themselves instead of lashing out at others. I really got a lot of peace from that. Feeling centered, I re-read the Canticle. "Happy those who endure in peace." I got that feeling of rightness in my gut. Up until that point I had been searching for St. Francis and using the painting to bring him into focus for myself. Now I felt how large and far-reaching his message is, and everything came together.

When we are at peace with ourselves we can live in peace with others, with compassion towards our fellow creatures, and in harmony with our planet.The quote also reminded me that achieving peace means standing back from all of the artificial constructs of modern American society that are harming us physically and spiritually: the illusion that the borders between countries indicate a difference in our humanity, animal testing, agri-business, pollution, a capitalist system that resembles piracy more and more every day, a culture based on consumerism, a social and economic structure that promotes exclusion and division instead of unity, a focus on material things over the well being of our souls, and a general ignorance of the fact that the way we are in the world, how we choose to walk through this life, is immeasurably more important than what we own, where we live, and what we drive. I don't think this means we should let unacceptable behavior slide. I think it means we should confront it with a response that ultimately promotes peace, even if I have to get up in someones face to do it. I really hope I can channel the teachings of St. Francis, the Dalai Lama, and Jesus when the occasion arises. I really do.

St. Dymphna and the Lights of Gheel

St. Dymphna and the Lights of Gheel
watercolor 3.5 X 5.25

I know an incredible woman. She is the survivor of childhood incest, suicide attempts, abusive relationships, addiction and severe depression. She has, thank God, had the strength to not only survive but to thrive, to recover, and to heal. I make all of my St. Dymphna paintings and shrines with her in my mind, not in appearance, but in feeling and experience. This painting shows St. Dymphna as a very young girl, surrounded by a dangerous storm and blown by a powerful wind. Her hands are so thin and small, almost too small to keep her light from going out, almost too small to save her, but she is praying, going inward, asking for serenity. The lights of Gheel are behind her, a safe haven, a place where she can find help and protection. She just has to see it, to cross the distance without giving up hope.


I feel so blessed to know my friend, to witness the miracle that is her beautiful self. She has helped me to heal from my own problems. Every time I see her I am filled with wonder and gratitude at her strength, that she is here, and that she perseveres with such grace. Amen.

........................................................................................

I recently came across a wonderful blog. I myself do not have a mental illness, but some people who are very dear to me do. I grew up, as most people do, without a real understanding of mental illness. Our society does not meet confounding behavior with compassion, but with outrage, derision and scorn. I feel that this blog really sheds a lot of insight and will be helpful to everyone in gaining understanding of ourselves and others:

chelise.typepad.com/also_my_healing/