Christine Stormberg <christinestormberg@gmail.com>
Apr 5, 2018, 2:15 AM
to cc
hi xxxxx :)))))
where are you at now? still toughing it out???? a lot of what i am hearing from your email has to do with comparisons. i don't know how long it took me to snap out of constantly comparing myself. i still do it!! probably a lifelong challenge. a lot of the challenges you are describing can be aligned with universal ails of being alive. including the dooziest of them all: why am i alive? i am a big fan of retreats that involve re-calibrating and re-centering. but sometimes i find myself retreating as a means to benefit others or something: like how can i shrink enough so that i am not bothering anyone? or how can i shrink enough that i am not wasting space or resources? these types of retreats are detrimental and come from a place of feeling like i (or one) does not "deserve" to take up space on this planet. but if you can really zoom out and realize what a complex string of energy it took to get you here - chaos and all - it's like the only place you can start from is gratitude and then go from there. and i'm not even trying to be corny! i'm just like saying SCIENCE and shit!! if you can imagine yourself before you were "yourself" and instead the all-knowing continuation of creative force you were before you took physical form ~ the being that chose your exact circumstance including the people and places and challenges you encounter, it is much more obvious how wanted and necessary and perfect you are as you are. there is no point for you to try to be like anyone else. even if "school" or "whatever" is feeling like a pressure to mold you. in most ways, things can not be "given" they can only be "offered". so, in this paradigm, school is "offering" you a certain type of support or challenge or something... and you can take or or leave it in whatever way uplifts you. art school especially has less real groundwork to be able to grade you on. art school "grades" based upon a willingness to learn or a willingness to dive in or a willingness to be passionate. i think all of life is constantly offering all this joy and ecstacy and sorrow and pain and silliness and sadness and romance and shock and pleasure and brutality and all sorts of stuff ~ all of this rapture. all of the rapture is in a way uncomfortable. and comfort only exists in relation to discomfort. we can't know one without the other. something i am so so so crazy grateful for at this juncture in my life is how lucky it is that i get to be an artist ~ in the sense that i have this license to explore all the emotions. i can see the option of not feeling so clearly and i am not interested in that. feeling is so vast and i get to dive and swim in as much as i am willing to experience. and since i am an artist i get to???? something like that????? i think where i am heading with this thought is that there is really no right or wrong way to be (an artist ~ but really just being in general) ~ there is no right or wrong way as long as there is love and respect.... and i also think there is something with balancing preciousness and brutality. i dont even fully know what i mean by that, but by precious i mean that ability to recognize and indulge in the preciousness and uniqueness of life and lives and living and surviving and thriving ~~~ and then with brutality i mean the ability to recognize and indulge in making mistakes, diving in with a reckless faith that the universe has your back, indulge in the reality that we could all explode tomorrow and the nature of nature is neutral, which to our human consciousness is full brutality!!! a windstorm does not know death, humans know death!!! how bizarre!! to know creation is to know destruction!! vulnerability relies on a willingness to flirt with death!!! and there a lots of types of death beyond out physcial bodies' deaths. so balancing preciousness and brutality is like like eqaul parts CARING SO MUCH combined with I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!!! you know????? the best favor you can possibly do yourself is to get to know your inner voice and TRUST THAT SHIT. like nurture and develop and trust it because now and forever there will be forces out there trying to get you to do shit. and understanding those forces of nature is everything. you are nature ~ meaning you are not separate from these forces. the teachers who are shitting on you are also a part of you. the schoolmates who are making perfect pristine clean edges or whatever the hell (it's like machines can do that now, so don't worry about making perfect things lol just worry about making poetry and resonating) are making that perfect shit so that YOU DONT HAVE TO. the collective unconscious and the collective conscious for that matter is strong and REAL. like, you don't have to worry about being anyone else because they are already being that and nature is not redundant. you don't have to worry about making anything except what the hell you know in your heart are meant to make ~ and by make i mean CO-CREATE... because yes you yourself make things, but you yourself is an extension of all that there is. you are unique but you are not separate. no weapon formed against you shall prosper. or better yet: THERE IS NO WEAPON. you dig? all we can ever do is make the most out of what we got. sometimes that means walking away. sometimes that means making lemonade. sometimes it just means getting comfortable with the discomfort so to speak until the answer floats your way (in other words: patience). but then there is nothing like ripping the bandaid off. there are a million ways to live. lemme know what you are thinking these days. hope you are finding happiness!!!
lots of love,
tina <3 <3 <3 <3