Hello beloved BCA Community,
It’s been a long while since I’ve mused with you in writing. The beginning of Spring and Snake year has gotten me in a musing mood and it feels good to reconnect as I’ve been laying low since last Fall, when Dragon year (last year) petered me out.
The second half of last year was the first time I wondered if I was experiencing what people call burnout. I’ve treated burnout, I’ve counseled on it, I theoretically understand it, but I haven’t really experienced it. I get tired and then I rest and at some point my energy and connection for things return. Sometimes it takes a day and sometimes it takes weeks but it has never been as prolonged as it was last Fall and Winter. At some point, I wondered if it was time to retire. It wasn’t so much that I was exhausted all the time, just that I noticed I didn’t have the umpf, the spark, the joy to the things that I always loved doing: the books I was writing, the crafts I had been obsessed with, the podcasts I was making, the projects I was involved in, the activism and revolution I always felt was at the heart of my work.
It was at this point, my patient, Barry, invited me out to join him in plein air painting (or landscape painting). I have never painted in my life so I said yes, why not? Maybe it will be fun. First time out painting, and I was hooked. It was all I wanted to do. My energy came back but only for painting. As fun as it was, something felt amiss; I didn’t trust my new found verve for painting. I had the sneaking suspicion it was compensation for something. But what? And why?
While out painting with Barry one day, I wondered out loud if my exclusive excitement for painting somehow felt related to working too much. He told me that burnout isn’t just working too much, but the feeling that all your hard work doesn’t bear fruit. I considered what he said, and I can see how this was indeed what I was experiencing: a growing subtle feeling of fruitlessness that started to plague me last year. I could also see that maybe it was and is a collective feeling of fatigue, despair and doubt. In this political environment, I’m sure many of us are wondering if all the hard work we’ve put in actually matters. I am generally a positive person, things don’t weigh me down too easily, but something was happening just below my consciousness because I was getting tired, and the things I was putting energy into didn’t seem to bear the fruit I was expecting.
As I thought about why I loved painting so much, a few things came to light. It is a still, silent and profound activity. I realized that in all the busy-ness and distraction of Dragon year, I had lost sight of the things that painting provided me: joy, perspective, silence, presence and Nature. Painting became my time to be present with Nature and let Nature’s perspective inform me, to let all the responsibilities and busy-ness fade to the background and create something beautiful out of presence, silence, attention and color. As Barry said, “painting is your acupuncture.”
I painted obsessively through Fall and Winter, and as Dragon year came to a close and Snake year began two weeks ago, I started to feel a familiar energy come back to me for all the things I loved and felt disconnected from in these past months. I also started to see the buds and fruits of efforts and endeavors planted some time ago—buds from plants that I was fearing were dead—blossoming.
Last week, we began our fourth year of recruitment for the Navajo Healing Project (NHP) and this year has gotten an overwhelming response which is surprising after a difficult and challenging Dragon year. I recently received my first request for a wholesale order for my Spirit of Spring book :) and we had a joyful and food-filled New Year’s dim sum gathering of our lovely BCA crew which included a few fresh new faces who joined BCA this past year.
In thinking about all the support I continue to receive from the community of BCA practitioners and patients—on the daily—I realize that BCA is the tree of healing planted 17 years ago and tended to with the care of the community. It is a well established tree that bears much fruit in the world, in me, in patients, and in all lives that it has touched (even and perhaps especially through the most challenging of times).
Happy Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake to you my dear BCA community! Snake year is a good year for engaging in your version of painting. A still, silent, and present activity which allows for introspection and creativity. It is a year to reflect deeply on all that Dragon year kicked up; to rest and strategize wisely so that when it is time to “strike” or act, the timing will be just right. It is also a good year to shed patterns that deplete you or go against your innate nature; a good year to move into a more authentic version of who you are and to trust the good fruits of anything you’ve planted in the name of healing, joy and connection.
In Community,
