The Hollow Bone

Introduction

I was thrilled when Jan Dworkin, my partner and main muse, asked if she could interview me about my artwork for this issue of the Journal of Process Oriented Psychology, since the theme of Spirit and Essence accurately expresses the qualities I have been seeking to unite in my artwork. Jan has known me for seventeen years and I remember showing her some of my spontaneous drawings back in 1984 when we first became friends. At that time, I felt that Jan could connect with and relate to my work on a deep level, even though the images coming out of my unconscious were both surreal and disturbing. Her ability to affirm me as an artist has been crucial in my development. She is a painter, which means she can not only appreciate my work, but also challenge me in constructive ways. Jan is also an artist with words and I appreciate her help in creating this structure for me to express my experiences. This was indeed, a creative collaboration.

As I got older I realized that at the essence of my desire to do those secret drawings was a task: to use my art to shock others awake and disturb the status quo. I want to bring the stuff that usually gets pushed aside out into the world. Today I enjoy sharing those images with you, Jan. I’m getting ready to share them with the world.

I had to go into psychology first, to work on myself and to work out some of these issues, to get my ego and my self-criticism out of the way. But I may have mistaken psychology for my life path and now slowly I am getting back to the art. I thought psychology was the end and not a means.

As a kid, the art was a refuge. I was keeping it safe from an immense critical voice inside myself who would have taken it over had I gone professional. This way I was free with it. I could draw whatever I wanted.

Later on it was you. Your encouraging, challenging, pushing, loving, making room for, supporting, modeling, pursuing your own artistic expressions. All those things rekindled a fire that had almost gone out.

Also doing work for others pulled me back into it. Doing work for Arny Mindell’s The Shaman’s Body, then the Journal of Process Oriented Psychology and Amy Mindell’s book, Coma: A Healing Journey. I could do it for others but I couldn’t do it for myself. Maybe that was the beginning of a pattern: the hollow bone, doing it for something greater than myself.

I have an interesting story to share about that. Remember the day we were hiking in the Wallowa Mountains, following the cougar tracks? This is an obsession of mine, tracking cougars. Crazy! That day we got to a place where we felt the presence of the cougar and got freaked out. I became the cougar and he spoke through me saying that I had to draw every day or he would kill me. That cougar has become one of my biggest allies.

The Tibetans also use sand paintings, but the Navajos use them for healing. Once the painting has served its healing function it is destroyed. I’m not that detached yet. I’m really attached to the work I’ve done recently.

(Robert answers this question and at this point in the interview a man in the café where we are working trips over my computer cord. The computer gets unplugged and we are afraid that all our work has been lost. Before we know whether or not our work was saved, Robert remarks, “It’s the sand painting. It gets erased.” Indeed, all was saved except the original answer to this question.)

You know I hunt for agates, it has been an obsession of mine in recent years. When I look at the sunlight illuminating the stones, my heart leaps for joy and I am taught the deepest lessons about life. I remember the time I found the best agate ever--a bunch of them, in fact, and I noticed I wanted more. I became greedy and I criticized myself for that. I thought I should appreciate the gifts I was given from the ocean and not want more. But then, as I grabbed for more agates, suddenly the agates taught me a lesson: I should seize life now, they said. I should grab everything with all I’ve got.

It’s like that when I look at the portraits I’ve drawn of these beautiful Indians. There is a part of me that feels guilty and greedy. I keep wanting to draw more pictures. I feel I am using them to satisfy an obsession. But the agates tell me to continue. To grab it all. To seize the moment and seize the beauty I see. The way their jaws are set, the way their long strands of hair fall down the sides of their heads. The way the skin folds over the bone. The curves of the body. The muscles, the flesh. The deep spirit I see coming through their eyes. It feels as if something that has been ignored and oppressed and devalued by my own people is wanting to be viewed and seen in its shining. It may sound excessively politically correct, but that is what I see with my agate’s eyes. How many White people look at Native people through those eyes? The agate’s eyes want to reflect that vision to the world.

Then my self-importance returns. I sound like I think my work is so beautiful.

My everyday self says I am projecting. I am doing what White people have always done--using Native people for my own needs. And there is some truth to the fact that I need to take back my projections. But there’s something more. That’s not all I’m doing. I’m bringing out something sentient, and on that level, there is no “me” and “them.”

And I don’t want them to have to be noble Indians, all decked out in these stereotypical poses. I also want to draw ordinary regular down-to-earth folks. The beauty is there, too. I am not showing that yet. My next step is to draw that spirit as it is shown in everyday ordinary ways or in ways that may look negative at first.

The tree represents the three levels of consciousness that Arny Mindell discussed in his book, Quantum Mind: consensus reality, dreamland and the sentient realm. I identify mostly with the woman looking in the mirror, reflecting on herself and trying to become conscious. In consensus reality she is in danger of becoming narcissistic in her own self-reflection. If she gets too caught up in her individual separate self, it oppresses her indigenous spirit. In that sense, she stands on that spirit as an oppressor. You can see her standing on this figure in the tree.

In dreamland, all the parts of the picture are parts of her. If she goes deeper than consensus reality she experiences herself standing on the roots of a tree. Entangled in the roots is an indigenous spirit, a Native American. He is part of her roots, her lineage, and she is standing on his shoulders in order to get his support and wisdom. His support comes from the sentient realm, the place where all the roots are entwined. If she goes deep enough she can use this indigenous wisdom and guidance in becoming more connected to the sentient world.

In the sentient world, she becomes Nature reflecting on itself. That is why she looks like an earth-mother. She is both Nature and human.

This drawing also addresses the issue I talked about earlier regarding my “career” or non-career as an artist. It’s connected to the hollow bone. If art becomes a narcissistic issue and I use it to feel special, this oppresses the indigenous spirit in me.

I hate reducing it to words because there is so much in that picture. When you put words on it, it is no longer that sentient essence. That’s why I draw it. It is the best way for me to express my experience of the sentient realm.

At the same time, it is very difficult and important for me to have more ego and feel good about my work. I need to identify with it and value it and appreciate my artistic abilities. Since I think the ego is inferior I know that means I need to pick that up too.

For me a picture can be worked on for years and I always get more out of it. It can be like a childhood dream or chronic symptom--it shows me a long-term pattern. During the process of working on “The Roots of Self-Reflection,” I got in touch with an aspect of myself that I don’t usually identify with--a wild, erratic emotional part of myself which is hugely important to me.

If I only work psychologically it diminishes something. The content of the picture addresses this deeper spiritual process of mine about becoming the empty bone and the agate’s eyes.

Note

Drawn from Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of A Vanishing Race by Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen, originally published by Houghton-Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts Copyright © 1976 by Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, edition published 2000 by arrangement with Multimedia Product Development, Inc., Chicago, IL.

Jan Dworkin, Ph.D., is a certified process worker living in Portland, Oregon. She works as a teacher, therapist and group facilitator and conducts training workshops internationally. Jan is currently writing a memoir about process work as a spiritual path. She tries to follow the direction of the spirit in whatever she does.

Robert King, M.S.W., is a certified process worker in private practice in Portland, Oregon. He has had extensive training in Gestalt therapy and bioenergetic analysis. Robert teaches process work in the USA and internationally. Through art, he both explores the relationship between western psychotherapies, shamanism and eastern spiritual traditions and expresses his madcap love for god.