“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”
--Eckhart Tolle It was 2012 when I was disabled by a surgery gone horribly wrong, that took away almost every activity I valued in my life.
My already-crumbling spine (from a rollover car accident when I was 26) was further injured by the surgery. The doctors didn't get me fully anesthetized. Becoming conscious during surgery left me with severe PTSD in addition to my severe chronic pain.
Unable to continue my beloved career as an Occupational Therapist, Bodyworker, and Hand Therapist, unable to sail, to travel, to play music, to do any crafts, to go to the movies or out to eat, and to be in pain with even basic activities of living, I thought my life was over. Then came the pandemic. Everyone else in the world finally got to experience what life as a disabled person is like on a daily basis. The incredible loss, the social isolation, the daily struggle....
But as we all have seen by now, life goes on. We pick ourselves up and start over. We search for meaning and joy again. As I once had posted on my clinic wall, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” My lifetime has been spent cultivating the practice of living in the milliseconds between the pain and teaching others this practice. So I returned to meditation. I sat in the silence and wonder of nature. I started making Soul Collage cards. I found that engaging with the creative muse was the only time I was stepping into the timelessness of no-mind, and feeling joy despite the pain.
In March 2022, I started painting.
I haven't painted anything since high school, 50 years ago. I tried playing with several different media and ended up resonating most with watercolors. I am not a professional artist, and nothing you see here is for commercial purposes.
This gallery is a collection of my paintings that my loving husband and web developer guru created for me. If the subject matter seems to lean a little heavily toward an ocean theme, it is because my “art studio” is in my 30 foot sailboat docked at the Monterey Bay in California. I paint what is near and dear to me, and resonates in my heart.
I hope you enjoy! Hours and days and months and years go by;
the past returns no more,
and what is to be we cannot know;
but whatever the time gives us in which to live,
we should therefore be content.
-- Cicero
--Eckhart Tolle It was 2012 when I was disabled by a surgery gone horribly wrong, that took away almost every activity I valued in my life.
My already-crumbling spine (from a rollover car accident when I was 26) was further injured by the surgery. The doctors didn't get me fully anesthetized. Becoming conscious during surgery left me with severe PTSD in addition to my severe chronic pain.
Unable to continue my beloved career as an Occupational Therapist, Bodyworker, and Hand Therapist, unable to sail, to travel, to play music, to do any crafts, to go to the movies or out to eat, and to be in pain with even basic activities of living, I thought my life was over. Then came the pandemic. Everyone else in the world finally got to experience what life as a disabled person is like on a daily basis. The incredible loss, the social isolation, the daily struggle....
But as we all have seen by now, life goes on. We pick ourselves up and start over. We search for meaning and joy again. As I once had posted on my clinic wall, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” My lifetime has been spent cultivating the practice of living in the milliseconds between the pain and teaching others this practice. So I returned to meditation. I sat in the silence and wonder of nature. I started making Soul Collage cards. I found that engaging with the creative muse was the only time I was stepping into the timelessness of no-mind, and feeling joy despite the pain.
In March 2022, I started painting.
I haven't painted anything since high school, 50 years ago. I tried playing with several different media and ended up resonating most with watercolors. I am not a professional artist, and nothing you see here is for commercial purposes.
This gallery is a collection of my paintings that my loving husband and web developer guru created for me. If the subject matter seems to lean a little heavily toward an ocean theme, it is because my “art studio” is in my 30 foot sailboat docked at the Monterey Bay in California. I paint what is near and dear to me, and resonates in my heart.
I hope you enjoy! Hours and days and months and years go by;
the past returns no more,
and what is to be we cannot know;
but whatever the time gives us in which to live,
we should therefore be content.
-- Cicero