Art is the quiet dialogue between heart and soul.

It took more than twenty years of failing, counseling, drug therapy and electrical therapy for me to realize I was chasing the wrong dreams.

I did not want to type somebody else’s words; I wanted to type my own. Now I want to write books that are more like art, fun to look at, easy to digest and hard to forget. I am like many other who jest; I never know what my head believes until I first write it. I think the accomplishment is good for our self-esteem as long as we remember; the higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind.

Marc Chagall Moi et le Village detail New York 1911 500x279 Chasing the Wrong Dreams
Marc Chagall – Moi et le Village (detail), Musée d’Art Moderne, New York (1911)

That is true of us who dare climb unfamiliar territories. Most of us want to feel good about ourselves, but that depends on the choices we make. Following our heart’s desires is always a good choice. We can miss-see and miss-judge everything around us when we think too much and do too little.

Most of us want to sculpt, write or make something damaged, not recalled like found in Robert Lowell’s Epilogue. Truthfully speaking, to get to my soul’s palette, I had to go within to a dark place of surrender. I had to take myself less seriously and turn to humor to get through the hard times. So much so, those of us more spiritually and creatively attuned regret to sleep while the unfulfilled regret to wake. The first kind of pain she mentions comes from the discipline of working with callused hands trying to make our dreams come true . Our calluses eventually heal, as does our suffering.

The second kind of pain is of regret from failing to make our dreams come true . This type of pain can be so pervasive it intrudes in our work, relationships, and keeps us from practicing creative living. By practicing creative living, I do not mean drilling ourselves with discipline and repetition. I just mean keeping our hands busy doing what interests us; stretching and exercising our mind; seeking wisdom and embracing the challenge; remembering that the lasting bond between us is that of shared satisfactions and pleasures.

When living the life, we were meant to live, giving is better than receiving. Being happily engaged in creativity is better than not, and living without depression is better than living with it. There is no plastic surgery that can put our smiles back. Recovery involves as much unlearning as learning.

For many of us recovery takes numerous years. Many of us do not even know wear sick. I spent most of my prime looking for Mr. Right by roaming empty, unlighted streets in the dead of night; slipping in and out of dark, sleazy bars; past whispering souls with luminescent faces and unkempt hair. I danced under disco lights and made secret rendezvous with anonymous souls. I even marched into places and predicaments even angels feared to treat. It is though we are the same today that we will be five years from now except for the people we meet and the books we read.

My book, Sculpting the Heart: Surviving Depression with Art Therapy, is for those who need to look at pretty pictures and daydream in between the important stuff. Most of us authors want to entertain and inform. I also hope others will appreciate what I have to say the way I say it. I would like to think this book helped others to begin living their divine purpose. We are hopeless humans when our hands are hanging down empty, bent and useless.

You can be sure that our artistry originates much like love from the heart, from Mine to Yours from Yours to Mine. It was Paramahansa Yoganda who says, “Love is the silent conversation between two hearts and art is the quiet dialogue between the heart and soul.”