Izzie “HOME is where the Heart is. And if you stay in your heart, you will not be afraid. You will always BE home.”
When we got our assignment of “Close to Home,” it reminded me of IZZIE, my snail drawing. IZZIE is saying, “Home is where the Heart is.” This is one (1) of sixty-eight (68) large drawings I have done with my left hand as a technique to transform personal challenges into solutions. I started doing these drawings in 1989 and found them to be very helpful.
We humans have been taught to override our emotions with our minds, so that we are not as in touch with our feelings. In other words, we have become “left-brained,” which is our rational, reasonable, linear mind. This leaves out our intuitive intelligence, which is all-embracing and inclusive, giving us a complete experience of wholeness. As children, we operated in that way, but were taught to override this knowing of the heart.
This work is particularly helpful because images are part of the left-brain, the rational, reasonable mind. Therefore, when you take up your pen with your non-dominate hand, your rational, linear mind is not in charge. But it thinks in images, so this technique is a bridge between the left and right brain, which gives wholeness.
The Pink Flamingo Clown Troop started doing these meditations as a group. We used the meditations from the book Chronic Illness and the Twelve Steps: A Practical Approach to Spiritual Resilience by Martha Cleveland. The purpose was to heal our inner child, which the clown represents, and to be as whole within our inner selves as we could. We would share our drawings with each other, and it was surprising how often each person’s pictures would be helpful to the whole group.
Before I start drawing, I have determined what the drawing is about. For IZZIE, down in the left hand corner shows: fear of driving, motion, moving, emotion, adventure, the unknown. That was what was up for me that day in March of 1991, twenty (20) years ago!
What emerged was IZZIE saying, “HOME is where the Heart is. And if you stay in your heart, you will not be afraid. You will always BE home.”
The fabric or design of IZZIE is what I call ANT-FASY-NUF fabric. These are the scrambled letters of “FUN” and “FANTASY”. We called the TAO Humor Center the “First Foundation for Fun and Fantasy Folks from the Fantastic Future.” Through doing these drawings, I would get myself back into humor and fun, and would get into a peaceful emotional state.