Flying Girl Lets Go, or Trust That The Seeds You Plant Will Grow2/20/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic
When I was a student teacher learning how to teach, my teaching team was working on a poem with our 9th grade inner city students. Somehow, the lesson turned into racism pouring out of the kids from all directions and I left that lesson feeling terrible, hopeless, unhappy, defeated.
My partner teacher leaned over to me and said, "Shhh. Trust the process."
And I shut my mouth and shut my fears and agreed to hold on until we could work through it all.
When next we met with that class, something had happened. And I don't know if we did anything other than encourage their interpretation and discussion. The anger and fear that the poem had brought up had transformed into thought and understanding.
They had simply come out of the other end of the process.
So when I get all worked up that something in my life is not coming out the way I had expected it to, I remind myself to "trust the process." It give me some breathing room. It eases my panic. I releases the tight hold that I have on whatever it is I am trying to control.
Now this doesn't actually mean we shouldn't take care of our projects or developments. It does take attention, work and effort to get through the process, but we don't have to go through it in fear. All we have to do is trust the process.
It will all come out okay, and even if it doesn't, we are strong enough do deal and move on to the next process.
Oh yeah, and this post counts for the Thursday Sweet Treat prompt, Let Beauty Rain Down Upon, even though I couldn't add the prompt to the title because that would make it way too long.
Posts
7 comments:
Thanks so much. I really needed to hear this today :-) And I love "Fly Girl Lets Go"!!
Each time you post a new FG she becomes my new favorite. I adore the color in this piece and the message. You are so very inspiring.
Oh the seeds and the sunflower and her sunflower hair, and the optimism of this piece. I want to fill my wall with FGs and stare and gaze and marvel :)
I love the story of your student teaching. It is so hard to trust the process when your are first starting out but such a valuable lesson to learn. Thank you for this reminder.
I needed to hear this today. I felt like we were sitting together and chatting...thank you. Trusting the process...just thinking that made me breathe easier.
I LOVE this piece...can I include it on Thursday?? It's inpiring....
another post that contains exactly what i needed to read. thank you, dear rowena.
and i have to tell you that i am in love with all of the blues, greens, and oranges in your art these days. mmm...yummy!
This is so true. I begin a piece of art work with no idea whatsoever or perhaps a small beginning of an idea and then I trust the process as I allow my unconscious to spill forth and do whatever I feel like doing to it/on it as time goes on...it may be headed one direction one week and a different direction the next; to wind up in a totally other direction as I trust the process.
Lovely story you told here and I trust the kids worked out their differences.
Post a Comment