My word for the Week, Space!

Space.

The very real touch of heaven that just dawned on me yesterday, but was following me around all week and I am loving it. The reality of space.

In my drawing class this week, in between the initial frustration of not being able to draw upside down and just being plain tired, I was a humble toddler learning from my Teacher about the love joy of space. Space is featured all around and in between the contour lines that I was learning to draw and yet it was the negative spaces that we were taught, to guide us. Space. The ebb and flow, the rhythm of the negative space, which is seen correctly through the other side of the brain, actually creates the whole picture, beautifully!

By trusting the negative spaces and not focusing on what you are currently seeing in the picture, you learn to create and draw more accurately and more beautifully. In between our three hours of drawing, one of the ladies on the opposite side of the table was sighing and throwing her pencil around. In years gone by I probably would of being stressed about this behaviour but not this week, not today. I am healed and I am happy, I stepped back and carried on – I created the space and allowed her the freedom of expression. It was the pained 50 something cry from a woman who had no one to hear her struggling with her drawing. Deeper still it was the pained expression of knowing that her whole life is like that and that her sighing and pencil throwing tactics are all a cry for someone to care. By allowing her the space (where she wasn’t hurting anyone) she was allowed to cry for help and do it audibly. Being around someone being real and drawing us in to her space with jokes and a strange drawing torture unity, we all became freer and somehow lighter. One very old lady who was out of our drawing class and rather painting on her side of the room, of course she was not included and began taking offence at our antics. I have learned that the older one gets, the harder it is to change perspective that is if you don’t want to change it. I say this respectfully but have found that people from the age of 60 get almost entirely stuck in their own framework and if someone is beyond that, that person is crazy, off centre and offensive to them, the older individual will always seek to control them. This is my findings, not always and not stereotyping but often this reality has been viewed. I found this older individual could not handle or afford any of us the freedom of space and it was sad. Nonetheless by the merit that we are “old students with a cohesive drawing unity” we carried on laughing at the sighs until we were all throwing pencils and drinking strong coffee with rusks. Space.

This is the beauty of space. This is something that I love; I have learned that I need space, and that I afford others the space of being entirely real – not destructive but just real. If you are sad – then say it! Happy – then express it! Joyful – then shout it! God gives us space, the space of being all we are, running joyfully to our Papa in a joyful dance of hey Papa here I am! We need to allow the negative spaces to help guide us too, because in fact if we change the way we see them – and don’t view them logically (left brain!) then perhaps our negative spaces can change us too, I think so. God has created space for me to just be and I am here creating space for others too. We cannot get so fixed in our space without allowing people the freedom to get dancing about in their own. Our space is personal and its meaningful, unique and beautiful. I am loving my space and I am so grateful for this gift!