Art and Soul

OK, I know it's not perhaps the most original name for a blog, but as I drove home from a beautiful morning Asana class at my favorite studio it crossed my mind that this phrase sums up what I do pretty well. Art, soulfulness, and even spirituality reside in both the creative process of mehndi and in the practice of Yoga Vinyasa. Connecting with others through henna application or teaching yoga multiplies and radiates those qualities a hundredfold.

It's interesting in hindsight to observe what has happened in my own soul through the course of the career decisions I've made. At one time I was passionate about ecology - understanding the complex interactions of the natural world. However, as I followed the logical progression from undergraduate student to graduate student to post-doctoral fellow, I became more and more disillusioned and eventually walked away from science. I still love ecology, the natural world, and the complexity of interactions; that is not the reason I left. Plain and simple, I decided the lifestyle of an academic was not for me.

I found that I could not happily devote the time and energy expected of an academic at the bottom of the totem pole. I was tired of all the lab and departmental politics and other stuff that gets in the way of doing science, I was tired of 'constructive criticism' (a necessary process but one which deteriorates into just plain criticism all to often), and I was tired of putting what I love (family, art, yoga) on the back burner in order to compete for jobs and funds with people who loved their work so much that this didn't seem like a sacrifice to them. After pretending my way through the last year of my post-doctoral appointment I finally did openly what I'd been doing subconsciously for many months: I handed my unfinished manuscripts and raw data over to my supervisor and started something new. With fear, excitement and a bit of guilt at laying our family's financial security squarely on my husband's shoulders, I completely changed careers.

Striking out first as a professional yoga instructor and then as a mehndi artist made me realize that part of what had made me so unhappy as an academic was that I had stopped doing the things that I used to do for creative expression. A scholar with a young family doesn't have the time to do things like sing in a choir, sew, paint, draw, sculpt etc. It's about all you can do to get a bare minimum of tasks done at work, get food on the table, and sometimes do some laundry (the laundry is last priority though). When I made the space in my life to pursue creative avenues I realized how much I had missed it! I experienced in a profound way the connection between art and soul. When you add to this connection the additional dimension of teaching or sharing (to receptive and appreciative recipients no less) something almost magical happens. I can now not imagine any other sort of career.

Now and then I still get the sense of being trapped where I am or feel like I am just going through the motions. Financial fears, doubts about the value of my work or my skills as a yoga instructor surface periodically. I still have trouble finding time to do the laundry. I sometimes feel I was an idiot to throw away 10 years of education. But, if I have the discipline to sit down and create something, or to get on my mat and move/breathe/meditate, I re-discover the conviction that I'm on the right path. Something about the art of creative expression and the soul of yoga practice clears away my distorted expectations and I find the space to be myself and to meet others as themselves.