"But I have learned to traverse these regions and, yes, be fed by them, and now, perhaps, my story can give hope to someone who is on a difficult journey."

Heavy black charcoal lines emerge under my hand---they now jig and jag across the paper. A sudden break. Until now, I have worked deliberately in pen and ink, but now everything is changing. The drawing is taking me where it wants to go.

My breathing gets faster and the sweat drips down my cheek. A shift has taken place.

I have given myself to the drawing; I will see where it takes me. I smear the lines, making some areas darker, bringing light into others. I jab at the darkest places, to push them into deeper darkness; I gently coax and gently cajole the lighter zones---they need the tenderness of a mother to her newborn babe.
  

The underdrawing, which I’ve been laboring at obsessively for days in pen and ink, shows the Enlightened One and a hand making the gesture of discernment. But now the charcoal has largely obscured this.

And then, suddenly, rising up in the foreground, is the lotus. I am smitten!

Here it is, in the middle of all this turmoil. How can it be here? I am amazed, where did this image come from?

Lotus blooming in difficult times.

This will be the name of the finished work. And the lotus will become the subject of exploration for a whole new body of work.

Am I not like the lotus that I seek to portray?

Lotuses are sacred flowers that only rise up out of thick, dense, dark mud.

I am so well acquainted with the regions of the mind that are dark, thick, and miresome.

But I have learned to traverse these regions, and, yes, be fed, by them, and now, perhaps, my story can give hope to someone who is on a difficult journey.

I have not only survived, but am thriving, full of life--This speaks to the power of the Life Force and of love, which is ultimately the source of creativity.

For me, mental illness is finally transformed: the lotus rises from the mire. Mental illness is transformed into mental health and recovery, which had seemed at one time impossible .And art has played an important role in the transformation.

Maybe that is what helped me heal over the years: art has saved me from a kind of internal combustion. Once on paper and canvas, the raw energy of my emotions was transmuted into physical form, and I was allowed a measure of release. For our culture to confine our mentally ill to hospitals and to the roles of being sick and unproductive is a violation of the deepest of human needs. Healing can start with the simple act of seeing, touching, taking a pencil, or piece of chalk and making a line, communicating, learning to speak, being heard, learning to listen, learning to be still, finding gratitude. All of these things help create a well life. Mental illness, you see, is really not some foreign, strange land that only a few strange birds venture to. Everyone goes into the dark land in their dreams. Some of us misplace our passports, but we are the same human beings as you, and you are the same beings we are. It has been a long journey, going through the fire, but I have done it, and come through to the other side. My life is proof that there is hope for others. The Life Force is full of power and love, which is ultimately the source of creativity. The lotus rises from the mire. MC