BRUSHES OF THE SPIRIT

By Water and the Spirit, acrylic on silk and board, 22×30, 2007. By Donna Fado Ivery. $425. www.AdventuresInHealing.com

An Excerpt from in “Sleep, Pray, Heal: A Path to Wholeness & Well-Being.” by Donna Fado Ivery

 

 — “When I cut my picture into the same pieces as the broken mirror and spaced them out a bit, it felt true; it resonated within me. There are spaces ... ” my words falter ... “blanks ... ” my lips and tongue have stopped cooperating to annunciate and I spit out each word, “in” ... “my” ... “brain.” There is much more that could be said, but it would be too much work in this present moment. I’m outta gas.

“I like the way your skin is drawn on paper and looks like a thin covering over who you are,” says Naomi.

“Um hmm,” I mumble. I have never before thought of skin as a mere coating to the me inside. Fact is, I’d been disappointed in the appearance of the cheap newsprint and how it stretched and bubbled when adhered with white glue. Naomi’s insight seems to underscore the importance of expressing the real inside of me and not just keeping up with the on-the-surface stuff. Getting beneath the surface is the uncovering part of recovering.

After what seems to be a longer moment of silence, Naomi says, “It’s interesting to me how the empty spaces of your injury appear to be like chains binding you.”

Leaning my chin into steepled fingers, I study the image. I have experienced the empty spaces of my brain injury as vast nothingness and not knowing. To see these broken cracks within me as a source of being chained is new. “I hadn’t thought of that before. But it feels true. Brain injury enslaves me.”

I am body-bound. At times I feel as though my body is a paper scrim covering the real me beneath. What happened to me when the glass fell? My body is bound by brokenness.

The tangible creative interaction of the Holy Spirit feels something like brushstrokes creating an image that will be disclosed at an unknown moment. Sometimes a brushstroke is bold and compelling, and at other times light and barely distinguishable. It is good to work with the Holy Spirit, whom the Bible also calls Counselor. In this painting the “brushes of the Spirit” reflects back to me, like a counselor, making visible the impact of an invisible injury. The Spirit is the One who reflects back to me my testing out expressions of what is real, the One who is able to fill-in the unknown blank spaces of my brain injury. I hear a promise in TBI Self Portrait: The Glass Fell. God assures me:

I will support you in this important work of uncovering what is real beneath the surface. My Holy Spirit will be your counselor in this important work of uncovering and recovering, your pathway to healing.

** Quote is from Chapter 7: Uncovering,  pps..92-94.

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