Ink-Stick Drawings

On a recent misty morning, entering the amphitheater with Barbara, we first acknowledged the trees—admirable old friends, even of mine by now. We had just a bit of time to do this ink-stick drawing exercise we had in mind, and Barbara had greeted the Mother Redwood perfunctorily, then turned to set out our materials. “Come back here,” she heard the Mother say, “and greet me with your heart.” She laughed and happily complied, setting the energy right for our meditative task.

We began by choosing our “brushes” from the sticks and other natural tree gifts on the ground, and then we sat with our bottles of India ink and sparkling white paper, immersing ourselves in another art discovery, like the Little Drawings of the July blog, that decidedly depends more on letting go to the flow of energy than on any concept of talent. “You can’t do it wrong,” says Barbara, “because you can’t do it right.”

Her teachers Rama and Mano asked Barbara to do a two-month vision quest in the summer, which included a daily ink-stick drawing. “Each stick has its own voice,” they told her. In retrospect, Barbara says, “I am not sure what my ink-stick drawings were doing, and I am not supposed to know. The work was going on deep inside me, drawing out aspects of myself as I followed the stick over the paper, watching drops of ink fall, seeing how some sticks made beautiful, graceful lines and others yielded short, chunky broken lines. I found it delightful to be surprised at the way each stick had its own personality and voice.”

“As I write this I feel I was bonding with the land in a new way—always sitting on the ground, always opening into an expanded heart space, always giving the amount of time needed to come to a conclusion. I experienced being truly in love with the land as I worked from the energy in my heart. In one early ink-stick drawing I saw a small being with wings. Another time I saw a very large face. Right now I am just letting each drawing be what it is. Perhaps later I will go back and see what wants to be revealed to me. I always felt good about doing a drawing.”

“The ink-stick drawings were a road map into the inner nature lying below the surface of my mind and intellect and above my conscious feelings. I would simply observe as the stick guided my hand, rather than my hand guiding the stick. A vast open space opened inside me that took in all of the land and atmosphere of a particular area.”

“In order to expand my being to encompass more than I often connect with, the nature spirits had to do something to move me beyond my comfort and knowledge spaces. The little drawings couldn’t do it because they are so familiar (I’ve done them regularly since the 70s, and they often have a purpose—such as calling for transformative action to heal a situation).”

Last summer when Barbara began telling me about this ink-stick process as a simple and new way for people to get in touch with nature and nature spirits, I began doing them too. She would always ask me: What was your preparation; what did you learn in the process? Yet much of the delight in the drawings was simply that the analyzing head was not involved, leaving the heart and feelings free to discover without the mental critic—leaving the exuberant child free to play.

I did, however, sometimes ask a question as preparation. And I did my first drawings in western Kansas. “What elementals live here on the prairie? May I have an introduction?” I asked. (My dear relatives and I have been wondering who and where they are, since in all of our time living there we have never heard anyone mention the existence of nature spirits. We think they must be embodied in the wild-flowing wind.)

The nearby Sand Creek Massacre site in Eastern Colorado inspired another drawing, prompted by my question: “Can white people 150 years later do any remediation?” This drawing inspired me to finally email Marko Pogacnik (in Slovenia, no less) because he can read the earth’s energies. He responded! “I think that the ceremony should be left to the indigenous people. It is right that the pain stays there in the memory of the place as long as people are not ready to change the pattern of their behavior with each other,” he said.

Looks like the “right way” to do it can be whatever inspiration or need arises, an inner response and exchange between human and earth and elemental. But back to Barbara’s more spontaneous summer practice. She just sent photos of a few of her ink-stick creations for the blog, and my response was to ask her for some description or explanation, some kind of caption. “None of them are illustrating anything,” she replied. “Each one is a mirror of the inner connection I was making with the land, with the spirits of the place. Sometimes looking at them I saw faces, but perhaps the whole point is to not have any point or agenda—no mind—just to open to feelings and give the body a chance to express itself without mental intervention or control or trying to do something meaningful. Perhaps this is like sneezing, crying, belching, and farting; the body gets to speak and to do what it wants and needs to do to stay comfortable. Or, here’s a wondering: Since the gnomes and elementals are the consciousness of the four elements that make up our bodies and everything else in the world, is this giving them a chance to speak and see themselves and what they have just said?”