We all have profoundly powerful inner resources. However, sometimes we do not realize them fully until we are challenged.

Where I live is a tree called Manzanita, beautiful red smooth bark and oval shaped lime green leaves. It’s seeds can only be opened up by fire or a lightning strike to the ground, only then is it possible for a tree to be created. Poet Gary Snyder talks about the speed and agility in the flanks of the deer, as a direct result of the wolf that preys upon him.

Art and the creative process is sometimes like this – the most beautiful things blossom and come out of the most challenging circumstances. My art often depicts people in the context of overcoming great odds, calling forth their inner most resources to do this. In my creative coaching and hypnotherapy work I help people access their inner most capacity for  healing, change and growth.

There is a story told of a great Tea master in Japan, who had been challenged to a duel by a Samurai warrior, who too was a master, in swordsmanship.

In these times it was not hard to insult a Samurai, a simple brush by shoulder or a bump in passing would be viewed as disrespect, and would be cause to challenge someone to a duel.

The tea master had only one week to the duel, and he was not up to the challenge, knowing nothing of the art of sword. He sought out a teacher going to the finest school of sword in the province. Telling of his predicament he convinced the teacher to help him. Day and night they worked hard and long fencing. Even though the tea master gave his all in the training it was of no use, he was just not a swordsman. The tea master new he was doomed and in a final plea said to the teacher, what am I to do now. I cannot win this man in sword, and I will lose my life.

The teacher looked resigned, and then said to him, you are the greatest tea master in the land,  are you not. There is no match for you when you are serving tea. The Master of Tea said, yes. The teacher then said, tomorrow morning I want you to go to the duel and present yourself to this Samurai, look him straight in the eyes like you are about to serve him tea, with the all the confidence of your craft. That is the only way you have to match him.

The Tea Master did just as the teacher said, and to his surprise the Samurai bowed deeply and said, I have met my match, and left.

Life’s challenges can be met creatively and we can rise to greater levels of awareness and potential.

The above image is part of a triptych, oil painting 6″ x 6″ each, titled “Hijab.”

Prints of my art are available on this Blog. Original artwork for sale, contact Michele at mbm@fivechanges.org or by cell (310) 339-3531

Oil painting is a very sensual experience. Beyond the ideas and concepts of how to fill the empty space of ‘canvas’ – there is the full sensory process of painting. The paints texture, it’s smell, the laying out of the palette of colors and mixing them with the mediums, the contact of brush with paint and paint to canvas, and then knowing when the painting is complete. This whole process is translated to the viewer – somehow, felt, perceived, sensed, known.

In the winter of 1989, I did my first oil painting, and titled it “Watashi no Inouchi” (translates as ‘My Life’). The word Inouchi means more than Life – it is life with the awareness of death, informing us in how to live fully, in the moment, here and now. It is the image above, and it has a wonderful story of how I first came to painting in oils.

I had a showing in an art gallery in Venice, California. It was the shows reception and It was there that I met this Latino man with the soulful eyes, named Alberto. He approached me and introduced himself as a fashion photographer – He did high fashion photography and was interested in my art. He wanted me to paint his models faces like the figures in my paintings – the paintings were Acrylic and Airbrushed images of Japanese theater – Kabuki combined with Geisha ( I was making the connection between the two worlds of artistic expression ). He was disillusioned with the fashion world and wanted to create his own photographic images. After talking awhile he asked me to be one of his models. I had modeled before for fashion shows and photo shoots, so I was open to this, but I wanted to make sure he was legitimate so I challenged him by saying – the only way I am to be photographed is with my sword – I am a highly trained martial artist and one of my expressions is ‘Iaido’ – a Japanese sword form. He was pleased by this, and so I said yes.

Together we visited several of his fashion designer friends, picking out whimsical and fantastic dresses and costumes. The location of the shoot was the Malibu Pier. He lived at the end of the pier in a studio space overlooking the ocean. I brought my make-up, kimonos and my sword.

It was wild, executing my trained traditional sword movements in these high fashioned outfits, not to mention the high, high heels. Then it was time to wear my own kimonos, more traditional, and more of a match for the sword. Alberto then asked me to use the sword in some way I never explored before, forgetting all traditional forms and my relationships to them.

Wow. I immediately cradled the sword like a baby, and placed its sharp blade near my ear, as if listening to what it was saying to me. It was an extraordinarily beautiful moment.

This experience transformed me in so many ways that I decided to continue to stretch myself and paint this very image in a medium I had never explored before – oils !

The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which is filled with as many images as there are things placed before him/her.   Leonardo da Vinci

People can’t live with change if there is not a changeless core inside of them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about, and what you value.   Stephen Covey