Eclosion: Constellation of One (Offering 11.7)
A painting, a dream, and the moment everything clicked into place.
A dream full of tools. A painting made of values and stars. And a message that had been waiting for me to finally hear it: I no longer get to be small.
(If youâre new to Eclosion: An Artistâs Path to Power and Peace, start at the beginning. Or visit my Memoir Hub for a full table of contents with links.)
The Constellation of One
âFree from all old stories Iâve been told,
I walk through the valley of my own shadow.
~Gajumaru by Yaima
In the dream, I walk near a friendâs apartment building. He is having a rummage sale and calls down from the second floor, âHey! Take whatever you want! You never know what you might need.â I walk inside the garage-like space filled with toolsâwrenches and screwdrivers, saws and hammers, plus tools I have never seen before and have no idea what they are or what they do. I fill my bag with these toolsâheavy, bulky, yet somehow weightless and taking up no space. I return several times and there are always new tools, so I keep filling my bag. I have no idea what they are for but know they might be essential someday.
This poignant and supportive dream was a sharp contrast with the dreams I experienced over the following weeks. In those dreams my deepest personal fears were actualizedâdreams where I drank alcohol, somehow saying to myself I was still sober since I only had a drink every now and again. This was terrifying because I know that the only power I have when it comes to alcohol is to not take that first drink. After that, all bets are off. I awoke from these dreams, nightmares really, shaken and unsureâwere these only dreams, or had I actually broken the promises Iâd made to myself and lost my hard-earned sobriety?
I decided to take the dreams for the prompt they were and got back into my practices of meditation, jogging, and painting which had slipped some during the summer. I found myself at a threshold of sortsâa place where all of the pieces of the work I had done over the last nine months were swirling together. Each piece a part of a multi-dimensional puzzle, and this puzzle was under incredible strain. It felt as though everything I had built teetered on the brink of collapse. The puzzle needed just one more piece to slide into place to be whole, or it was going to explode. I worried that if the puzzle collapsed, it might unravel not just the progress Iâd made, but my ability to hold onto the life Iâd worked so hard to create.
Or maybe it wasnât a puzzle at all. Maybe it was my old self, the caterpillar in me that was perfectly happy in my safe, grounded life, trying hard to stay as I was, resisting the risk of reaching for the sky, resisting the imaginal cells that were building the version of myself that can fly. The strain wasnât about finding one missing pieceâit was about letting go of the safety of the known and surrendering to the transformation already underway.
After many years of doing my own inner work, Iâve come to a place where I like who I amâI feel more comfortable in my skin today than I ever have before. I recognize my own self-worth. This allows me to go out into the world and take actions that are meaningful towards creating a hopeful future. Reaching this place was hard-won, a result of years spent peeling back layers of doubt and shame to uncover a sense of wholeness within myself.
These dreams were a warning. They were a reminder that if I am to continue living this life I love, to be of service to those around me, to be part of the solution, it is absolutely essential that I prioritize my own self-care. There is no other way for me to do it. If I donât take care of myself, I risk losing my self-worth and self-acceptance. If I lose those two hard-won cornerstones, I cannot show up for the world, or those I love. And I definitely wonât be able to show up in the artful ways that I am being called to.
About a month earlier, my mentor asked me to make art around the personal work I was doing in relation to the cancer in Shonâs body. Her request wasnât just about making art; it was an invitation to confront my vulnerabilities and strengths head-on and weave them into a declaration of self-acceptance. Specifically, she was guiding me towards changing my attitude and taking better care of myself. She asked me to forgive my weaknesses and accept my strength, to bring together the pieces of my spiritual self through art. Her challenge was an invitation to use art to bring clarity to the chaos I was navigating, and in doing so, to integrate the scattered pieces of myself.
While creating this piece, I made a list of my values, then collaged them into the painting, within a figure made of stars, connected to the cosmos. What emerged was a painting called The Constellation of One. It is a map of sortsâof the pieces of myself that I love, the boundaries that I strive to honor, that facilitate my connection with Self, with the Divine Mystery.
Talking to my mentor while wandering outside one evening, we explored my sobriety, drinking dreams, tools, and my family. As I reflected on the garage sale dream, I realized that the tools I had collected werenât just symbolicâthey represented the practices and boundaries I had been building all alongâstructures I could now lean on with renewed intention. Picking them up and using them daily was an act of self-empowerment and healing. I just needed to recognize their presence and use them.
When that piece fell into place, it was like the Universe rang a bell. My mentor and I both felt it. My body flushed with tingling energy and tears fell from my eyes as the realization hit home: I will not compromise my self-worthâthe belonging Iâve found in my own skinâfor any unhealthy relationship that is not serving me. I would rather be by myself than hide or diminish aspects of myself to be in relation with any person or social structure that wonât allow me to be me.
In that moment, all the tension was released from the puzzle, and it became a whole, beautiful, multi-dimensional picture of who I am.
This puzzle is my star map, my universeâthe tools from the dream made visible. Having this map doesnât mean I will no longer get lostâit means that there is a way back. And when I forget, I have a compass to guide me home, again and again.
The message came back to meâthe one Iâd received while painting months ago: I no longer get to be small. Finally, I understood it fully. It wasnât just about my business or my art. It was about all of me. No more shrinking. No more hiding. No more compromising my worth to make others comfortable.
I no longer get to be small.
As I peeled off fear and scarcity, layer by layer, I felt myself expandâlike the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. And just as the butterflyâs wings create ripples in the air, this personal transformation has sent ripples through my family, my art, my communityâand beyond. In embracing my own power, Iâve come to understand that this work is about so much more than myselfâitâs about the collective metamorphosis we are capable of when we dare to step into our fullest selves.
Together, we sit at the brink of our societal eclosionâan emergence that, like the world around us, feels messy, uncertain, and impossible. Yet within this very chaos lies the potential for beauty and transformation beyond anything we can imagine.
We are possibilityâpotent as only something with the potential to become anything can be.
What would your own constellation look likeâthe values, boundaries, and hard-won truths that make up who you are?