Everyman's WEEKLY Journal #62
© 2014 Rev. David Seacord
February 9, 2014
Back in the Game again…:-)
I do love this life. And I love that it continues to become ever more interesting. I take this as evidence that I am still growing. I assume you know this about yourself also.
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If this week I am brief, please forgive me… I am writing this late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, and I am to be 'on the road' soon at 5 am, because 'it's jury day'. No no no. It's not having anything to do about the legal affairs I've been having in Monterey County. It is that, after a professional artist sabbatical of nearly the past five years, that with Mom's relocation I am free to reactivate my career, and thus I'm throwing my hat back into the art gameworld again. And this is a major 'art jury day' for me. Experimentally, I'm going to see if an unknown jury who does not and will not know me except as a number is going to give me an invitation-winning score to one of the celebrated Laguna Beach summer-long shows. It's a tough and competitive jurying process, because it's all going to be based on seeing only three pieces. I'd like to do the show because during next July and August it would place my art in a position of being able to be more discovered by the LA/San Diego art market.
Spiritually, that I must choose only three pieces is an interesting predicament for my ego. I/ego really didn't know how to chose those three pieces… it spent a whole day this week attempting to choose, all based upon projections anticipating the juries thinking. Finally, to be a soul of integrity, I realized I must use a different set of criteria. I must give them exactly the information they need (as distinct from the information that my ego would like them to have). And what do they need? They need to look at the kind of art that I would actually be putting into their show, and to have a sense of how much I would be asking for it. So simple, yes? And since I know that most of the art at that show sells for $5000 or less on average, what that means to my integrity is I don't even show them my more expensive 'best' work--- I show them my best $5000 and down work. What has been sweet about this realization is that I am discovering my heart feels good about this. It feels like I am being more honest, and having a higher level of integrity. I mean, if I showed the jury only my higher priced masterpieces, yes, it would prove to them I was a good painter. But, if I got into the show on that basis, I would probably never sell those masterpieces because this show's costumers are not the ultra-wealthy elite that can afford them. So I realized that the way to fairly compete is to show them the kind of work that I would be willing sell at their show at their price level. I've also realized this is a risk, and might mean I don't get in. But if that happens, it will be OK. I will know I played with a new level of integrity, and winning soul ground there is what is actually important. Anyway, you and I certainly know the Godness never has a vacuum….and that there will be other assignments. But, you can 'wish me luck' anyway. Right now, it seems that it would be nice to be 'juried in', and offered the opportunity of an LA area summer show.
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As far as things in the legal world… I report that emotionally all week I have been feeling like I have won the case. But I have not yet received that news officially, via the US mails. In a certain way though, just entering the emotional knowing that I have won is grounds for celebrating my own self-respect. And this is true even if I discover later that is not true, and I didn't win the case, by the way.
To explain… I did not make it to my trial, so I am sure I was convicted by default, because that is automatic. To not go and 'be tried' was a breakthrough in itself, because I, like you (yes?), have a lot of fear programming about legal consequences. So I had to walk across a certain inward fire to choose the nonappearance choice as correct to do. However, on the other side of that I stepped into a new certainty that 'nothing bad was going to happen to me'. It was the same thought mantra that I was given when I was arrested last summer in Montana, by the way. Anyway, what I did instead (after talking with the court clerk on the phone last Monday morning [several hours before the trial] and informing them that I would not be there and would they please inform the judge of this (and also, as a courtesy, I called the CHP and asked them to inform the officer also) was to spend the day writing a bunch of motions and then sending them all by registered mail to the court (and I assume they got them Thursday or Friday). In the writings, I explained my legally-grounded very good cause for my nonappearance, I motioned for a reinstating continuance if necessary, I motioned for a dismissal based on not having been given ANY 'discovery'--- which is a due process violation, AND, after all that, I laid out my 10 point fact sheet of reasons why I was not guilty (even though I did do the thing of sleeping in my car). I'm figuring that at the trial, the judge heard the CHP version, so now it is OK for me to give him mine. I think he's going to read my version of what happened, and what my substantial legal-argument defenses are, and choose to dismiss the whole case as not worth the bother to continue. If it doesn't go that way, so be it, and I'll respond to the situation when I am informed as to what it is. But for now, that's it on that scene. My inner experience was that as soon as I mailed off my motions containing my version of the truth and why I was not guilty, my life moved forward into the present, and the case dropped out of my mind in a very large way.
As my deep friend Sarah once helped me see, "It's ALL about LISTENING!!!!". There is a powerful need in our humanity to receive a fair listening. I am discovering once again (via this court drama) that receiving that is the emotional key to moving on.
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Time now to get ready for a 250 mile drive. May your morning be beautiful.
Namaste,
David
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Rev. David Seacord
Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag
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