Tosia H Zraikat

Art as Compensation

Recently, I did the little exercise of finding something in random lines, and came up with these. Both began with lines drawn with shut eyes, letting my hand move without intention. You may have done this activity too.

I was surprised at what I found there.

What surprised me was how gentle, how feminine these drawings were, for I was going through a rough patch psychologically, full of dark chaotic thoughts about my cultural identity and femininity. Drawing and colouring these figures, I found myself smiling. Anxiety and confusion just slipped away.  I felt serene. 

On reflection, I realised that I had experienced for myself, directly, the compensatory role of art, its capacity for restoring balance to a troubled psyche.

Compensation is a psychic process that C.G. Jung identified in the dreams of his patients, a self-regulation process to bring the psyche into greater harmony. Compensation is one of the processes that give art its enormous healing potential.

 

More on compensation at https://frithluton.com/articles/compensation/

 

 

 

Scribbling the Unconscious

For years, I tried to become a better artist by making my work as realistic as I could. Despite a few minor successes, I found that approach to art incredibly frustrating and unfulfilling. I simply lack the skill or commitment to developing the skills, I have little drive or resolve, I am impatient, fundamentally lazy, and terribly undisciplined.

So I gave up those dreams of becoming an artist, and allowed myself instead to doodle and scribble as I have always done. I used to scribble fairies, dancing figures and curlicues on exam papers and essays, in school text books and in letters (we wrote back then). Now I scribble in my diary, on the end pages of  books, in book margins, in my dream journal, in small art books that I carry around. I scribble little figures, dream images, images I see in carpet patterns, in clusters of leaves, in stains on the wall, decorative squiggles at the ends of journal entries, emotional responses.... anything.

My art these days is mostly scribbles - a more thought-out drawing now and then, but mostly rapidly drawn, spontaneous scribbly drawings  through which I express parts of my experience and inner life for which I don't have words. Then try to make sense of what I have drawn. 

 

I find this a very satisfying way to draw, a direct communication from inner self to hand to paper. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but anyone can do it, and it can be an excellent way for a person to discover his or her  creativity.

Inner man, Inner woman and the Ancestors

 

I might confuse you with this post, for I am a woman, and the feminine should be integral to my sense of self, and my life experience. But it has not been.

In my childhood, I identified with male figures - Robin Hood, Indian warriors, male Vikings - and did not relate well to girls. I considered them in general shallow, mean-spirited and intellectually vapid, and the female characters in the myths and fairytales that were so much a part of my life seemed overwhelmingly weak, needy and subservient ... or bossy, domineering and tricky like the sisters in the orphanage where I spent most of my early childhood. I did not trust any of them.

Nor, I must confess, did I trust my mother whom I saw several times a year, who would tell me in frustration at my post -Christmas holiday tantrums that that is why I had to go back to the orphanage... because I was so naughty.

So I preferred men ... even stupid boys who didn't like girl warriors and who sometimes aggressively --- sometimes vulgarly --- reminded me that I was, no matter what, a girl. Experiences with men in my early years showed me that they could not be trusted either, and could be even crueller than girls, in more terrible ways, yet overall, I saw them as stronger, more powerful and often, intellectually superior, the great explorers, warriors, saints, writers and artists of the world.

No surprise then that my inner male, the animus that loved my tomboyishness, developed into the tyrant, usurper of my thoughts and opinions, the inner demon, that he did. 

Until very recently I related to myself mainly through animus, which I had thought was my soul speaking to me - telling me what I can't do, what I should be, that I am unloved and unloveable, talentless, generally chipping away at whatever self-confidence I might have, judging myself and those close to me. 

Now that a more positive animus is finally emerging, I find myself connected  with my femininity, my anima influence. She has been leading me in very different directions, encouraging me to recognise and develop my abilities, to recognise my qualities as well as my faults … and in these past weeks, prodding me into a less judgemental and condemnatory attitude to my father, whom I do not know.

I have always looked on him as something toxic. My inner woman, the anima, however, is urging me through dreams and imaginal experiences to recognise the biological relationship with my father, to feel some compassion to wards him (which is challenging, as he caused much harm), and also, to connect with his-my Polish ancestors. I have always identified exclusively with my Russian heritage, which is also rather complicated.

She is challenging me, this anima, with her powerful Eros-connection energy, not only to recognise my relationship with my father and my Polish ancestors but to honour them for their contribution to my being. This is not easy for me as I grapple with the complexities of identity and releasing old prejudices.

In this work with my ancestors, it helps to remember that their light and dark are also within me, and to allow a relationship with my father (who is long dead, and who I know nothing about) that is not contained by judgements of right or wrong, possibly even to feel compassion for what others  might condemn.

This sketch came out of this inner work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anima and animus

 

The anima and animus are patterns, one might say, of the feminine and masculine aspects of the psyche which, according to C. G. Jung, greatly affect how we see ourselves and relate to others in close, familial or love relationships. If these powerful psychic forces are repressed, ignored or otherwise denied expression through the ego, they act up like autonomous personalities with a will of their own, causing all kinds of psychological and relationship difficulties. 

On Oct 2019, I wrote about my problems with a mostly negative animus that I have - with much help - since learned to ameliorate so that I am no longer, as Marie-Louise von Franz puts it, 'animus driven', and this is creating psychic space for the emergence and development of more positive, supportive and helpful animus. An unexpected consequence of this is the recovery of my inner feminine, my anima, which I had since childhood unconsciously diminished and made dysfunctional.

I always found much of the feminist goddess and rising-feminine talk annoying, cringeworthy, and still do, but once I recognised the harm I and many other woman have done to our own femininity, it became very clear that I could not achieve psychological balance, realise my innate spirituality, or function as a whole, authentic individual in the world without expressing the masculine and feminine forces of my psyche, bringing them, with the assistance of Jungian analysis and Jungian studies, into harmonious and correct balance. 

Signs of a dysfunctional anima include the inability to move forward, to take risks, to act with some degree of confidence and optimism, which can result in extreme moodiness, sulkiness, nastiness or outbursts of anger. I don't throw tantrums (much) or sulk, but I have not dared enough, not acted when action was required, been paralysed by doubts, and was (until only recently) deeply suspicious of others' goodwill, especially of love.

That negative animus I mentioned had for most of my life  been  very critical, domineering, opinionated, and judgemental, and to some degree still is, though kinder forms are emerging.  The negative animus convinced me early in life that my 'talents' were worthless, non-existent, really, and that the only thing I had worth having was intellect. But as I said, I have been working on my animus, and also my attitude to the masculine in general, so the last time it whispered doubt and fear into my mind, I followed the suggestion to talk to it directly. Guess what? It backed off. Seriously. It retreated into silence.

And for the first time that I can remember, I felt My Self, I felt an 'I' that was separate or independent from all the thoughts and emotions that usually wave around me like a chaos of tendrils. I cannot describe it, but I felt a steady, strong centre that I knew as 'I.'

What is more, I still feel it, this 'centre,' this core of myself. It does not falter before my negative animus's now less frequent, fainter attempts to undermine me, and even more awesome, I feel it bolstering my anima, my femininity, giving it the confidence and courage to act where I would normally doubt, helping it to differentiate genuine feeling from reactiveness so that I find myself acting in a more measured way. This may sound rather naïve, but with all my myriad faults and weaknesses, I can truly say that I have faith in myself.