MAPPING COMPASSION: The Further You Go

MAPPING COMPASSION. Mercy, there have been revelations. 
Grace, there has been realization. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for ME. Yes, there, I said it! I am celebrating MYSELF! Yay ME! 

Before I named myself Hallelujah Truth, I was given the name RUTH by my parents. This name RUTH has meaning: COMPASSION, BIG-HEARTEDNESS, HUMANITY…well you get the picture. RUTH is something we want in our lives not only for how we treat others, but also for how we treat ourselves.

Was it about 9 years ago that I expanded my name from RUTH to TRUTH to HALLELUJAH TRUTH? I’m smiling at how fast time travels. The handle “Hallelujah Truth” has served me well during the decade of my 50’s. Such an exuberant name has given me permission to praise everything I have encountered loudly and joyfully and expansively. I have learned the practice of creating grace employing my imagination and focusing on the GOOD.

Now, I’m preparing for the next decade in my life, and I’m “dancing” with who I am, what I’ve become, and where I’m headed next. I am experiencing a longing for a deeper listening, a leaning into, and a need to summon a high kind of seriousness born of love, tolerance, and patience. 

I began this blog, “Coffee with Hallelujah,” in order to hear my VOICE because at the time, it was just a squeak. I had suffered from a writer’s block for 20 years, and I longed to regain the verbal poetry beyond that of my visual art. Those of you who have become acquainted with me over the 9 years of my blogging might be surprised to learn that I still am not speaking the language of self I was born to speak. I have this niggling feeling of hunger, disconnection, an unsung song….

Last night, Cynthia Winton-Henry during online dance chapel had us dance with the concept of mercy – also a form of compassion, a form of me –RUTH. She offered us this poem by Andrew Colliver.

THE FURTHER YOU GO

Mercy, there have been revelations. 

Grace, there has been realization. 

Still, you must

travel the path of time and circumstance.

The further you go, the more it comes back to paying attention. 

The rough skin of the tallowwood, the trade routes of lorikeets, a sky lifting 

behind afternoon clouds. Staying close to 

the texture of things.

People can go before you and talk all they want, 

but only one thing makes sense: the way the world enters

and finds its voice in you: the place you are free.

-Andrew Colliver

AT THE END OF THE FIFTIES. Still, you must
travel the path of time and circumstance. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

The image, “Mapping Compassion,” that I have created today exists in two forms. One is the image of me, Hallelujah Truth, without a heart, without compassion, without RUTH. I observe a seriousness, one I want to enter to find my voice, and thus be set free.

The second image shows an added image of my growing heart, which was cut out from wrapping paper with a map design. This image, “Mapping Compassion,” is still in process and emerging from contemplation through drawing and movement. As I continue to gather the years and prepare to move into the decade of my sixties, I have the intention of graduating into my RUTH VOICE. Yes, I will still be Hallelujah, and RUTH is inside of the TRUTH. However, I want to trust in my RUTHNESS.

How wonderful that I am holding RUTH as the voice of COMPASSION, BIG-HEARTEDNESS, and, yes, MERCY. This compassionate journey of self surely connects me with you and the rest of the world.

MAPPING COMPASSION. People can go before you and talk all they want, 

but only one thing makes sense: the way the world enters

and finds its voice in you: the place you are free. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

The further you go, the more it comes back to paying attention! Oh yes! Yes to the journey. 

I have just three things to teach:

Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These are your greatest treasures. 

Compassionate toward yourself,

You reconcile all beings in the world. 

-Lao-Tzu

That’s Coffee with Hallelujah. Soul Blog with me about your ideas of compassion, self, and your name.