On Escape Road - The Inner Place Where Creative Compassion Comes From

Art can be a pathway to Relational Empathy when the worst of trauma seals us down. Art is a bridge to lifesaving connectedness. Even imaginative art is an act of living

Late in life, I dream of a fellow prisoner in a concentration camp secretly passing a drawing to me as a reminder that, no matter what, I am not alone

This never happened to me in real life. Why does my dream place me in a situation like this, with a stranger from the men's camp offering me a gift of love?

His picture is drawn on a piece of wrapping paper. It was roughly created with chalk crumbs in the primary colors of yellow, red, and blue. The picture is small enough to carry under my clothes. It was made just for this

Carrying it around at the women's camp makes me feel less frightened. The man's self-portrait is like a true friend and companion, encouraging me to keep hope alive

This dream's scenery could be interpreted as symbolizing a woman's animus shifting from a negative force to positive support. However, this depth-oriented interpretation overlooks the implicit power of the dream. Taking the dream force as the overall life force, as Eugene Gendlin suggests, I see the dream as an answer to the question of how to heal from aesthetic trauma

What do I mean by 'aesthetic trauma'?

The atmosphere of our surroundings can trigger a traumatic response because something happened, and it happened not to us. Background feelings (occurring, for example, in dreams) speak of such atmospheres. Trauma hidden in vague atmospheres is difficult to grasp because no specific traumatic event occurred that we can recall.

Our senses are open systems that receive all kinds of environmental aesthetic input, including input from the current situation and from across generations. We respond bodily to all of these aesthetic inputs, and their input can contain trauma material. Our bodies respond because we are aesthetic animals with an 'animal body' (Eugene Gendlin). The term 'aesthetic trauma' refers to this phenomenon.

I am a school kid who sleeps on the couch in the family room (for 16 years, this couch has been my bed). look up at a huge oil painting in a golden frame hanging on the wall. The painting shows a dark landscape with wild brushstrokes

When I wake up at night, I have to turn away from the painting. It is frightening. Waves of anxiety flood me. Finding comfort through caregivers is out of reach

My coping strategy is to trace the patterns of the Persian carpet on the floor in front of the couch with my eyes. Those patterns are real, colorful, and repetitive. At the edge of the carpet, they continue endlessly, defining a rectangle. This rectangle serves as a holding container

The carpet patterns show shapes that I decide are little animals. These animal shapes are my helpers. They allow me to escape to a friendly imaginative space (they transport me to a desert under the sun). Out there, the shapes come to life. They become living creatures that carry me on their backs

I follow the shapes with my eyes, as if painting them in detail. I engage in repetitive imaginative painting. It's a way of re-experiencing what feels good. I am on a escape road, calming myself down with an imaginative brush on threads of Indian yellow, red, and blue

I am a young adult when my father reveals that the painting was not purchased. The oil painting was produced by one of the family hobby artists—there were two. It was the largest and most different in style of all the family artwork

My great-uncle painted the picture shortly before shooting himself with a pistol in Nazi Germany. He was a pharmacist and a respected city council member who painted for fun. He was excluded from the city council. He divorced his wife to keep his pharmacy but was expropriated. His wife was then deported and 'just disappeared' (family statement)

Decades later, I realized that my body had felt the historical Befindlichkeit of this artistic ancestor as an underlying sense of horror. This feeling was implicit in the aesthetic of his art, invading my body

My body's wisdom has served me well when I was exposed to his painting. It has helped me find resources in ornamental arts, bridging to imagination and peace

My dream illustrates how to escape transgenerational and aesthetic trauma. Life force steps in when there is art, and dialogue with art is possible and embraced

Trauma healing requires connecting with another person to reconnect us to life. When there is no one around, this supportive presence can be found in a person behind a picture. This person's presence comes through like the portrait of its creator, even on a scrap of shabby paper. Connecting with the artist within the picture unites the artist and the viewer, creating a sense of 'Us'

There is certainly more to the dream than I can describe. The overt message is an image of a man sharing his self-made portrait to help one of his peers. This image symbolizes Relational Epathy and courageous empowerment. It depicts an inner place where compassion and resilience generate

© Freda Blob https://www.artsfocusing.com/creative-compassion/blog

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