Then I remembered that all that structural thinking stuff hurts my brain too much if I don’t do my own shivanautical tangling-detangling stuff first.

So my big plan had been to do ten minutes or so of Dance of Shiva on that particular problem yesterday when I got back from California.

But guess what?

What made the post-Shiva-Nata paintings different from the this-is-me-doing-my-painting paintings?

Here are some of the qualities Andreas and this woman found:

Freedom. Intuition. Clarity. Knowing. And a deep internal creativity where you aren’t taking into account anyone else’s stuff. Where you aren’t involved with anyone else’s interaction with the work.

Total time spent healing: approximately 25 minutes.
Total time spent avoiding healing: 28 years.

This all seems pretty pat and obvious to me now that I can tie it up in this little package like so, but it’s something that I spent years hating myself for.

Shiva Nata literally scrambled my brain and allowed me to make these deep and hidden connections.

In fact, I truly believe this healing process would have taken way longer if I had not been working with Dance of Shiva (if it would have happened at all, which I kind of doubt).

I have always hunched. It’s a caved chest gangly neck look my mother, grandfather, and cousins share. I never thought much of it. It was simply the way I stood, and I didn’t know how to stand any differently.

Last Thursday I did my morning Dance of Shiva. During shavasana, I saw this image of a skeleton cringing as if from a blow.

It was the pattern of that familial hunch, and I knew I didn’t have to do it any more.

I stood up.