identity

Ceci and Jennifer 1996

So you meet a friend that blows your mind and busts wide open your heart because they draw from the same pool of inspiration that you do, thrive from the same stimulus, and dream of such similar possibilities of life and art and adventure.  Feels amazing, feels like home, feels like you were always together even during all those years alone.   Jennifer and I rode O so high on this very experience in the first year of our meeting. We were an unstoppable team, ready for anything, together nothing could hinder us!  We were sure that through our childhood years, growing up as only kids with mostly only ourselves to entertain us and play with us, that we somehow- perhaps metaphysically- must have been together growing up. We thought, maybe we were eachother's imaginary friends, and that at last we had materialized in eachother's lives at the age of 21! 

Our bond was so seamless, and it was exhilarating, until another experience reared its unexpected head, one I can only describe as an identity crisis.  The bond is so seamless that at some point you start to ask, where do you end and I begin, are my thoughts my own, who am I as an individual?  About a year into our manifesting friendship (1996-1997, UCSB) I remember starting to feel conflicting emotions between my great admiration for Jennifer and a surprising rising up of resentment.  I began to feel that I was losing my own definition, I began to fear this divine connection.  The truth was, as I can see it clearly now, that this was something I was going through all on my own in this critical time and age of my life.  Not only was I shifting into adult from child, I had also just been through a traumatic accident that had me piecing myself back together from scratch (which I will share further about later).  While the identity challenges presented by the twin activating powers of Jennifer and Cec were for real,  I now know it was also a reflection of my own inner turmoil of self identification during that time. 

A great partnership is made from two whole individuals.  Jennifer and I have grown to not fear our kinship, knowing that it does not extract anything from our individual selves, it only adds to and enriches our lives and what we create.  We celebrate eachother's choices, we acknowledge eachother's special qualities and offerings.  And we revere all the ways we continue to correlate and connect and correspond, because we Are truly a reflection for each other, but not of what we are not -which comes from fear... we help reflect to one another all that we Are - which comes out of trust. 

click for larger view

A couple months later I was in Guadalajara (1997), recovering from my accident and renewing myself on all levels, including my art.  I came across this image in the newspaper (on the left) of the mirrored figure on stairwell.  I cut it out and pasted it in ZBOOK, feeling Jennifer, feeling our great opportunity to transcend the challenges of sharing such immaculate reflection and with trust allowing it to be a great source in our lives for creating great work, together and individually.  Later other dualistic images emerged on this page, as well as a reflective "mirrored" piece of sticker on the right above the drawing of Fiona (which appears mostly blue in this photo-scan).   Jennifer dropped in the "Calling All Angels" and I love it because for me it reminds us that we are all indeed unique individuals, or angels if you will, And we are ALL called forth to synergize our individual talents to create further growing unique creative experiences.  It is an honor to head this call with you Hemphill.

∞ ceci

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