Yesterday was the Dalai Lama’s 78th birthday. I love the Dalai Lama. I love the baby Jesus too. And Buddha as well. I mean, what’s not to love?

It wasn’t always that way for me. Religion was so damn confusing to me as a child. Being raised Roman Catholic had lots of rules, but it narrowed down to one basic rule … having faith. No matter what confusing question I posed to the nuns at Sunday school, the pat answer to all the mysteries in my life was always answered with…have faith. This answer was very unsatisfying to me. I was looking for some real answers. Why are all those children in Africa starving? Why did my dog have to get run over by a car? Where is that pony I prayed for every year? Then as I got older – what’s the deal with that Vietnam War? Why are so many people dying of cancer? Why did my friend commit suicide? The world’s problems kept getting bigger and more out of control. I heard no good answers, and faith  certainly wasn’t cutting it. I was a fallen Catholic.

The road back to any kind of faith came after a 3 year experience with the Unitarian Universalist Church. The first year I attended happened to center around the teachings of world religions. Each service was a different speaker, about a different country and its’ religion, and the after service refreshments were pot luck donations of food that featured the culinary experience of that country. And as the adults were upstairs at the service, the children were downstairs learning about customs and geography and beliefs of the children of those different worlds and world religions. Gosh it was eye opening. Suddenly the commonalities of world religions started coming together for me and I began to get my own sense of how religion could work for me.

                                I learned it’s better to believe too much than nothing at all. 

And the best thing I learned, was in the beautiful words of Vincent Van Gogh – “But I always think the best way to know God is to love many things.” I think the Dalai Lama would like that birthday wish. Love many things.

Anyway, don’t get all worried about religion, having one, following rules … we all find our way if we have an open heart. So go get your own glimpse of God. Because the only possible spiritual path is your own experience.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dalai Lama!

(photo detail from FORSAKEN , canvas collage by Catherine Massaro)

I wished for love – I have been loved.

I wished for money – it came and went.

I wished for a car – it was freedom!

I wished for long hair – then cut it all off.

I wished for a job – I got a paycheck.

I wished for a warm winter – I still do.

I wished for excitement – and found it.

I wished for a divorce – and got it.

I wished for peace of mind – daily.

I wished for wonder – and it surrounds me.

I wished for escape – and learned how to leave.

I wished for a studio – dreams come true.

I wished for New Mexico – days of heaven.

I wished for connections – where is my tribe?

I wished for friends – they give me joy.

I wished for a road trip – to never end.

I wished for my youth – and I got a grandchild.

I wished for a good nights sleep – and to die peacefully in it. 

I wished for art school – where I found myself.

I wished for a pony – but never got it.

I wished for my period – most of the time it came.

I wished for a girl – and got a boy, with no regrets.

( see ART tab for  WHAT I WISHED FOR  canvas collage)

I stopped doing dog commissions about 7 years ago. I had become ‘the dog artist’, and it felt like a dead end.

Dogs had been my subject matter for so long, and my best dog ever, Stella , my muse  – had died. I did not know how deeply her absence would affect me until I realized I could not do one more dog painting. So I moved on to work that came from completely different places in my heart.

But recently, I was contacted by one of those many, many, lovely people who had commissioned me in the past for a portrait, to do a companion piece of his new dog, to hang beside the old (sadly, deceased ) dog.  Before I could stop , I heard myself saying YES.  Then I panicked, thinking – I don’t know if I can even go back there. Why , oh why did I agree to this? But having committed to it,  I just started to paint my way out of it. The painting came together so quickly, it even surprised me. But I was working from a less than helpful photograph and found over the course of a few days that I needed to consult with the client for advise and help. Five or ten years ago, sending instant messages with a photo on an iPhone was not even an option. But as we emailed back and forth,  I would draw a correction, change the back round color, send it in a snap and make changes immediately.  We were working TOGETHER on the painting! Something I never would have done in the past – not because technology was not there yet, but because I was more territorial about my art years ago. It was MY painting. MY interpretation. MY vision.  My ego. I was shocked that this collaboration did not bother me in the least. In fact, I was very much enjoying pleasing my client and finding our way together to the happy end of the portrait.

Which leads me back to my muse, Stella.  My above average dog. These wonderful creatures we love so much and hold so close to our hearts, have a way of drawing us together and  perhaps making us better humans in the end.  They are always ‘above average dogs’ to us.  I learned  we can be ‘above average humans’ to each other as well… with very little effort.