I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty clear that the Ariane who talks with her first-born daughter is miles different from the Ariane who talks to her girl friend clear across the country.

Or the Ariane who interacts with her private artist clients is not the same gal rocking out, hard, on the dance floor for hours.

Sometimes one of my Arianes feels powerful and transcendent. Other times one of my other Arianes feels vulnerable and tender.

And yet, at my core, all these Arianes are hooked up to a clear, vibrant center of Self that has characteristics in common with all the other Arianes—like embracing creative fireworks, fighting like a scrappy mongrel for justice, picking up small wounded creatures off the sidewalk, or stopping to marvel for the hundred thousandth time at the moon (new, full, on its back, or as a slice of lemon…).

How is this possible? To be the many and the one?

 I know. Selfish and responsibility seem to be on opposite sides of the isle.

Part of this has come down through the ages via religious or spiritual precepts: that serving others is the high ground, while serving ourselves is the lowest of the low.

But isn’t this a just confusion of terms?

… because we also have the edicts to love others as we love ourselves, and to be true unto ourselves.

So, let’s see if we can tease this out, and furthermore, stir our artist life into the pot!

When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time by myself hanging out on the edge of the Big Sur cliffs, a couple hundred feet above the pounding Pacific, reveling in the crash and roar of dragon waves hitting the rocks far below me, and smelling the salt spray as it rose into the air.

Or, I traipsed back in the canyon, under the cool cover of my fir-tree giants to play by a stream sparkling with water sprites as it tumbled down from the Santa Lucia Mountain Range.

Sometimes, the lady next door allowed me to play with her pen and ink drawn paper dolls in their elegant 18^th Century dresses. I had to be very, very careful, as this was a privilege that could be taken away with one tear, one unintended lapse of attention.

What I sensed back then, even though I didn’t yet have language to complete the awareness, was this: in each of these different settings I was both the same person and a different person.

I had a central sense of an artist-self that never changed. And yet, there was another sense of self that did change.