Reformed Mother

I see a woman with cat eyeglasses walking down the halls of eternity.

The painting started as a large woman in a red dress, her hair covered by a long red veil. You can no longer see any of that.  She felt to be a mother superior archetype.

This large looming figure was pulling a tree out of the ground to the far left of the canvas. It been growing in the dark of the past.  I sensed the use of power and an old world of punishment and criticism. She made me nervous but that anger was keeping me safe. She was fast and swift as she pulled it up and held it up to the sun. She demanded seen the behaviors hidden and a change as she planted it in the far right of the canvas, signaling the future.

I could see her twirling in her red dress raising it up. It brought me feelings of freedom and joy. The complexity of that figure included my own family and the Catholic church. She was the church herself, a community beyond formal institutions, the red of the blood that carried it’s history. The old woman in red was great wisdom. A sense of Sofia and my own great grandmothers I had never met and feel like I know intimately.

After that scene I had mixed all the colors together creating the background of how it appears now.

Earlier in the day, I saw in my mind, images of  gold and crimson triangles floating together. It felt like salvation and endearing love entering the bloodstream.  It felt relieving to put it on the canvas. The gold of healing energy moving through this great mother.  I was happy to paint it and felt comfortable with its reality.  The known work to bring the best out of a situation. This great mother of wisdom that seeks liberation from suffering.

The work of the past mingled with the energy of a new day and what it can do. What it sees. What it won’t stand for and what it can take no more of. Ripping the roots right out of the land of the past and raising it up to the sun. The source of nurturing guidance. A new way to interact with this world. The healing of the great mother in the psyche.

Putting color in  the triangles each one felt like a different personality. A continued expression of individuality in a state of togetherness. A feel of ancientness in continued effort.

This figure was taking a step forward. I could feel the purposeful step and also a bit of balance finding. The weight of itself made up of so many windows into the soul.  Each bit of color felt to be a personality of a family tree. The weight of family hard to walk with, but she does. The endearing love of a great mother.

Some of the windows are dirty and rough around the edges. They spoke of wars and tattered clothes. The way of the poor and the hungry of this world.

Pulling the tree out of the dark and moving it to the sun she wants to let the beautiful blue of the new sky show the way – recognizing the great power of the Holy Mother, it is the communion of people.

There was a feeling of being a child of God in this painting. A way children born of her can let the sun shine on us despite the back breaking labor of existence. A great mother finds a way to nurture and guide her children where to find the best of themselves and how to walk in this world as hers.

There is more of course, always so much more.