A fall from grace masquerading as tendency towards inherited disillusionment. It was a long way down and back up again. Buried somewhere in the breaking point was a pearl nestled deep as any other.
The pearl rests gently in the medicine bag, a treasure in the center of our chests. A testament to potential of human endeavors to be as grand as the plans that created it.
This painting hangs sideways, it started and ended that way but I painted most of it turned once to the right.
Looking at it to the right I see a mask or a skull partially of the yin/yang persuasion. It felt like a wise guide, a saint in blue robes of the sky. The sun of awakening and enlightenment alive and blazing forth from within. The guide is communicating to the pearl of what has been and what can be.
The green and yellow spoke of Kundalini, the life force energy of a person rising to meet the crown. A teaching of how to use this energy rightly.
There is black and white. The shadow and lightness of a person and also symbolism of life on earth. There’s a butterfly with flames of transformation rising. There are skin tones and a shared story of falling to the earth in human form.
I thought of my deceased grandfather while painting this. It felt like he was with me telling me of his life, how it was and what he didn’t understand. There was regret and deepened understanding. The regret as knowledge always refining itself.
This spoke of strength of redemption, learning from the past and pointing the future in the direction of higher ideals.
There was consolation and transformation in telling the story of his life from a state of grace. It is the story of the use of ancestral energy, the alpha male energy that dominates and controls. It was the telling of having the power to impact.
He wanted to live in harmony with this saintly treasure of a pearl, but he had been in the shadow of man, a body in the world. An illusion of needs and frustrations that were hard to battle with.
He wanted me to use this energy and gift it to the world in a new way. To refine the lost lessons of community and learn to string the pearl together with others.
My grandfather lived the life of an alcoholic, a Catholic and a dairy farmer in an isolated and often cold world in Vermont. It was hard and full of struggle. He was a father of eight and a husband to a devoutly Catholic woman. He lived with dominating strength and carried forward a family with strain in their hearts and a desire to be together and keep it all running no matter what. There was deep loyalty, love and pain. These habits we wear run on forever. We have power though to change words, deeds and thoughts. Words and voices can be evolved and as expansive as the blue sea and sky. We have the power to truly minister, console and comfort, no matter what.
We create our world from our hearts, our inherited wisdom and our lives together. It doesn’t stop at death. The value of the life continues refining itself, burning away the emotionally plundered purse that holds the pearl. We have the ability to rise above and learn the ancestral pilgrimage of time and the proper use of action and energy used rightly for the good of the community. It was all there ever was and will be, lessons in living together.