This was painted in May of 2020, during the pandemic, the great pause of capitalism and the Black Lives Matter movement forward that had occurred.
A push forward with a mighty force to continue shining light onto the reality of racism and hate in this country. It was the year I learned just how sensitive we are to real time moments and messaging regarding the world and the collective power.
The day before George Floyd was killed I was overcome by a knowing that something was going to change the societal landscape and conversation regarding racism. An uprising of black and brown skinned people to take back more power and control over the equity and safety of their lives. I was made aware of its importance and told of its coming.
Meditation, Buddhism, yoga and the work of liberation from the hands of illusion, as I practiced it, kept me in a space of observing and being present to everything all at once, right now, allowing the truth to be known. Feeling the vibrations in the air. Being with it. The information that is formed in space and time and moves about freely.
The information came through in voices from another place. A poetic whisper of the coming work of justice seekers and a teaching of the restraint that we will see despite the crimes that brought about the need for justice. The horrific nightmare of hatred and the long history and story of people being forced to restore their faith together.
The ignorant nature of people in charge to do terrible things and get away with it is done by the allowance of it. The power of protest one way we have in our capacity to stand up when needed.
The feeling of being outside of important work and only listening had me put a canvas on the easel. I had met someone involved in the movement and the energy of its importance was apparent. My feet were struggling to hit the streets and I needed to get there. The calling taking every bit of my attention.
To understand more deeply what was overtaking me I got quiet and waited. A crocodile came to mind. A great image of the bumps on the back of the crocodile passing before me in water. I saw an image of my hand reaching out to touch them. The unconscious power sleeping within.
The crocodile is an ancient animal of primal, aggressive emotions, resilience and power. Unbridled feminine power, says Animal Speaks by Ted Andrews. I compulsively began painting the bumps I saw on its back and kept going following every instinct without stop for a number of hours.
Painting red, blue and gold over and over, feeling the emotions through of being held captive by instincts of revolution while locked in a room. The energy of the world gets moved around and shared. A very real felt sense of everything at once and forming a direct conversation with the present moment.
The lower left began to feel like portals to former and younger versions of myself that had gained perspective and momentum. A sense of me personally and individually but also the collective itself. It felt like the story of my own development, the development of all humans on their life journeys and also the universal and collective development as a whole.
The upper right feeling like the elder version of myself in the future as an old woman that had offered all she could. And right through the middle, the present, emerging and moving through the portals of transformation to sound the great Om of the conscious and unconscious realms of existence meeting each other. Moving as one with past and future in the collective movement towards greater awareness of ourselves.
The symbol was teaching me of itself. The natural development of time and place eternal by the actions of everything all together and the ability to choose how to enact its knowledge.
The Om symbol came through the painting at me before I painted it. Looking into the portal I saw it emerge from the painting. A great Om from the depths, calling for reality to be known of our lives together in the often aggressive and transformative unconscious state that brings to consciousness what is truly here. In this waking state, illusion is unveiled to experience the transcendental state of the non-physical realm where thoughts and emotions flow through our reality. Everything always moving and changing by every thought and deed.
I had been aware of the symbol for a long time. Chanting it and contemplating its meaning over years of practice. Some part of me grasping the totality of it. Painting it brought its lessons closer and revealed my attempt to hold still what never seems able to.
We feel the collective that is constantly awakening and transforming itself. Shedding the veil between the past and future that comes created by the speed of movement by everything right now all the time. It lives within us, the power to change to reality.
There is a flame representing the all consuming current moment in a transcended state. It was full burning with information of the veiled work of the collective to change itself. Burning away the veil of mystery. It felt like the BLM movement itself in the transcended symbol as I painted it. The transcendental reality of collective action. So complicated to explain but it’s what is happening all the time.
The burning that reveals what will be. The awakening of people in every moment by billions and billions of actions. The continued movement of people to be free and safe here together. The liberated state that is constantly coming is an aggressive power of sewn seeds. The unconscious instincts of humans that play a role in the deep control of fellow human beings in this veiled reality. The deep hatred of humans that still lingers in the dark coming further and again into the light of day.
BLM, like any movement that exists to end suffering, is a collective tool to demand the world pay closer attention to important matters. We are a world still very much dominated and ran by fascist and racist people working very hard to take liberation from others. We exist as free as we are thanks to movements that protest and demand awareness and a joining together of collective power in people.
It was very necessary for the rise of BLM to occur and for race talks to continue where they had stopped or where the public was still not even aware of the issue. It is a non-stop conversation fueled by desire for truth. All the things that were said during the surge of voices by BLM were necessary and still only a blip of yet another push to unveil truths living to degrees unknown.
The lineages of people grappling with this worlds continued ignorance of suffering is what calls out for justice. There is no rest for these great works and it takes people to power them. This is what we are made of and made from. The energy to keep it moving.
We power this world and its happenings everyday with our actions or non actions. Suffering comes in many forms. Not only due to the color of skin but by social and economic status, religious practices, sexual preferences, and the various manners of living. Transformed perceptions is how we end conflicts based in ignorance.
There is immeasurable damage done by white supremacy, xenophobia, colonization, patriarchal domination and greed. The scars and wounds on the unconscious mind of the collective don’t quiet until heard, healed and prevented.
Here, in Burlington, there were marches every night through the city for a month and an encampment in city park to bring to light the harm caused by the police force. I did get my feet there to march too. The momentum took over and every night from a few towns over I could feel the energy rising and needing to get myself there. Nights went by with paintings that involved a new world coming, a black sacred clown, paintings of rainbows calling an awareness to queer culture and also paintings of work being done by mutual aid groups in the city.
It was a time when a mutual aid group in the city expanded its collective power and began offering food and supplies to anyone that needed it. They called themselves Food Not Cops. They are considered a terrorist group by some in the city. I consider them my friends. I moved to the city because of this work. They still feed people every day and we work together to take care of each other using our natural skills, strengths and interests. There is a lot happening in this city right now. In all of them. I believe in the power of the micro to impact the macro. To do what you can in your own small town to impact the rest of the world.
The energy of people working together creates reality. We move it forward, no one else will do it. It is in our hands where the voices demanding justice land. The work of the world demands attention. Working with the energy and people demanding locked doors be opened along with closed minds to a new reality always being created. We need to know each other and work together.
In describing any of this it is really my desire to bring attention to our shared reality we all feel and know. It is around us, it informs us, and it asks us to act, or we ignore it. We create it and move it, we deal with it from others. The want for society to find peace is a selfish and selfless desire. What we create in ourselves and in others is shared.
Also, in this painting are a number of eyes. We are watched from many different dimensions and from many different angles and places. The eyes looking from the past or the future as well. We are witnessed and known.