This world has a way of breaking us apart. It seems like it tries to do such a thing. Pull and tear at us until we break into something new. The way of development individually and collectively is filled with crisis.  I’m not sure it has to be as treacherous as it seems to be, but no matter what, we find our way to respond to the demanding nature of reality. My decision to disappear into painting, I surely understand. The way it holds it all still even for a few moments, much like a good poem or a good story.

The first time painting was an inspired decision that came with an afternoon of intense liberation.  It was as if a part of myself wanted to speak to me. Sat me right down and said, “now hear this”.

The energy that afternoon was filled with joy. An addictive feeling of being in relationship with depth and present wisdom. The feeling of being enamored by what is coming through you.  This happens to us as people, the excitement of doing things with interest and concentration on something that is enjoyable. What came out was therapy I did not anticipate and a friendship you can’t buy.  The clarity in the process was awe inspiring to me.

That first painting was the only one I named for a number of years.   I called it “Failure”. An attempt at a flower that moved to mud. I was mad at myself for not painting a better flower, for being so unskilled at something despite this feeling of being enlivened. I had kept at it too long, an anxious attempt at trying to force its beauty.  It was such a quick shot of upset, then my eyes moved next to the flower by instinct of simply letting it go and I let my hand do whatever it wanted. Joy returned and next to the mud appeared a stream and then a sweet bird appeared. I didn’t expect it to happen and I didn’t expect to have such intense emotions about it all.

Painting is a good teacher of following instincts. An enlightening quest of knowing what is happening and a jump into the abyss of tell me more. It is a strange and wondrous experience. A part of a process of becoming aware of the incredibly intricate nature of being alive and the complexities of the artist trying to grasp the existential nature of reality that is present in every moment and decide what to do next. It has been a practice of giving in to the hand and instincts that are a number of steps ahead of me.

You meet yourself creating. Things inside come out.  You discover rites of passage to inner workings and the communication that holds things together.  You cross a bridge to the unconscious becoming conscious and a leap into other states of being with a sense of eternal time that holds it all together.  What I had done for myself was simply the valiant effort and attempt to sift through the noise and find what truly wanted to be heard. I wanted to know it and act from it.  A secretive and yet telling place. A place we are all connected to and gain wisdom from.

There is a painting I did one night of a pyramid torn open,  an eye looking out of it. There are two monks sitting on the edge of the open eye looking in.  A Christian monk standing and a Buddhist monk sitting, both very humbled in their understanding of what they are looking into. The eye felt like it held everything that ever existed.  They were silent and in shock of knowing the truth and simply present and observing, not knowing what else to do.

That eye felt terrifying, it felt to have seen everything that has ever occurred. It felt like it told of the nature of humans. The Buddhist monk was holding me by a string tied around my waste. I was made of just a tiny brush stroke, almost nothing, but still a figure swinging from a cord, passed out cold.  I could barely paint it and somehow felt the reality of it. Just with paint brush in hand and the desire to be in direct contact with deep truth of reality,  I was attempting to experience a relationship with something deep and sacred, and found it impossible not to be overwhelmed.

Just in a room sitting and painting, feeling the presence of everything at once right now and moving my brush to paint for me an understanding of what is streaming through. It is an amazing thing to be a live and to be able to interpret information and relay it out. We are incredible beings with amazing faculties.

I am writing this and even sharing these paintings partially to point further to our capacity as people. Our ability to know things without really knowing them is an interesting concept. The things that lurk in our awareness and unconscious. Painting, I discovered my ability to know about things happening in real time. Things I would learn about the next day. That blew my mind and helped me to understand the ability of us to know things no matter where we are or what we are doing.

Great teachings behind human development and movements. The way we access information, what that information tells us and what we do with it. We are in relationships with power we can barely comprehend with missions and purpose beyond our capacity to fully realize most of the time, but that realization contains all the world and the future as it comes in every moment.

The tree of life had come up for some time in my paintings and my awareness, my own family trees and that of others. The level from masonic ideals and also St. Joseph. To level and plumb your life. There are guides and shamans.  Robed figures bound together in other realms watching over us. There are great & wise birds flying through worlds, There are suns and moons, the sky, ocean and ground. Open windows, stairways, green fields and hidden treasures. Large pearls revealed and given as gifts. Medicine bowls and Buddha. Christ and Mary. Innocence and the shadow. How the life force energy courses through a body. The Atman and a diamond symbol of the soul.

It relieves me to put it on a canvas. It all just comes through and I try to keep up.  It is a dance I have had difficulty replacing.  It relieves me of feeling overtaken by important things asking to be known, learning how to respond is the challenge. The understanding and knowledge of such big things that play out in this human dilemma of existing. What to do, who to know, and how to be.

The ways in which humanity has formed itself and continues to. The connections and the power dynamics within them. We have tremendous abilities still completely misunderstood. Within groups of people is found the very essence of what makes our world what it is today and tomorrow.

We are alive and here with everyone else. We are of a poetic nature. We come and go and in it is beauty and terror. What this comes down to for me is what can I do with this understanding? I believe what I just tried to explain impacts us all and what we are should be respected, responded to with understanding and sacredness. What I am saying here is we are great creatures that don’t deserve the way the world is treating most of us.

I don’t know what to do, I am limited it seems to sitting in a room and feeling through intensity we are all feeling together. What will it take to create a world where this magnificent nature of ours isn’t beaten up, ridiculed, pushed around, arrested, torn down, killed, mocked, terrorized, blown up, manipulated, used, and discreetly removed by those that feel they are superior and more deserving?

We are amazing creatures, and I hope we can wake up to a world where it is treated that way. These great saints, guides, Buddhas, and other celestial energies of the world work together to bring about a better world in each and every moment. The energies of humanity past, present and future demand a world that is liberated and compassionate.This competition of survival is an old story, and something new and evolved is being demanded. The leap from one place to another is miraculous and I believe we are witnessing that through a long lens of time.