I have been painting for 12 years, starting with oils and moved to acrylics. It started on my front porch with some paints my mother had gotten me. She painted when she was much younger. That first painting was filled with insight and direct hearing of things that were previously unconscious. It was an ecstatic and joyful experience. Not something I could slow down once started.
Painting, to me, is like any relationship, a gradual unfolding that changes over time. A relationship to myself is happening and also to all the information swirling through the cosmos. A mystic on a sea of energetic imprints that need to be expressed.
Inspirational people that impact me end up on a canvas. It’s always abstract, but it teaches me of the person, and I understand people a bit better. I learn while I am painting. I feel in a conversation with a teacher that knows me well and gets me to understand deeply complicated concepts. It is as if I am talking to a wise, loving and compassionate teacher.
It’s certainly not just me, this is us. This is human.
The sacred and spiritual practice of living a story within a greater story, connected by concepts, symbols and languages pointing to things unspeakable are enacted continuously and able to be done with some kind of disciplined effort and grace.
The gold streams through and I feel enlivened.
Often, I see robed figures traveling together sometimes symbolized by loops joined together. Ancestors, teachers, masters. The unseen compassionate guides that seem to care a great deal.
Great & wise birds appear leading me out of something to somewhere else. Masked beings speak to me while I am painting them. They tell me of great mysteries including that of how peace and understanding will rule the world one day, much more than now. The good news will come of our righteous and holy plight we find ourselves in.
I often paint an orange sun, and in some paintings, many orange suns. Maybe it’s the passing of time. A level appears at times and tells me to get my life in order.
The moon appears to keep me company with vast oceans of energy pouring through. All of time seems present. The open sky shows up, and I feel just like that. In the sky is the feeling of God’s presence and it felt really hard won and thrilling to discover that.
The earth shows itself when I need to take in the magnitude of our existence. I feel I am being taught about a passion for the earth and its inhabitants. All these energies working so hard for grand and deeply important reasons. It feels like the Holy Spirit that moves through the world. Something very alive and working its way through people in every moment.
There are often open windows, stairways, green fields and treasures all teaching of gifts we give each other and of a place beyond this place. Dimensions and steps to take for further development. A pearl shows itself often. Maybe a symbol of the soul. A pearl of great price. It feels as though I have discovered the precious value of it and the still point of a person. Knowing mine, I know yours.
There are Buddhas that teach of hard lessons to learn due to the vast nature of suffering and to simply breathe and feel at peace with our nature. Jesus and Mary are there too. They console and comfort, they offer friendship and faith.
There are teachings of life force energy coursing through the body. The way it unlocks and opens with intent. The energy of positive caring towards self and others.
We are alive and here with everyone else. What is of this suffering that so many people experience? What comes of helping each other and discovering once and for all that we can let go of our differences and instead learn of our similar desires for happiness and peace. We come and go and in it is beauty and terror. How can we live on together in peace and togetherness with the bright brilliance of what we all are made of?