Reflections on Painting My Inner Goddess

Last weekend I participated in a Intuitive Painting seminar for the day.  It was an invitation to a new spiritual practice that explores the sacred through breathing and moving your body and trusting the brush to follow the energy in and around and through me so as to open a door into my soul and claim the vision, the sacred, the energy within myself. [paraphrased from a poem by Corrine Gilman]

I was anxious.  I do pottery.  I create out of clay, where if you mess up you roll the clay back into a ball and try again.  You can’t do that with paint.  Plus, I’ve never painted before in my life -- really painted.  

I trust my friend, teacher and spiritual guide.  I trust her ability to hold a sacred space that will allow my soul and spirit to come forward and speak to me.  

I found myself blessed, deeply blessed by the hard, deep sacred work that happen on that day.

I began with blank paper, movement, invitation.  The first strokes on that paper made me cringe.   They were horrible.  And yet, I followed the practice, trusting the Holy to guide me.  I found that I had to fall into darkness before I could rise up into vision.  I found that I had to allow the black and brown to do its thing -- to express the deep spiritual wound that tore my soul.  The toughest thing that morning was when my painting asked me to tear it in two -- to literally express the wound that tore at the depths of my soul.  I then put it back together -- wadding up tissues and drenching them in black paint and sticking them on the painting forming  a wound -- two mountain ranges with a deep dark valley; dripping in black and brown;  seeping.

Then I could add color.  It was like in my dream -- my dream that brought me to this class.  Color drenched tissues began to fill in the valley and flow over the mountains.  Color and life and healing and wholeness and energy.  I followed that energy to the center of the painting -- to sun-shaped beams spreading their color over the browns and blacks -- over the wound -- bringing new life; hope...

I found myself in the afternoon stuck with this sense and feeling that the next part of my painting had to depict a bursting forth -- a breaking open of the boxes of my life -- a freeing of my soul to rise into whatever vision, calling, work the Holy and the Spirit had in store for me -- to burst forth and allow my spirit and soul to soar like on Eagles wings.  Yet, I had no idea what that would look like, how to paint that.  My teacher sat with me and brought me back to the first language -- that of shape, color and form.  We talked in visions and images and colors and the paint started to flow from the yellow center bursting forth in yellows, reds and oranges like a supernova star exploding into space.  

Those bursting colors led me to the only blank space on the paper.  It became clear to me that this was where I was being led -- this was the climax of my work for the day.  I began with an attempt at drawing a seed -- representing all that is growing within me.  Yet, the brush wanted more.  It wanted me to create a trunk, roots, branches.  It wanted me to sponge on green leaves and then merge the bursting of yellow, red and orange into the green leaves so that the tree was both spring, summer and fall.  

When I had finished I realized that the vision God has in store for me is not being formed like that of a seed.  No, it has been formed and birthed.  It is being presented to me in its entirety -- as a healthy vibrant tree with its roots embedded deeply in the Holy and its branches soaring up the the Heavens.

God is inviting me to see within and beyond, to see with my heart and soul -- to see beyond beyond what's right before my eyes to the future unfolding of God's vision, to the promises of God being fulfilled here and now, and in the days ahead.

So I sat and stared at my painting, taking it all in; awed at what came out of me, at what I was able to create because I got out of my own way.  

When  left, I felt a sense of peace, excitement, exhaustion, and being energized.  I knew intuitively what God is creating within me.  I’m scared; but I’m ready to allow the tree to blossom in my body.  

But, I soon discovered that my unconscious was fighting this calling, this vision, this blossoming; this cracking of my shell; this request for transformation and growth.  I got sick.  

I went home to sleep and began to experience insomnia.  I woke halfway through a restless, stressful non-sleep with the starts of a migraine.  I breathed deeply into my chest for a long time slowing down my spirit into a place of peace.  And yet, my body revolted -- resisted.  I woke the next morning with the migraine creeping slowly back, aching body, nausea, exhaustion.  

This ebbed and flowed; increasing in intensity, releasing to a dull throb and then increasing over  and over again for the next 48 hours until I went to write my sermon on Tuesday morning.  I realized that I was being invited by the Holy to write on vision and accepting God’s vision in our lives.  

It dawned on me.  My body was fighting this vision.  I laughed out loud.  I laughed hard, like Sarah upon hearing that she was going to give birth at such as old age.  Like -- daahhhh, of course. 

I believe this is a natural response for our bodies and spirits.  When a new vision comes, it cracks open our shells of safety.  It requires us to leave our cocoons of comfort and step into the unknown; like Sam in Fellowship of the Ring taking that one step that brought him to be the farthest he had ever been away from home.

My teacher calls this force our Critic.  She blogged on it not long ago.  She wrote:

What does it mean to face the critic?
We all have a critic. The critic is what keeps us with in “safe” limits.

That sounds great until we have a growth spurt.  -- a new vision
I can’t do that because....
Because WHY?
You will be too loud....
Too big...
Too full of yourself?
What would it be like to be really FULL OF YOURSELF?!

Marion Williamson said it so well-
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. 

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

 And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” [----from A Return to Love, by Marianne Williamson.]


The critic keeps us from manifesting the glory of our light in the world.

How do we recognize the critic?
Knowing when the critic is present when some deep seeded limiting beliefs emerge can be hard. The critic can be slippery! and can look like this: You are happily going along, painting, writing, feeling Full of your self! Then it starts... hmm maybe it’s time for a cup of tea, a snack, wondering what is happening to the weather right now. Then you walk away ... and the critic wins.

You walk away and take the pressure off of what might be a personal moment of growth; the critic survives, and stops the shell from cracking opening a bit more.


Sometime the critic shows up as:

Oh I should just stay were I am. Life is ok why try to change it?
My job [isn't so] bad -- [that's why they call it work!] and it pays the bills.
Why dream a big dream that just might not pan out -- I will retire in say 25 years. I can do what I love then! I'll keep myself small and under the radar until then.

And so our bodies respond ...
Do you feel the [your] energy deflating?
Do you feel your breath slowing down?
Your blood stilling to a weak pulse?
The light in your eyes dimming?

We die a slow death with the critic -- we put it down to age, or a change in our life circumstances. And before you know it you have learned to not notice the color of the leaves, the song of the birds, the cry in your heart.

The catalyst for change has been neatly tucked away in the dusty box on the top shelf behind a book.

Critic 1 - You 0

The critic keeps you small and safe but that is not how we came into this life. We are bright shiny spirits in human form here to enjoy the gifts of being in BODY and COMMUNITY.
No matter how you bring it out; We are here to grow, shine and explore this wonderful life.

The first step is the recognize the critic.
Know that it has kept you safe, and it is part of you and your growth evolution.
When you see the critic, bow to it, then put it on the shelf and move forward so that the promises of God can be fulfilled.
[Damini Celebre, BrushHeart: Intuitive Painting]

Well, I have a word for my Critic.  You will not win this time.  This round goes to me.  I will take the steps to test this vision.  I will follow the brush, the energy, the flow, the vision, the Holy.  I will burst forth into freedom, unencumbered.

The score will read

Me 1  -  Critic 0!!!!

Blessed be.