Saturday, February 4, 2012

What is My Root?


What is My Root?
As I wrote in a previous blog, I prepared for the painting of my root chakra.  I read all about the root chakra and what it governs.  I learned the foods and color and exercise that you could do to open your root chakra.  I wore red.  I ate root veggies.  I found amazing lavender chocolate.  And I walked and walked and walked putting my feet on the ground, feeling the energy of the earth under me. 
And I dreamed in red.  I dreamed images of yoga poses.  I dreamed of red rivers flowing forth from the Holy.  I dreamed of Paradise.  I was curious heading toward this painting experience to see what would happen when the brush touched that paper.
I started painting placing the image of my dreams on the paper.  I painted a red figure in tree pose in the center of the paper.  It seemed to me that energy radiated out from that figure and so I sponged color radiating out from the figure.  It was cool.  And that is when this experience got interesting...
My teacher came to me and asked if I was painting from my root chakra.  I thought so.  Wise as she is, she did not.  And, of course, she was right!  As I stared at the painting I was painting from my dreams, from my head, not my root. So I did the only thing that I could think of -- I painted down, down to my root chakra.  I took the brush and began to paint down turning the legs into a river --  echoing in my soul the images of first century Paradise. 
The invitation was to continue to paint down, down and wide.  So I added more paper and painted down widening out this river that was flowing from my soul.  As I filled the paper with red I began to realize that it was not a river but a meadow and the invitation was to inhabit that meadow, to bring to life all that is growing within the meadow of my spiritual foundation -- my root.
The problem  was that images of houses and boxes were coming into my head.  I knew in my gut that no box would ever appear on this painting.  I was not going to box or contain my spirit, my energy, my soul.    All that I have experienced over the past two weeks was about bursting out of boxes not being contained/housed in them!  I ignored those boxes, those houses, and turned to nature, to wonder, to exploring the image of the tree that was so powerful when I painted my Inner Goddess.  I began to paint trees and flowers and a river.  Then I put feet on the flowers.  I don’t know why.  It just seemed like that was the right thing to do.  It felt right.  It felt good.  So I did it.  I went back and painted feet on each flower.  And I smiled.  Something was opening up, moving, inviting me to move deeper toward the Holy inside of me.
That was when the figures appeared.  In yellow.  There but not there.  You can easily miss them when you look at the painting because they are so light.  Because they are LIGHT.  There in my soul, my spirit -- the Incarnation of the Holy.  In tree pose -- solid, rooted, spreading upward toward heaven, connecting heaven and earth.  In child pose, resting, stretching, being quietly.  In “bring it on” (as a friend calls it) inviting the universe to bring forth whatever it will, defiant, strong, ready to act in the world.  In seated namaste, mediating, listening, breathing in the Holy, centering myself.  There it is:  the balance between action and rest, between play and work, the Sabbath Center and how it is growing out of me.
I sat and pondered the painting, taking it in, waiting for the next invitation when  The Critic came.  This was not the invitation I wanted, yet one to struggle with.  It came and I felt unhappy with the painting.  I felt that the red of the meadow did not go with the red of the paper above.  So I attempted to blend it with a sponge.  Sponging the paint from the river above onto the meadow and back up, darkening the red of the meadow.  And that is when the Critic left, when the painting became physical and therapeutic and cathartic.  
Somehow when I painted with the sponge up a strong feeling said “Keep going.” So I did.  I kept sponging up.  And I saw it.  I saw the volcano of my soul ready to explode.  I sponged up and out in red covering all the purple, covering the initial figure, covering the paper with movement and explosion.  But it did not feel quite right.  It was not exploding.  It was emanating.  It needed to explode.
Ah, I could throw paint at the painting.  Yes.  That is it.!  I asked for help from my teacher who taught me the technique simply inviting me to just do it.  I did.  I flung paint at that painting.  I flung with all my might, all my frustrations, all my grief, all my loss, all my anger, all my energy.  It seemed too contained on one sheet.  It needed to explode more -- wider -- upward and outward.  So I added paper....
And I flung more paint.  Everything came up and out with that paint.  All the obstacles, all the blocks, all that which has contained me, boxed me, kept me from doing what I want to do.  All of it.  I threw it out of myself like a volcano that explodes.  I smiled and glowed.  This was fun.  It was powerful.  It was cool.  It was a crescendo, a finale.  
When I was done, done flinging paint, the painting was complete.  I sat down and looked at it.  It was complete.  There staring at me was a beautiful meadow nourishing my soul, allowing me to commune with the Holy, inviting me to allow this vision to explode forth into the world and follow it.

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