This round of Chakra paintings I have covenanted with myself to layer one on top of the other and watch what happens within me and the painting. So I stood, looking at the semi-finished Sacral painting from the previous week, with my teacher’s comment from earlier in the day echoing in my heart: “You went back to the surface instead of working through what your bumping up against.”
She is totally right, of course. I did. I retreated into my inner garden -- the garden I retreated into to find a sense of peace in the midst of the storm I was in last week (and am still in this week). That is okay. I went there....to a certain extent, as much as I could emotionally in that moment.
I knew, as I looked at the painting preparing for the session that evening, I would be going back....back to that blood red....back to what I’m bumping up against. I also knew I needed to move the painting, to change its direction. The movement felt vertical not horizontal. So I took it down and was “caught” by my teacher. (She has a practice of letting the Universe choose where we paint. For the last few weeks she has allowed me to paint in the same place because I continue on that same painting.) With my painting in my hand, she decided the Universe should tell me where to paint. Her wisdom was totally right. I needed to move to a different wall, a different space. I needed to be in a more open space, not in a corner. I needed to not be able to hide from myself, to curl up in the corner and ignore what needed to be faced.
The Universe put me on the most open wall in her studio. Hmmm.....
I put my painting up in the middle of the wall. As I looked at it the only color available to me was blood red.
I was being invited back to the place I had left last week.
I was being invited back to the spot and moment when I fled.
I was being invited back to learn more about this sorrow and wound that I am currently living in.
I was being invited by the Universe to work through it this time...
Not to flee...
But to stand in the midst of the waves that crashed up against me threatening to knock me over.
So I grabbed the blood red. I knew what I needed to do. I painted the entire painting blood red. Covered it from top to bottom, left to right. Covered it completely. Hands stained red. Blood red under my fingernails....
Then I grabbed the white. That was the color I fled from last week. I grabbed it and began to allow my hands and Spirit rub the white into the painting. I began about a third of the way down the painting and began to rub into a column of white. I curved it. It felt like I was creating a tornado flowing up and down my painting. Then came the circle.
When I stepped back, I saw the shape that the white made and that took me down: an “S”. That makes sense. My heart is breaking from an ending of 10 years. I feel that loss deeply within my Soul. I want to ignore it. Move forward. Leave that pain behind me. Look to the future.
Problem is my heart is broken in two. I’ve been pushing hard the past month and a half to move (literally). To do that, I’ve been stuffing down that sorrow, the fears that are rising up in me about being alone, about not having a plan for what is next, about leaving all that I know for something completely unknown and unpredictable.
The blood red and white are inviting me to face those fears, to feel that pain, to invite my Authentic Self, my Soul to show itself and teach something about this space I’m moving toward; about Future Me.
So I grabbed the black. I created the storm cloud over the “S.” 
And that is when the heart appeared. I put the heart in the top corner and stopped dead. Tears rose. I felt frozen because I knew what needed to happen to that heart. I knew I needed to break it. But that made it real... a little too real... physically breaking my heart.
I took a deep breathe.
Then another....
And another....
I stood up on the stool and ran my fingers through the heart, breaking it....
And that sent me back to the floor....back to the tears....back to what this series is all about...
I sat there, tears flowing, awaiting the next invitation; feeling that broken heart.... until black arrived.
I pulled black down from the cloud to the bottom of the painting, like the Pillar of Smoke that guided the Israelites through the Wilderness in Exodus.
And that started the movement...the movement through to a glimpse of Future ME.
Fire came next. A Pillar of Smoke by Day. A pillar of Fire by night....
Fire starting at the base....flaming up the painting...
Red.....
Orange...
Gold...
Flaming up....moving my energy up the pillar of smoke, up....
Up....
Up....
To Green that flowed from my broken heart... like a waterfall
Falling down the painting....
And Light....bursting forth in the top corner....
It was supposed to burst forth from the fire... at least that is what I wanted to do.
It didn’t do that. It burst forth as I ball of Light. And not bright yellowish white Light, but cloudy grey muddled Light.
That brought me to a place of stuck and agitation. My mind kicked in. The Critic began to tell me that it was ugly, that it did not work, that I had messed up.
And I began to feel contained. I resisted it. My teacher asked if I needed to add paper. I said no. I was fine with what was there. She knew I was bumping up against my box. I was ignoring that. The Light bumped hard against that box I’ve been working at bursting out from....
So my Soul, which has learned that when I don’t listen one way, it will try again a different way. My Soul knew I needed to burst out of the box I had put myself in with just two pieces of paper. My Soul knew I needed to be expansive.
So...it gave me brown. I had no idea what to do with the brown. I just knew brown. I put it over the black. Brown from top to bottom. And I began to pull it out and up. I began to realize that I was creating the trunk of a tree.... My Future ME.
And I felt contained. The paper was too narrow to create a tree with branches like I wanted to. So I added paper. My Soul won!
I covered the side panels with blood red so they would integrate with the painting. I pulled the brown trunk onto the panels. Then I began to allow the color, the fire, to flame up through the tree...
Red....
Orange....
Green...
White purple...
Covering my broken heart....
covering the ball of Light...
The tree became the Light....
And I found myself again...in the midst of the tree... as the Tree...
the Tree of My Life....
Grounded in the Earth
reaching up to the Universe
burning
bursting forth
expanding
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