When Intuitive Painting meets Spiritual Direction...

I knew more was to come with the painting I began the first night of Spiritual Direction training, but had no idea what that would be.  

Throughout that first full day I returned to look at this painting, to sit before it, to take it into my Soul, into my Heart, into my Body.  I waited for something to stir.  And something did.  It needed two more words...Breathe at its roots.  I grabbed my sayings and searched for the word.  The Universe provided two “breathe”s.  I cut them out of their sayings and glued them to the roots.  Now the tree felt grounded in Holy, Sacred Breathe as it should be....

I continued to await the next bubble.  Stuck came instead.  

I had the color yellow and the shape of a heart.  I knew the painting needed more yellow.  I knew that a heart needed to appear.   I knew something needed to show up on the left.

I contemplated hearts on the left like stars on the right.  Nope!!!

I contemplated put a heart in the trunk and expanding it echoing outwards covering the painting (like in my 40 day painting).  Nope!!

Usually at this point, when I’m stuck, my teacher would magically arrive and ask me a wise question or give me a comment that would crack me open to the next thing.  But my teacher was not there!!  I was on my own.... or was I?  I was surrounded by spiritual directors.  Hmmmm...

The invitation was there in my spirit, “You don’t have to do this alone.  Ask for the help you need.”  I asked.  I asked one of my Spiritual Director teachers to sit with me at the beginning of evening silence and help me open to the next invitation.   I explained the process of “Three things I could do to the painting” and how that usually helps me move forward.  She accepted. 

But here is what happened.  We did not use the “Three things exercise.”  She used Contemplative Spiritual Direction techniques to open me up to what was next and it was powerful.

I talked about the last thing I did, the word Breathe.  I talked about the circle being off center, about how inside myself it was supposed to be a heart shaped, but came out as a circle.  I talked about the stars and maybe bringing them across the painting, wondering if it was my own need to balance out the painting.

She reflected back what she heard:  The circle is your heart.  (Wow.  The circle is my heart.  Yes. Powerful)  It feels off centered.  (Yes.)  Maybe the stars would balance it or maybe you want it balanced.

That is what I had said.  She asked me to notice what that felt like inside my Soul.  How does it feel to bring the stars across?

I stood my nose almost against the painting staring at it....and noticed radiance, the greenish background radiating out from the purple circle.  I spoke the word radiance.

Ah, radiance.  Notice radiance.  Where is it?

It is coming forth from the purple circle.  I looked closely.  It was coming forth from one side of the purple circle -- the non-star side.

The stars were really only to go as far as I had painted them.  They felt like my Shadow side.  Here was my Daylight Self, Light radiating out from the purple circle.

Notice what it looks like....

Like solar flares jumping off the sun, all across this side of the painting.

I commented on how beautiful and healing it was to notice that finally I felt like there was more Daylight Self than Shadow self.  I commented on how I was noticing that there has begun to be a shift in my Soul.  In June, I was covering my paintings with blood red, with Shadow, with pain, with wounds.  Now, here I was looking at a painting with more Daylight than Shadow.

Wow!  

Powerful.  Powerful.   Powerful.

I was ready to paint, but my teacher said “I don’t want to lose this image of the heart.  Take a moment and notice if the heart needs to appear or not.”

I had forgotten about the heart.  It had been in my mind all day and I had not found a way to put it up.  With this new insight into my painting, I was ready to move on.  But she was right.  I needed to notice the heart.  The heart is where this work is happening in my soul.

I took some deep centering breathes.  The heart needs to be on this painting.  It needs to be on the trunk, at the core of this tree.  It is the trunk of the tree, all that holds this life force up.  Green.

She repeated:  The heart is at the center of the tree and it is green.

Beautiful.  Now I was ready to go.  I thanked her and we both entered into silence for the night.

I picked up my brush and put a few different shades of yellow on my pallet and began to allow the solar flares to come forth.  I found that at the top of the painting I wanted it to dance.  On the side, I wanted it to flame outwards.

What I did not expect was that the spirals wanted the radiance to spiral out to each phrase, touching them with Light.

And the heart.  The green heart in the trunk.  The finishing touch.  Holding it all together.  bringing together Shadow and Light.  Balancing all that is in my heart and opening me to more growth.

I have a vision...one where intuitive painting and spiritual direction blurge together.  I wondered how it would work, whether it would work.  What a blessing to experience the depth and power of the blurring of these two spiritual disciplines together.

That night I awoke at 2 am with a blessing washing over me.  I laid there and listened as the Holy blessed me deeply, echoing the blessings of this painting.  I allowed Her words to wrap themselves around my heart and Soul.  I dwelt, for just a moment, deep in the Heart of All That is Sacred in this Universe, and I wept....blessed beyond words.