Moving from Mind to Heart is the key...

I came to this painting with this fabulous idea.  I was going to paint an amazingly vibrant flame that swirled upward and from and within the flame were going to be various images of people unfurling -- starting all curled up and moving toward complete openness and vibrancy.  It was a gorgeous painting in my head!!   I have to say, I am in love with it.

The problem is that it is in my HEAD not my HEART.  By painting this painting, I was once again reminded that intuitive painting is from the heart, not the head or mind.  It is sort of like Centering Prayer in that way:  as you sit in silence of the prayer you can choose to get hooked by your mind or distracted by monkey mind.  You can stay up there on the surface and ignore the depth of the inner work that happens deep in the silence of your Heart.  OR you can sit like on a bottom of a river and watch the distractions and the monkey mind float by surrendering yourself to the work of the Holy within you.

Here is how I learned Intuitive Painting is like Centering Prayer.  If I stay in my mind, all that is going to happen is frustration.  My Critic is going to be completely engaged and take me down quickly.  Nothing I paint am I going to actually like.  It will look ugly.  It will feel wrong.  I will be unsettled, frustrated, angry, stuck.

BUT, if I drop into my heart; if I allow the images to flow forth from deep within me, something changes.  I may bump up against something hard and difficult, but it is a healing moment not a frustrating moment.  I may get taken down by the painting, but that is calling me to awareness of what I am bumping into deep within my heart -- of something that I need to work through, hold, accept, release.

Intuitive painting must be done through the heart, that is the where the journey is most powerful.  

My problem this evening was that I started with the really awesome mind-oriented image....

I started with red.  I began to attempt to make a flame that curled upward and back in on itself.  The more I worked at it with red, the more frustrated I became.  I could not get it to look like the beautiful picture in my head.

Instead of dropping into my heart, I turned to orange.  And it got worse, uglier.  I attempted some more red.  Nothing good.  I was about to rip the paper off the stand, roll it up and throw it away when something happened....

 A purple circle bubbled up from my heart, right into my eye sight.  Strong.  Vibrant.  Without thinking I grabbed the purple and put the circle on the paper where it asked and the painting changed.  I had dropped into my heart.  I had left my Critic behind in my mind and chosen to listen to my heart.

Then the green came.  It asked to go around the circle.  I found myself filling in the space between red flames with green.  Then black in the middle.

Then green filled the painting.  It happened in a moment.  I stepped back and all that I could see was green with a purple circle.  I went to it.  I covered the painting with green, leaving just that purple circle.  It was like covering all that monkey mind with my heart.

I stepped back.  I took a moment to sit and take in what had just happened.  I was exhausted.  Here is why.  When I work from my mind, from my head I am spending my energy in a pretty major way through frustration, anger, criticism (all those negative self-defeating emotions).  But when I open myself and paint from my heart the energy of the Sacred is flowing through me, holding me up, keeping me going.  I was exhausted because I had just moved into my heart.  I had spent the first 30 minutes spending all my energy in frustration, hitting my head against a wall.  

I sat to take a breathe.  I looked at the table next to the easel.  I had spent some time earlier that evening pulling out pictures from magazines that could work for “the unfurling” I was wanting to capture.  I looked down, saw this one image, and Energy struck me.  That is the only way I can describe it.

I saw this woman holding the Light, smiling as she looked into the Light of God.  I cut it out and asked my heart where it went.  I stuck it in the purple circle.  Then came the blue butterfly reminding me of the transforming power of the Holy’s Light.

Next, my path reappeared.  That

unobstructed path from my heart chakra.  This time it came in brown, like the path through the dessert and forrest all in one.  Brown was important.  The symbolism for me was important.  Sometimes I feel like I am on a path toward dessert spirituality.  Other times I feel like I am on a spiritual path deep in the plush forrest.  Both connect deeply within my heart and spirit.  So for me, brown was the color.  A brown that could be both, so I could be in the dessert and forrest metaphorically at the same time.

I sat back down after completing the path, to step back, to take in the painting and its simplicity.  I glanced at the table, ready to recycle all the images I had torn out, when the yellow butterfly called to me.  I cut it out and put it up above the blue butterfly, completing the unraveling and un-cocooning.

But the transformation from Light to Butterfly was not complete.  There was one more image that wanted to show up. 

A heart.  Love.  The Light of all that is Sacred in this world transformed into Love...the beginning and/or ending of the unobstructed path.  Powerful.  Powerful image for me.  Powerful reminder of the Sacred Call to live fully in this world.

Powerful image of what spiritual direction is about.  The focus and hope of spiritual direction is just that: to slow down enough to experience the Light of God, and notice how that experience is transforming us, opening our hearts more and more in the world, calling us to connect deeper and deeper into all that is Sacred and Holy.

The red heart at the bottom came next.  Then it expanded, growing, echoing outward and upward toward the purple circle, toward the unobstructed path.  Yellow.

I have had this theme pop up again and again in my 40 day experiment/commitment to one piece.  I usually experience it as my own opening and expanding.  Here I experienced it that way.  My heart expanding and opening to all that this call to Spiritual Direction will bring.  My heart expanding and opening to all this path will bring.  My heart expanding and opening to the transforming power to all that is Sacred.  My heart opening to the invitation to step onto that path.

One more image appeared. A purple star. in the top left corner.  Shining above the circle, above the heart expanding, over the unobstructed path.   

The painting was complete.  And I felt energized.  

I did not miss the fact that a beautiful flame was not on the painting.  I did not miss the unfurling image that was in my head.

I had indeed captured that unfurling within my heart.  The Light unfurled into Love.  My heart unfurled, opening, growing, expanding.

Once I dropped into my heart, beauty came forth.

Once I listened to my heart, the Holy spoke through paint.

And something deep and powerful and healing and affirming came forth in the silence of the night.  “A gathering of grace” as my spiritual direction teacher calls it.

And I am reminded of how truly blessed and loved and guided I am.