My teacher has challenged us (the group of woman I paint with twice a month) to stay with the same painting for the Fall Sessions. I have done that before with my second round of chakra paintings, layering each on top of the other, putting them together, creating one painting that brought them all together. It was challenging with my chakras. It invited me deeper and deeper into my Soul, into my Shadow, into my being.
When I finished the first day with this painting, I was not looking forward to continuing on it. All of my mythical grief-oriented images were on that painting, and to be truthful: I did not want to continue to dive deeper and deeper into all my these images that were landing me on my back AND I had no idea where to even begin.
I began by putting my painting back up on the wall and staring at it. Then I grabbed the metallic blue and green and “cleared” the background of the painting creating two focuses for me to face.
When I was done, I looked at that blood red circle and yellow shape. What arose within me was Light, so I grabbed the yellow and created a flame, like a candle flame, directly over the center of the circle. I added red to bring out the flame color. I added strokes to bring the flame to life -- flickering upward toward the top of the painting.
That was all good. It felt like a good start. I sat down to ponder what was next. I ended up sitting for a long time. I found myself tearing up as I looked at those two intertwined hearts. I had written and written on them in my journal. I had explored their inner meaning, coming to an understanding of a deep yearning within my Soul. I had grieved the grief intertwined with that yearning.
As I sat in silence, quieting my heart to an inner stillness my contemplative practice has brought, that grief arose again -- the yearning deep within me bubbled up. Silence became unstill as I dropped further and further into that image and into my heart. I breathed deep, practicing the practice of welcoming prayer, whispering to myself, “Welcome grief. Welcome grief. Welcome grief.”
Tears rose. The urge to wipe them off the painting ignited. I did not want to stay there in that place. I did not really want to welcome that grief, welcome that yearning. I really truly would rather have shoved it deeper into my Shadow. But that was not why I was there painting. I was painting so that the depths of my Soul could speak, so that I could paint that stuff out little by little, get it out of my body and soul.
So I sat. Breathing. Praying for an inner stillness. Praying for an image or a way forward in this painting.
The prayer brought my teacher intuitively to my side. She asked how I was, what was happening. I had few words, the grief was strong.
Having long observed my almost sacred ritual of washing my hands when I finish an image or a movement in the painting, she pointed out that I had picked the paint out from under my nails, scrubbed extra hard to get that blue off my hands. I was unaware that I had done that. She wondered what was so powerful that I was fleeing from it. Hmmm....
The intertwined hearts. I was deep deep deeply overwhelmed by the feelings bubbling up from them.
She asked three things I could do.
- Wipe them off. She told me that did not count as that is not allowed. I had to deal with them. Ugh!
- Fill in the large yellow heart. She laughed out loud and told me again that was not allowed because that was a creative way to wipe out the hearts. Darn!
- Black. Black on the painting. Black. Sadness.
I grabbed the black. I began with a brush to just squiggle black all over the bottom of the painting being careful to not go over the hearts. I allowed the black to fill up the bottom of the painting, then it wanted to spread upwards. Upwards toward the top around the purple circle. But not as strong, not as visible. I painted more gently, dabbing most of the paint off the brush, allowing for a whisper of black to flow around the circle and up to the top corners.
Then came the hands. I had an image of hands coming up from the hearts to the flame. I grabbed the red and placed four hands on one top of the other connecting the hearts with the flame. The fourth was directly in the flame. I liked that!
Then I turned back to the intertwined hearts. I was not yet done with the black. I began to paint small black hearts around the border of the large yellow heart. When I was done it felt like too much. I grabbed the green and began to paint a green stroke squiggling its way around the heart like a vine, creating a border for the two hearts at its center. That appeased my need to balance Shadow with Daylight.
Next came more hands. More hands wanted to branch off of the red hands in all directions.
Black wanted to work their way up around the circle to the top of the painting.
Blue wanted to encircle the hearts at the bottom of the painting.
Then another colored bubbled up inside me. I grabbed the brown. I dipped my brush into it. I went to put the paint where my intuition thought it should go when I resisted hugely. I stopped myself from putting brown on those red hands. I stepped back. I put down my pallet and brush. I sat down. Then found myself soon laying flat on my back.
It was a strong unconscious reaction. My teacher saw it happen and appeared rather quickly asking what that was. She encouraged me to put the brown up however it wanted to show up. I resisted. She insisted, rightly so.
I stood up slowly, picked up the brown and began to allow the brush to do what it wanted. The brown filled in the empty space in the middle of the hands.
Ah, the stigmata of Christ. No wonder I resisted. I’ve been struggling with my connection to the Christian Institution; with what my call to ministry is about. I’ve resisted religious imagery in my painting and when it has shown up, I’ve found myself flat on my back glued to the floor. This is a deep deep grief in my life; a grief of life’s direction, career. Seems my Creative Self felt it was time to face it.
Then came four brown arrows. My mind had them pointing in four different directions coming from the red hand in the center. My Creative Self had them coming out of the lower hand and pointing in four different directions -- the directions of each path of hands.
When the brown was all up, I sat again. This time to ponder what was next. I stared at the painting, taking it all in. I closed my eyes and began to sink into the silence of my heart asking for the next brush stroke.
Slowly and quietly out of the stillness of my heart an image appeared. It felt good. It felt healing.
I got up and grabbed the brushes and began to paint two flowers: one in each intertwined heart; opposite color as the heart; joining together in one stem with one base. Unity.
That was the place to stop for the day, with that sense of unity and healing.
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