This is my third round painting my Third Chakra. Each time I have painted this Chakra I have found myself bumping up against some deep stuff. Today was no different.
I awoke in the morning with an image of how the paper was to look -- like a cross. I have resisted the cross look before, but this time I made a decision that I would follow that invitation and see where it took me.
I decided to do this because I have been struggling with my connection to Jesus lately. Over the last month I had this feeling that I was about to meet Jesus again in a new way. Signs had been showing up hinting at that. Painting-wise the signs were all there: the red hand, the cross popping up again and again in many paintings. Jesus was on his way to reintroduce himself to me...
And he did. It was a powerful week. Jesus arrived powerfully in all his compassionate healing loving Glory. He was ever present, ever patient and inviting me anew into a revitalized deeper connection with him.
You see, Jesus became REAL. Tangible. I could reached out and touched him. He held me in all my woundedness. He healed me. He brought me home. He affirmed the spiritual path that I am on. He encouraged me to continue saying he would walk the path with me.
I accepted joyfully in that moment. But my Critic and Ego began to resist. That resistance showed up in painting over the next few days (two weeks ago).
And then....
Everything went dark. And by dark I mean dense pitch black Dark.
When I sat in silent contemplative prayer, it was black as night, stale, dead. I sought communion and met darkness.
The darkness of the season set in. I feel like I’m being invited to sit in that darkness. To just sit in it with no expectations and notice what happens.
As I painted my Third Chakra my resistance to that invitation showed up again. I had energy to hang the paper the way I felt invited to that morning. I had energy as I began with the gold and yellow circles, with the orange moving upward around the gold circle.
I had energy painting a white line around the purple star and pulling that white outwards making the star shimmer.
Then I painted a green line across the paper and put pink dots along the line. The vision was a beautiful vine of flowers snaking its way across the painting. But as I made the flowers I got bored. My energy dropped. I started not wanting to finish all the flowers I had decided to make.
I tried making them a different way to ignite the energy again. That didn’t work. Before I knew what was happening four medium circles appeared diagonally across the left side of the cross: white, purple, green and gold. The white then became red.
Then orange wanted to come burst forth from around the bottom two circles and form some kind of shape around them. It didn’t work. I grew frustrated. The orange ended up muddier and muddier and muddier. It turned into this hideously orange circle that disgusted me. I was extremely unhappy with it.
So I turned my attention to the bright orange and gold at the top of the painting. I wanted something of beauty and Light. I painted a large purple star in the open corner. It was beautiful. The star next to the full moon with orange flame. It was a nice story. I felt better -- distracted from that hideous orange...
Then I set my attention to the cut out purple star in the center of the painting. I painted it purple again. Then I painted a smaller star lavender in its center.
Then I found myself on my back flat on the floor unable to move. It was not the stars that did it. The stars kept me standing. The stars kept me from entering the Darkness...
It was that hideous orange circle that did it. It brought me to the floor. All my crap, all my Shadow, all that I feared in the Darkness...the hideous orange circle....
My teacher joined me as she usually does when I’m on the floor. She asked me three things I could do to the painting:
- paint a blue circle below the four circles. There was no energy there. That was an attempt to fix the orange circle, to make it look better.
- Orange upward around the star. There was no energy there. I did not want to mess up the beauty that was there. I wanted that Light.
- I took a deep breathe and went deep down into my Soul. Then I spoke without thinking or knowing what was going to come forth: black.
“What? No not black” I thought.
My teacher, however, jumped on that. She knew it came from deep within, from my Creative Self, my Soul. “where?”
“Where the green line is.”
“Get some black, put it on your pallet and paint it where the green line is.”
And she sat with me until I stood up....
I grabbed the black paint. I began in the middle above the star. I put paint there and began to drag it upward and to the right. I kept at it until it felt done.
Then I began to drag it to the left. Some of the black paint came in contact with that hideous orange circle. I had a physical reaction to that touch. I felt tainted. I felt disgust. I must have made a loud noise because my teacher was looking at me. You okay? yeah.
It was hard for the black to meet the orange. For darkness to meet my wounds and crap. When I went to pull more black, that orange was there. Then it was on my hands. Then it was being mixed into the black where the black began. I was not happy about it, but I kept going until I felt like the black was spread out like it needed to be. Then I stopped.
I scrubbed my hands to get all that orange black off them.
I stood back and looked. I liked the way the black interacted on the right and the top. It looked cool, rich, deep inviting darkness with something to offer.
I struggled with the black on the left.
“Is that covering your orange to hide it?” my teacher asked.
“They are together, layered one over the other...merged.”
And at the end of the night I’m left standing with that. As I move deeper into the darkness of Solstice, I wonder what my inner darkness will reveal to me, if anything.
I continue sit, each morning and night, in that darkness. Patiently. Sometimes calmly. Other times with much agitation.
And I wait....
wondering
will the Light return?
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