Journey into the Heart of Darkness

This is the last day of working on this painting.  I have been working on it all Fall and it has taken me down the rabbit hole of Darkness.  If you can have a goal in intuitive painting process, today it was finishing up the painting; bring it to some sense of completion so that nothing was left unfinished into the New Year.

I decided to start with Light...Light coming out from the edges of the Door.  I grabbed yellow and started painting it along the edges of the Door, then I covered the green heart outline with yellow.  Then I covered the small blue heart with yellow, then purple.  

The problem was that it was not working for me.  Yellow.  Light.  Not working.  

My teacher laughed at me and commented that my mind was having its say.  She said thank your mind for trying to keep you safe.  Tell it you are safe here and don’t need it to keep you safe.  Then jump down the hole....

She was right, of course.  When I checked in with myself, I felt lost.  Lost.  Stuck.    Filled with Fear.  I knew this before I showed up that morning.  I had been in that space for a few days.

So, I painted it out.  I grabbed crayons and started allowing squiggles of orange and brown to move all over the painting.  Then came red right up the center and right across the heart forming a large cross on the painting.  Then came black squiggles on the top.  I squiggled all over that painting, allowing all that feeling of being lost to get onto that paper.

Then something powerful happened.  I squiggled black down the painting.  It was not strong enough.  I grabbed a black paint brush and painted a black line right down the painting.  As I did it, I hit the paper with such force and rage that sent me cowering in the corner.  As that black line was painted the door that kept all my anger and rage hidden from me, stuffed in my Shadow flew open and I was overwhelmed by it.

I couldn’t handle it.  I was shocked by how much rage was in my heart, hidden deep in the depths.  I had stuffed it there and left it and it had grown...

I do not even know where the anger was directed.  There was too much of it.

I curled up in a ball as far from my painting as I could get.  I sat there for the longest time.

My teacher came and sat by me.  She commented on the energy that was in that last stroke and wondered why I was here hiding.

“It was rage not energy.” I answered.

She told me to get it out.  What color is it?

Black.

"Get it out.  Put black on your brush or hand and get it out.  You have come this far.  You have worked so hard to get here, bumping up against this time and time again.  Go there.  This is a safe space for you to go there.  Jump down the rabbit hole."

She sat with me encouraging me to move shoulder to shoulder...tender loving support.

I got up.  Took a deep breathe.  Put black on my pallet and began to paint black all over the painting.  I allowed my rage to run down my arm, through my brush and onto that paper.  I hit that brush hard against the paper.  

Then I put the brush down and started using just my hands and paint.  I covered that painting numerous times with black.  Parts of the hearts tore off with the force of the brush or my hand.  I ripped them the rest of the way off and put those pieces in the center of the cut out heart, where the obstacles were.

I kept at it until I felt spent...spent of as much rage and anger, grief and sadness, and fear as I could get out.

I stepped back and looked at my painting.  It was black.  All black.

I haven’t had that happen in a long time.  That last time I painted the whole painting in one color was blood red this past summer.  That was hurt, broken heartedness, anger.

I stepped back and sat.  I moved farther away, back to my corner.  My teacher arrived.  I commented on how I wanted it to be beautiful.  Others were throwing paint on their paintings and bringing color.  Why couldn’t I do it?

Why can’t you?  she asked.

It didn’t feel right.  I was aligning myself to darkness.

She suggested that I do some ritual to honor the work that I had done, the releasing of all this anger.

I nodded my head as tears fell.  I asked to use her Angel Candle.  She has held me many times in meditation over the past year when I have needed Her.  Now, I felt like I needed Her.  

As my teacher went to find a candle, I felt a call to the greens in the back of my car.  I heeded the call without thinking, put on my shoes and got the greens.  These greens came to me when I asked for help in a releasing ceremony.  They answered my call.  Then they changed their minds and wanted to be part of a gratitude altar I made on Thanksgiving Day.  That morning, as I walked out the door, they reminded me that they had volunteered to help me release what needed to be released.  I had packed them up and put them in my car.  Here was why...

I lit the angel and set her in front of my painting.  I sat and stared at her with the greens next to me.  I started to fiddle with the greens...

I began to cut off the pine sprigs from the branches.  I put glue up on the painting and attempted to glue one sprig to the painting and it kept falling off.  My teacher brought me pins to help hold the pine.  

I placed sprig upon sprig upon sprig on the painting in the center of the cutout heart, around one of the obstacles.  Their green, their life, their energy changed the Darkness of the painting.  It somehow released the rage, transformed it into something different, allowed for me to experience this Darkness in a different, more whole and healed way.

I wanted to thank it.  I wanted to thank the sprigs.  I wanted to thank the black paint.  I wanted to thank them all for helping me release.  I took some tobacco and placed it on the painting just below the greens.  Then I grabbed a leaf of sage and put it with the tobacco, praying that the sage continue to clear this anger, sadness and fear from my body and soul.

I lit some sage and saged the painting, saged my Spirit.  Breathed in the clearing energy of the sage.  Prayed....

Then I sat.  I settled in.  

I had been given a ritual to perform to help release some stuff I was bumping up against and now seemed the time to prepare for it.  I sat and did as the Spirit had guided me to do.  And as I did so, an altar appeared around the Angel. 

I began to realize that She was holding the energy of my intention.  She was holding my prayers.  I could prepare now, because She held it for me.  I could continue this journey of releasing and trust that these prayers would be held until it was time to burn them.  Her Light did that.

Later that evening, my friends gathered with me to burn these sticks wrapped with my prayers for release and transformation.  With the Angel next to me, I threw them in the Fire and Fire responded.  Fire sparked and crackled and threw fireworks out at me.  Fire answered my request and I thanked it.

This journey deep into the Heart of Darkness has been a challenging journey filled with ups and downs, wounds and healings, movements and countermovements.  I am forever grateful for the space and opportunity to allow my Creative Self to take these journeys.

Blessed Be.