When Orange is the new Black....

I have this practice that I have begun recently.  I own a deck of SoulCards.  I spread them out face down and choose one, put it on the top of the deck and live with it for the week.  I journal on it numerous times throughout the week.  I allow it to get into my body and soul, and pay attention to how it resonates within me.  This has been a powerful experience.

This week’s card got into me and came out in paint.  I have had this card before.  However, this time, I was struck by the body, the embodiment of the prayer that is flowing through this woman’s body, through my body.  As I journaled I began to open my heart to my body’s prayer (which freaked me out of course).  I brought that prayer into my conscious life, my dreaming life and paid attention to its invitation, its yearning, its desires.  I sat with the Holy, with this card, with my body and invited the prayer to embody itself in my body and soul.  Then I began to freak out and become frustrated with how the prayer was inviting me to open my heart.

I went to paint, completely ignoring my SoulCard and work that week.  (I’m good at that.)  My teacher invited us to center ourselves and await a word, allow a word to bubble up to our consciousness.  Then she invited us to allow that word to take color, shape and form.  

My word was direction.  Ignoring the prayer of my body, I went to the prayer of my working self.  I imagined paths and roads connecting and diverging from each other.  I imagined a spiral starting in the center of the painting and spiraling out, weaving around the paths, creating a labyrinth of sorts.  I was excited and looking forward to what would happen.  Wow, more work on my direction in life!!!

Problem was, I was in my head not my heart.  So I began.  I cut out roads, paths and painted them and put them on the paper.  It was great.  I was putting up my vision, my voice, allowing for Shadow.  All was going well.... until....I attempted the spiral.

I sat on the floor and cut it out.  That was fun.  I had a moment when I realized it was unmanageable, this spiral.  I knew it was about to take its own direction which was not going to be my direction.  But I decided I could wrestle it into submission....

And as always happens to me when painting, I lost.  The spiral was destined to have its way.  I started and it was sort of working.  I got it to weave a few times, but then it began to want to fold and come back on itself.  Then it ripped and came apart.  But I went with the flow, still deciding it could work....until I began to put it on the top of the painting and came to a place where it hung and begged me to hang from the painting.  That is when I knew I was about to be unravelled....again.

I got mad and frustrated with my painting.  I was frustrated that I could not make the painting do what I wanted it to do....just like I could not make my body stop putting out into the universe its prayer.  

I did not want the spiral hanging.  Damn it!!!  I was going to get something I wanted. So I taped a piece of paper to the side of the painting and stuck the remaining spiral up on it.  Direction!!  Now it was taking direction.  The wrong direction to my conscious mind.  The right direction to my body.

I sat down and stared at what had happened.  Frustrated.  Angry.  Wondering why I could not get what I wanted.  Fully aware and conscious of the fact that I was fighting my body and its desires.

The only color available in my soul was orange.  Orange, in that moment, became the new black.  Orange.  More orange.  And more orange.

It makes sense.  I was fighting the desires of my second chakra and its connection to my heart and invitation to my heart to open to something new.

I grabbed the oranges.  I began to slap it on the paper, releasing my anger.  Smearing it all over the paper.  Covering every bit with orange.  Adding some black.  Covering the black with orange.  

Then I got mad at that piece that went off to the side.  I folded it back onto my painting and covered it with orange.  The fold was too heavy and began to fold again.  I allowed it to fold.

Then I got angry at the paths that were peaking through.  I began to pull them off one by one, the part that would come off.  I added them to that fold and began to see a wound form again.  But this wound was different from my previous ones.  This one was related to why I was fighting my body’s prayer.  This one was specific.  I continued pealing, ripping, tearing, squashing it and allowing the wound to form.

The wound, the Critic, telling me that I don’t want to open my heart to another because I won’t be able to stand as the person I want to be.  

The Critic telling me that if I open myself to possibilities, my old self, the one that I have been shedding, the enduring one will return.

My Critic reminding me of those wounds of relationships... those wounds of intimate violence... those wounds and fears that I will manifest the same relationship style for a third time.

Wow, that angered me. Angered my body.  Angered my soul.  I continued the orange, working the Critic out of my soul, out of my body, out of my heart.

And the coolest thing happened.  That wound was too heavy and began to rip (on its own) off the painting.  I did not stop it.  I actually lovingly, carefully held it as it ripped off.  I gently placed it on the floor and looked at what was left.  

And that is when it hit me, hit my body, hit my spirit, hit my soul and opened my heart.  I am no longer defined by my Critic, by that wound.  I can and am choosing a different path.  I will manifest a different style of relating, loving, opening my heart.

So I began to scrape the paint off...all the orange off my painting.  I scraped and put it on the wound, releasing more and more of the Critics hold, the wound’s hold on me.  I scraped until I got as much as I could off.

And when I looked again, I saw new possibilities, new direction, new vision.  I allowed it to form and show up on the painting.  Setting a path down the center of my soul, through all my Chakras, connecting heaven and earth; spirit and ground.

And then an even cooler thing happened.  I showed up in the midst of the path.  My heart opened, petal by petal, circle by circle, flowering right there on the painting.... spreading... surrounding the path... guiding the flow.... opening me up.

Powerful moment.  Healing moment.

My favorite artist, liturgist and theologian Jan Richardson has a line in one of her prayers:

“I know who I love transforms me, in all my loving make me bold!”

That prayer continues to resonate powerfully in my body and heart...opening me up... expanding into the universe... and inviting a deep sacred holy response.

Ignoring won’t make it go away.... lessons from my Throat Chakra

The Throat Chakra is the place where we express ourselves in the world.  It is out of this chakra that we create consciously, that we find our own voice; that we communicate and listen; that we express ourselves in the world.

I have been doing work at finding Clearness in my vision for life.  I called a Quaker Clearness Committee together (a group of wise friends that would come together to hold heart space and journey with me toward clearness through loving, challenging, probing questions and reflections).  This painting was the night before that Committee was to meet with me.  I was murky, unclear on what I wanted to manifest in the world; how I wanted to live out my life; what my priorities were.  There are so many options, I felt overwhelmed and unable to discern the road to travel.  My hope was this Committee would help me find clearness in my spiritual, physical, and career-oriented journey.

So, with the Clearness Committee the following evening, I arrived to paint my throat chakra with my chocolate and a bottle of chocolate laced malbec red wine.  I decided that this was going to be a fun, lovely, painting experience.  I was going to create a thing of beauty.  Why not?  The throat chakra is all about consciously creating, manifesting in the world.  So, I talked myself into believing that I could paint something pretty...ignoring the reality of the murkiness that led me to a Clearness Committee.  Yeah, that’s right.  I had no clarity on the direction my life was going in, but I was going to paint a beautiful throat chakra.

(Yes, you can laugh at my ability to mess myself up.)  

So, I grabbed orange paint and began to paint a thing of beauty.  Playing with orange and blue -- playing with the intersection of conscious creating and unconscious creating -- all along ignoring that black that wanted to be on the paper.  Ignoring the murkiness.  Ignoring my reality.  Ignoring the potential of what I could learn about myself.

I added some black in, but as soon as it started to feel like that murkiness was entering in I stopped.  I went back to color... to green... to yellow... to spirals of green... to red dots in the center of each spiral.  Here is how much I got in my own way:  my inner conversation was all about how I was rooted; how from that rooting I was journeying out from the center of my heart; journeying out into the world through manifesting, creating, expressing my dreams and hopes.  What a fabulous dream I was dreaming in that moment. The problem is, it is not my reality.  It is my hope; my dream; where I wish I was.

No.  I am not there yet.  I’m working on it.  I’m working on that re-rooting in the Holy, on opening my heart to resurrection and growth, on manifesting my dream in the world.  But right now.  In the here and now.  I’m in the Shadow, in the darkness, in the fear. 

So, after making this thing of beauty, I ended up on the floor, sitting, staring, stuck.  Stuck because I was not listening to my throat chakra, because I was not opening my heart to myself.  Stuck.  Stubborn.  Done with black!!!

And that is what I told my teacher when she asked what was next.  “I’m done with black!”   Of course, she suggested black.  I resisted.  She suggested it again.  I resisted and then gave in.  Unhappily, of course.

So I added black dots to the painting.  Starting at the bottom and allowing it to bubble up as if it were air bubbles in the water.  Then I covered over the red spiral with black placing two purple hand prints in the black.  Then I got mad, angry at the painting.  it was ruined.  The beauty was gone.
 

I WANTED BEAUTY.  

So, I wiped it clean and began to put hand prints of various colors on the painting, all over.  And, guess what?  It was still ugly.  The beauty was gone....

I was once again on the ground.  This time angry.  Angry at my painting.  Angry that beauty was not happening.  And that was when my teacher said the words that made me smile and enraged all at the same time -- because they were true.  “What made you think you could paint something pretty today?”  She knows me.  She knew about my Clearness Committee the next night.  She knew about my murkiness, the falling apart of my life, the shaking out of my soul.  She confronted me with that question.  

My answer:  Because I’m tired of this shit.  I’m tired of living in the black.  I want color.  I want life.  I want resurrection.

Sometimes you have to go through the black....

Okay.  The pastor in me knows that to be true.  The pastor in me knows that I have to work through the crap of life.  The pastor in me knows that those down times, that hard road, those are the ones filled with blessings (which we usually only notice after the fact).  The pastor in me just preached that.

But this night.  I was ignoring the pastor in me.  I was ignoring all of me.  I was wanting to live in denial...have a moment of something else.  But, unfortunately for me, that is not the case.  If I want to be resurrected, I have to travel in this darkness until I have learned what I need to.

So, I wiped the painting clear.  I added black and got rid of the color.  And in the process, ripped the painting so much that I needed to tape it.  I added duct tape to the front of it.  

And then, denial took over again.  I thought I could hold it together with the duct tape, so I began to add it as rays going out from the center, from those two hand prints.  I worked, having a great time, feeling better with each piece of duct tape.  Then I began to paint them yellow and the joy of what I was doing dissipated because I realized I was about to be undone again.  Undone because I was redoing what undid me in my third chakra painting....

And, yes you guessed it, I was undone.  Angry.  Tears.  Lost.  Wanting to attack my painting.

What I had hoped would bring back that beauty had taken me down.  What I had hoped would hold me together had just band-aided me.  The duct tape was band-aiding my painting, covering up the crap, the wound, the murkiness.  

Duct tape is a wonderful thing.  It can hold anything together.  It can “fix” things.  The problem is that it covers up the rust that is eroding the thing we are ‘fixing.’  The duct tape keeps us from seeing and truly fixing the problem; from taking out the part that needs to be replaced; from scrubbing the rust off; from doing the real work of healing, growing, opening, igniting.

So I tore it off.  Each one of those ray-like band-aides came off.  I stuck them back on because it they were part of the painting.  I crumbled them and stuck them over the rip.  And in the process, brought forth the one thing I was ignoring the entire time I was painting -- that annoying wound deep in my soul that keeps popping up, bubbling up, showing up.  There it was.  

I kept the two purple hands.  There is something powerful in this for me.  My vision showed up and the same time as my wound showed up.  They are both there.  

One shrinking (the wound).   My teacher reminded me of that, suggesting that I look back at all the other paintings were my wound appeared.  It is shrinking!!  Taking over less and less of the paintings.  Very cool.

The other (my vision) growing, rooting, holding its own again the darkness, not giving in to it, seeking that Light.  

I was looking for beauty; beauty without the darkness.  What I found, when I stopped ignoring the darkness, was beauty -- beauty shining forth out of the darkness.  HOPE!!!

Sometimes ignoring the darkness could mean missing valuable lessons and moments of Sacred Beauty.

Thanks be to the Holy that through gentle guidance and confrontation I did not miss that moment!

When painting gets physical....

My teacher gave us an invitation before painting.  She invited us to think about our Shadow self and reflect upon what we parts of ourselves we have relegated to our Shadow.  Then she asked us to invite some part of us back into the Light.

I was actually hoping to just play with paint, brightness, joy and ignore all that was falling apart in my life.  But no!  That is not what I was invited to do.  I was invited to dive back into my Shadow self, back into the darkness.  

The problem with this exercise is that I have locked so much of my self in my Shadow so as to continue this enduring that I do.  Opening the door even a little is hugely painful.

So I entered this exercise tenatively.  I decided to start with Light before going dark.  I grabbed the yellow paint jug and began to make a huge yellow ball on my painting.  That was fun.  As I was doing this, I began to realize that I was painting the sun, my third Chakra, Holy Energy and Light  and all that wonderful fun vibrant alive stuff.  Yeah.  That felt good after struggling through the last few paintings.

Then I invited the Shadow to come into the Light.  I hoped that the Light would hold too much Shadow from coming.  I laughed as I stepped back and saw a record (you know that you played on record players).  I began to swirl my hands in the blackness and then rub them around the Light integrating Light and Shadow together.

That was okay until somehow it released rage.  That is what I don’t like about my Shadow.  When I invite parts of myself back into the Light, I have to deal with the anger and rage I stuffed down inside myself as I shadowed part of me.  It came red -- red as can be.  I began by thinking about rooting myself.  But as the anger showed up it turned quickly into beating the red into the painting.  Covering the bottom, slapping it, splattering it, spreading it.  Then something invited me to take my rage up and I slapped paint right up like flame igniting for the first time.

I kept at it with other colors -- purple, light blue, more yellow, more black.  Slap, spread, integrate.  Slap, spread, integrate.  Slap, splatter, leave it.  I moved with whatever color captured my eyes back and forth between the paints and the painting.  Changing colors often, allowing for my flightiness to show up.  Voice, vision, power -- Shadow.

I stepped back once I had added all the color.  I liked how there was one slap of red, yellow and blue (roots, power, voice) directly in the middle of the black Shadow.  That spoke to me.

I stepped back further.  I stared at the circle, at how much color had showed up.  I realized that although I unleashed my anger, I had not invited anything to come back from the Shadow.  I was indeed playing with paint, color and anger.

As I reflected upon that, the image of a tree popped into my head.  And that is when I had a deep Ah Ha! moment: 

The tree is ME.

All those paintings where trees have popped up and I have defined the tree as my hope and vision -- as the Sabbath Center.

From the Goddess painting

to my work with ash

to my work with my second chakra

 It was all about ME stuck in my Shadow,

longing

begging

kicking and screaming

hoping for an invitation

to be set free!! 

Free from the box I had locked it in.

Free from the Shadow I had long ago stuffed it unwillingly into.

The tree is me.

the me that wants to create;

the me that wants to manifest something amazing and transformative in the world; 

the me that has brought forth this re-awakening.  

ME!  

The me I have been mourning the loss of for 15 years.  

The me I have been searching to re-unite with all that time.  

ME!

It appeared.   

This time powerfully.  So powerfully that this painting got physical, got down-in-my-body physical; not just spiritual or intellectual.  Physical!

It became a tug of war between two forces

The tree -- me -- unleashing, creeping out of my Shadow

and

My old life I just left behind pulling me back through an invisible cord.

Here is how it got physical:  as soon as I put that tree on the painting I got dizzy.  Every time I moved the world spun.  I could feel the pull backward.  I could feel myself pulling against some invisible cord.  I could not keep balance.

Each time I moved toward the painting, dizzy.  Each time I moved away less dizzy.  Sitting fine.  Standing dizzy.  It sucked big time.  But I kept painting hoping it would pass.  Using the walls to balance myself.  Shaking my head, trying to clear it of dizziness.  Shaking my back, moving my hands up and down my back trying to get rid of that pull.  

Painting all along 

and allowing more of me to show up

FULLY show up.

My heart at the center, layered over those three slaps of yellow, red and blue -- power, voice, and roots.  It felt powerful to watch my heart arrive there and open and fill the space between the branches that were reaching up to the Holy.

I worked the branches up and around my heart and reached them up and out toward the Holy.  It was fascinating to me how I reacted to the various branches I added.  The teal blue and red were fine.  Those felt good. 

The dark green became anger, Shadow.  It felt awful.  I wanted to cover it, lighten it as soon as I put it on.  I paid attention to that one for a while.  I worked at lightening it.  Then the yellow circle appeared -- my power showed up in the midst of that anger.  The feelings turned, transformed.  I was able to allow the anger to ignite movement within me -- not to overwhelm me, but to propel ME out of the  Shadow and back to the Light.  As I did that more yellow appeared, the purple circle appeared and the painting began to feel balanced, good and settled.

The problem was I knew it was not done.  Settled was not where this painting was taking me.  Dizziness was still there.  There was more work to be done....

So I took a deep breathe and jumped back into that Shadow....

and allowed my voice to appear 

allowed my roots to deepen, strengthen, lengthen

allowed my heart to flame upward to the Holy.

This creative process always surprises me.  It keeps me on my toes.  

And sometimes it gets very physical

Sometimes the Holy knocks me off balance

to open me

to MYSELF.

Praying for Resurrection

Two weeks ago my acupuncturist and shaman suggested that I do a spiritual exercise and see what shows up.  She told me to come up with an image and word that captures what I want to manifest in my life.  And then put that image and word everywhere I am, everywhere I look: 

so that I see it every time I turn my head. 
so that it is the first thing I see each morning and last thing I see each night. 
so that it becomes engrained me. 
so that my body embodies that image and word.

so that the word and image sink deep within my soul, all the way to the deepest darkest Shadows.

so that it is always in my thoughts, always in my deeds, always in every thing I manifest in the world.

My life needs to become that word and image.

I jumped into that exercise with full mind, body and spirit.  I created the image.  The word came to me in a dream and I put it on that image right away.  I printed it.  Cut it out.  Plastered it everywhere.  All over my house.  All over my car.  All over my office.  On the pulpit.  On my computer and iPad.  Everywhere.  

Every time I go to do something, it is there.  Resurrection!

When I do the dishes -- Resurrection!

When I drive -- Resurrection!

When I write -- Resurrection!

When I preach and pray -- Resurrection!

What I am learning in this experience is that it is like Jesus’ image of the vine and branches.  

(found in the gospel of John 15: 1-8)  

What do I mean?

I thought my image was going to manifest what I wanted clearly in the world.  But all its done is make everything cloudier, messier, harder to figure out.  

I had a clear thought, a clear prayer.  God, I want this ONE thing.

This is what has happened.  Sometimes when I look at it I pray for that ONE thing. Sometimes B. Sometimes C. Sometimes D.  Sometimes all of them.  Sometimes something completely new that I have never thought of pops into my head and I pray for that.

Really?!.  

I’ve been getting angry at God this week.  Angry because this exercise is backfiring on me.  I am getting more and more unclear on what I want.  I’m getting angry at what is showing up.  I’m resisting.

And that is where the image of Jesus as grape vine and we as the branches comes in.  We want our choices.  We want our wants. 

I want to pastor my dream church.  I want to become a mom.  I want to create and found the Sabbath Center.  I want it all.

Well, apparently, we don’t get that.  Jesus did not say:  “I am whatever you want me to be.  And you can be whatever you want to be: vine, pruner, branch, soil...knock yourself out.”  

No.

No.  Jesus said:  “I am the vine.  God is the vine grower.  You are the branches.”  The casting has already been finalized.  (from Nadia Boltz-Weber's blog The Hardest Question)

I don’t know about you, but I resist this image.  I resist the thought that I am not in complete control of my own destiny  -- that there is a will that God has for me.  I fight it.

What I have learned from this spiritual exercise, from staring at these signs all over my house, my car, my office, my life -- is that the point here is not that we have no control over our lives, that the will of God is greater than our own wants and hopes.  Rather, the point is that this image is inviting us to sink deeply into unity with the Holy -- 

then we will be unable to separate out who gets what credit

and that won’t matter

Grape vines and the branches off of the vines are all tangled and messy and it’s just too hard to know what is what.  Kathryn Matthews Huey, blogger for the UCC’s Sermon Seeds, reminds us that “when we look closely at grape vines, we will see the many entwined branches, winding their way around one another in intricate patterns of tight curls that make it impossible to tell where one branch starts or another one ends. This is not just intricate; it's intimate, and the vine shares with its branches the nutrients that sustain it, the life force of the whole plant.  You will find the best grapes closest to the vine, where the nutrients are the most concentrated.”  (from Kathryn Matthews Huey, United Church of Christ Sermon Seeds, May 6, 2012)

We bear the best fruit when we are entwined and intimate with the Holy; when we abide in the heart of God.  Nancy R. Blakely, in a beautiful pastoral reflection on this text, uses the image of "making a home" to describe how abiding in God brings the peace that we long for in our hearts. This kind of abiding is the way God sustains us and showers us with Shalom: wholeness, completeness, and health. Here, close to the vine, we are immersed in God’s Deep Shalom and find not only nourishment but also hope and joy.  We let God's word find a home in us. We find peace about all the things that we face and all the things that we pray for because "what we want will be what God wants, and it will surely come to pass."  (from Feasting on the Word Year B, Vol. 2 as referenced by Kathryn Matthews Huey in UCC Sermon Seeds, May 6, 2012)

  

At first, it does not feel that way.  When we first begin to give into the presence and love of the Holy, to sink deeper into the heart of God, resistance arises -- the Critic becomes loud -- we struggle.

We struggle because we have been programmed by Western Individualism to believe that we can do it alone, ourselves -- that we need no help.  That is the curse of our culture; the curse of the myth: if you work hard enough you will get everything you want.  This is a lie; a lie that sadly is housed at the very core of our bodies and souls.

Here is where the pruning comes in.   As we sink deeper into the heart of God, as we root our hearts deeper and deeper in that of the Holy’s; The Holy lovingly and carefully prunes all that is extraneous; all that is not in line with Her Sacred Holy Energy.  

It feels like a shaking out of our soul; a finding out what is essential.  (Re-Project Community, reROOT,  April 18, 2012)

It is.  It is a shaking out of our soul.  God is pruning, removing, all that is not of the Holy, all the distractions and resistance that keep us from sinking completely into the heart of the Holy; all those cultural lies that embedded in our bodies and souls.

What I have learned over the last week is that this pruning is painful but redemptive.  God gave me a beautiful image and fabulous word.

Resurrection!

To truly resurrect ourselves, individually and communally, we must 

entwine ourselves fully and completely with the Vine that is the Holy, 

root ourselves deeply in the heart of the Holy

and open ourselves to this painful redemptive pruning.

So that when Spring arrives 

we can

branch out, 

spread our leaves 

grow

and bear beautiful succulent nutritious fruit 

that will bless the world 

and reveal God’s Deep Shalom.

Painting into the Shadows.... My Heart Chakra

I knew when I went to paint this painting it was going to be a challenging experience.  My heart had been through much sadness recently.  I went, struggling, uncertain I wanted to do this, and breathing deeply.

I put the paper up on the wall.  Four panels taped together into a rectangle.  Empty.  White.  Ready for me to engage.  I stood there.  I just stood there staring at that paper, breathing deeply.  Sadness filling my heart.  Whispering to myself, “F@^k!”  I felt frozen in time, frozen in space, frozen in place.  I walked back and forth from my paper to the paint and back with no paint.  Numerous times.  Breathing and summoning the courage to take the plunge into the Shadows of my heart.

One last time, I stood.  I remember making the decision.  Saying F@^k!  Picking up the entire black pump container of paint and setting it down in front of my paper.  Pushing that pump down and catching that black paint with my hand., slapping it on the paper.  Again and again and again forming a huge black circle of thick paint.  I felt it squish between my fingers as I added it, spread it, ran my hand through it, engaged it.

I began to add silver and grey to lighten the circle.  Rubbing it in, giving depth to the black Shadow of my Soul.  Then, for some reason, I added a greenish tinted white heart in the center of the circle.  I surrounded that heart with a yellowish white heart.  I did it delicately, tenderly, lovingly.  It was like my Light self was trying to break forth from the Shadow.  I cherished that moment, that breathe, that pause, that reminder that this Shadow, this darkness, this sadness is not forever.  The Light always shines through.

And yet, I was not done with the darkness.  I had to dive deeper into that pain, into that anger, into my broken-heart.  So I took my fingers and swiped them through those beautiful hearts cutting them in half.  I did it again and again, anger rising within me.  I added red to make it more vibrant -- more REAL.  

That made it a little too real.  I stepped back.  Sat or fell to the ground...and stared trying to push that anger back down inside me.  I hate feeling angry.  It scares me.  When my teacher joined me and asked what was happening, all I could reply was I’m angry.  Her reply threw me, “Well, it’s about time.”  Huh....  It was about time the anger rose, really unleashed itself.  

I have noticed this happens to me when I paint or play or create.  I get into the flow of the energy.  I follow it.  I dance with it.  I enjoy it.  I lose myself in it.  I begin to forget where I am, what I’m doing.  And then, out of nowhere, something emerges, bubbles up from the depth of my Shadow self and I realize that I had let me guard down to myself.  Somehow, this painting experience continually invites me to let down my internal guard between my Shadow self and my Holy Light self.  It is sacred.  It is scary.  And this time, it was anger.  Anger bubbled up.  Anger overwhelmed me.  Anger wanted a way out.  Anger demanded that I release it from my Shadow, that I let go, that I get it out of my body, out of my heart, out of my Soul.

And that is what I did.  

I beat the crap out of my painting!!  I put blue in my hand and slapped it hard against that paper, again and again and again.  Sometimes it was a hand slap.  Other times is was full fisted.  I beat that painting until it fell off the wall.  I actually had to stop and reattach it to the wall.  It felt good.  It was quite the release.  The anger poured out of me and onto that painting.

And when I was spent, I began smoothing the paint around covering all the white, blending it into the blackness of my Shadow and receiving the invitation once more to “go there”  -- to go back into the Shadow, into the blackness.  I resisted at first.  I decided that black glitter would have the darkening effect that I felt was needed.  So I emptied an entire bottle of black glitter and all that happened was that the painting glittered.

I laugh at myself and how I can talk myself into ignoring the Shadow, into keeping it at bay.  But this painting was not an invitation to keep it at bay.  This was an invitation to go there.  So I went.  I slapped more black on over the blue.  I worked it in, darkening the blue.  I slapped yellow on the black in one area working it together.  Purple at the bottom.  I kept going between dark and light -- marrying the two together.  Bouncing back and forth.  Working into the shadow waiting for that moment when hope would arise again.

And it did.  The last three strokes of my painting to be precise.  I grabbed the brightest green I could find.  I gently added a small circle of bright green at the center of the circle.  I did not attempt to work it in.  It felt like it needed to stand apart, to stand on its own.  It was complete. 

My heart of my heart showed itself.  Only for a moment, but that was a Sacred Holy moment.  Amidst the anger and pain and woundedness, it appeared.  It said, “Don’t worry, I’m here.  I’m here when you’re raging.  I’m here in your tears.  I’m here in your fear.  I’m here at the center brightening, opening, healing your heart.”  Holy Sacred Moment. 

That is why I paint.  I paint for those Holy Sacred Moments and I allow their blessings to fill me up with love and compassion for myself, for others, and for the Holy.