Struggling with flow of my throat chakra

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I had thought I would be painting all my chakra layered one on top of the other.  But that was not to be the case.  The previous week, I picked up new paper for my heart chakra.  This week, I choose new paper for my throat chakra.  My heart was no where near complete.  I had a great deal of work to do with that piece, so I could not paint over it, adding the throat chakra as a new layer.

So, I grabbed two pieces of paper and taped them end to end forming a long blank canvas to paint on.  It felt like the energy of my the throat chakra was more vertical than horizontal energy; like it flowed up and down my body more than out into the world at the moment.  That makes sense.  I am still re-rooting after tremendous endings.  I am still unsettled, unsure, foggy in my next steps in life.  So up and down it is!

What is interesting to me is that I did not stop during my painting to take pictures of my process.  I had begun a practice of doing that.  But for the last two weeks, I did not.  I resisted documenting the progression and process of these paintings.  It makes it hard to blog on after a period of time.  What it brings forth is the struggle and wrestling that went on between me and the paint and the paper and my resistance to what was bubbling up from my Shadow.

My teacher took some pictures of the process.  This is the first one she took.  As I look at it, I can feel the struggle and wrestling that went on in the first part of this painting.

I really wrestled with the flow of the painting.  I began by flaming upwards green.  Then moved into circles.  Then finally moved into a waterfall of blue downwards with a purple circle.  The purple circle started out very distinct then became more and more muted until it integrated itself into the fluidity of the painting.

Then black lines appeared distinguishing between the different flows in the painting.  I spent time working on each different “section” getting each one to flow well.

I added blue glitter glue to the middle blue section.  I worked the purple and blue together more in the top section.  

And then the black lines began to bother me.  They felt like they were separating out the flow of the painting, separating different parts of my Soul.  I decided to use white circles to attempt to bring the painting’s flow back.

I carefully and systematically added a white chain of circles all along the black lines from the bottom to the top.  I stood back.  It was okay.  But it was lacking something.  

I stayed there and stared at that painting for a long time.  I took it in.  The white “chain” was not working for me. The black was separating all the flow of the painting.  The painting was disjointed.  Something needed to changed.  So I took my fingers and rubbed them across the black and white and blurred the line into the painting a bit more, attempting to work more flow into the painting itself, to alleviate the separation that was there.

It did not really work.  I stared at the painting.  I stared at the paint shelves.  I stared back at the painting.

I grabbed a huge round plastic platter and rolled black paint all over the edges and put a huge circle on the top right corner and another one on the bottom left corner.  Then I preceded to create the purple star in the bottom circle.

The idea was great until it was done.  When I stepped back, I hated it.  It struck me strongly and negatively.  I dug out the spiral next in a desperate attempt to “make it better.”  As I expected it did not work.  It made it worse.

The next attempt to make it better was to put more large circles down the painting bringing together to two large black circles.  I started with a light purple and moved shades darker then back toward light purple. It had a pretty cool affect, but it did not take away that star and it did not bring the painting together.

That star.  It was to stay.  Time had run out.  Once up, there is no taking it down.  I was stuck with it, literally.

That star and I had to become friends before it would go.  I had to accept it unconditionally into my body and life, accept it as part of me, then it went on its way -- though not in the way I expected...  (More to come on that in future blog entries.)

Lesson Two from the Obstacle....

My teacher sends us pictures of the painting so we can sit with it and reflect upon it for the week before coming back to paint the next chakra.  I had hoped she would neglect that ritual this time.  I did not want to see that painting each day.  I did not want to reflect upon it.  So when the pictures arrived in my email, I added them to my iPhoto and did not look.  Days went by, and I did not look.  I left them.

When I did finally look, I had a strong reaction -- revulsion -- to the painting.  I hated it!!  And I mean hated.

I know where that feeling comes from.  And the thing I have learned about this creative process is that the only way through that feeling is through paint and paper.  I knew I had to tackle Heart Chakra day #2.  I was not looking forward to that at all.  

I did not want to deal with that beam again.  So, I was overly happy when I arrived and the painting was down and folded up!  Yeah!!!  I would not have to tackle that beam.  But the Universe has a sense of humor and put me back in that same spot, literally, to paint that day.  Apparently the Universe thought I had not quite learned my lesson.

There was a difference though.  The spot next to me was full.  I could not hang the painting over the obstacle.  I had to keep it totally in my station.  That meant I had to change the orientation of the painting.  This was a cool idea to me.   I laid the painting on the floor and began to pace around it standing at one end then the other then back until I came to a place of which end was the top and which was the bottom.  Ready, I picked it up and pinned it on the wall.  It was a little too wide to fit in the space.  It went over into the window well and part of the window cill caused a bit of the painting to stick out.  I had to be gentle there when painting so as not to tear it.

I began with gold and put a gold circle in the top corner.  I added yellow to that circle to brighten it up. 

Then I turned to blue, many different shades of blue.  I went over the entire painting with the various shades of blue integrating them with each other, covering over the old blue, the grey (making an effort to not cover over the colored paper I had put there before)...creating a blue backdrop for the painting.  

Then my attention was drawn to the purple circle in the middle of the painting.  It had haunted me since the week before. 

I still felt that brokenness in my heart and wanted to express it.  The purple circle seemed like my heart.  I began to tear paper and make different colors and glue them to the circle.  The objective was to show brokenness and healing all at the same time.  But it was not working.  Things were getting all jumbled together on the paper, in my Soul.  Tears were rising.  I was going down, down, down.  Frustration was coming up.  This was not doing what I wanted it to do (which I realize is usually the case and the place where I learn a lesson).  

I had a “moment.”  By moment, I mean I lost it.  I got so ugh!-ed at my painting that I grabbed the blood red and covered over the entire purple circle and paper pieces and all.  Everything gone!!!  Frustration, anger, everything out of me... 

As I covered over the paper and purple I began to see where the torn up pieces belonged.  They belonged between the two circles, between the blood red and gold circles.  A spiral path started to form in my vision.... bright pink.  I grabbed the bright pink and began to create the path, painting and gluing each piece to the painting.  As I worked, I found peace.  I found direction.  I found inner silence.

Once the spiral was formed I began to take the path down toward the bottom of the painting.  The path was curving around the red circle when a green circle formed.  I stopped working on the path and followed the invitation to create the green circle.  I choose dark green and then lightened it up some with a greenish white.  Once done, the path meandered its way to the bottom of the painting, following the curve of the green circle.

I laid down and stared at the painting.  I took it in for the longest time wondering what was next.

My teacher joined me after I had been laying down for too long.  She checked in with me.  I was stuck with what to do next.  The only thing that came to me was fire; a flame of some sort.  Red.  In the bottom left corner.

Flames had been showing up in other work I had been doing lately.  Numerous flames.  I have learned that images migrate from one piece to the next until they work themselves out of me, until somehow I release their energy into the Universe and wish them well.  (I have not figured out how that happens, but it does.)

I grabbed a crayon and drew the flame on the painting, then I began to paint it in red.  It came up from the base, touched the blood red circle and wound around like a wave.  I ended up adding orange to it to bring more of a flame experience to it.

Then I began to feel the presence of those pink pieces of paper again.  I felt this invitation to create another spiral path from the tip of the flame, following the blood red circle, spiraling into the center.  So I started painting and gluing the pieces of paper onto the painting.  The paper did not spiral as I thought.  My unconscious had a different idea.  It burned upward in various lines of smoke from the tip to the top of the circle.

This is where I ended the night.  Those small pieces of pink paper unsettled me.  I had peace and inner silence until I began to work with the flame, blood red circle and those small pieces of pink paper.  The inner silence was gone.  And I was left feeling haunted...

I knew I would be back the next day, and the next day after that.  I had decided to spend the weekend painting my way through all the Shadow and pain that came with the endings in my life.  

So I ended for the night, trusting the creative process, knowing that I had just begun my work...

Lessons from the Obstacles in Life...

I had covenanted with myself to layer all my chakras on the same painting when I began the second round of painting my chakras.  However, the Universe did not want me to do this the way I wanted.  I arrived to paint and my teacher had taken down and folded up my sacral chakra painting.  I took this as a sign that the Universe wanted me to open my heart to new paper.

So when it became time to paint, I found myself putting together 4 sheets of paper.  Then I realized where I was to paint.  (My teacher believes in allowing the Universe to select where we paint.  She puts numbers in a basket and we all pick.) I picked a tight spot that really would not hold the size painting I put together to paint.  So, I choose to put my painting across two different “stations” and over an obstacle (a beam).  And thus began my heart chakra painting experience that took me down, down, down....

I started with a black line across the painting with a large brush.  Then added some circles in black and some black x’s.  Then the heart appeared.  Blood red.  Then I broke it, because that is how my heart was in the moment, broken, sad.  I used white which made the blood red a mauve color.  

Green came next.  Three different colors. The grass green along the bottom.  The dark green wanted to go with the black.  Then the light green wanted to go in the top corner.  

It was challenging to paint.  The obstacle, that beam in the middle of my painting, made it very difficult  to paint the way I normally paint, with my hands.  I could not put much pressure on the paper or it would tear.  The paper would not stay where it was, so making movement or shapes was challenging because I did not know how it would come out.  I could not get paint to meld together.  It just was not working.  I was getting very very frustrated and angry and short-tempered!!

What color is frustration, anger, short-tempered? my teacher asked. Blue!  So I started putting blue all over the right side of the painting.  It was not working.  I could not get the various shades of blue to come together.  I could not get the paint to smear and move on the paper.  The painting kept coming off the wall because I would put too much pressure. 

Ugh!!!

I moved to the other side and attempted the same thing.  And, of course, it did not work.  I ran into the same problems.  I also could not get the colors to come together in the middle.  I got so frustrated that I grabbed the black paint brush and painted the left half black and left the right half blue.  

It felt like I was painting two different paintings.  So I made it look like I was painting two different paintings.  Then I flopped on the floor in frustration and anger and tears came and I was stuck flat on the floor (literally).

My teacher reminded me not to be attached to the story.  She asked me what I could do.  I told her paint the whole damn thing black!  She thought that was not the best idea,  it was a cope out.  And it was.  I was battling my obstacle.  

When I finally moved off the floor it was purple that I grabbed.  I made the heart into a purple circle.  I covered it over.  It was hard to make a circle.  The paper kept giving me a challenging time.  It kept coming off the wall.  I couldn’t get the circle in the middle of the paper.  I couldn’t get it to look round.  Frustration again!!!

Finally I just gave in.  I gave in to the fact that this obstacle was not allowing me to take my normal route.  I had to be creative and paint a different way.  Ah, the lesson....

Once I did that, once I breathed that awareness in; something changed.  

I learned that putting a massive amount of paint on and gently guiding the paint where it wanted to go worked.  The circle formed.

I then wanted the black gone.  I grabbed the white and just put massive amounts of white over the black creating grey.  

I wanted color.  I wanted a reflection of this new learning:  that I need to open my heart to a new creative way of being in the world.  So I grabbed paper.  I began tearing it into pieces.  I smeared it in my pallet and smacked that paper on the painting.  It did indeed bring color.  I did not try to stop the drips.  They were bringing additional color.  I just allowed it to do what it wanted.  I allowed the paper to tear the way it wanted.  I allowed the color to mix on the paper the way it wanted.  I gave in to the paint, paper, and process.  I released my anger and frustration.  I let go....  finally....

When I was done, I stepped back.  I have to say I was unhappy with this painting.  I did not like it.  I strongly disliked it.  It was horrible, my Critic said.

It was not horrible.  It was still split in two.  And half of it was torn into pieces.  I had indeed painted my heart in the moment.  

That morning, I had moved out of my apartment completely. The life I had known for the past 10 years has ended.  The partnership ended.  I became homeless living between friend’s houses.  I gave up my dog, my adventuring companion.  I am alone. 

Part of me had already processed a great deal of this movement in my life, had processed the death of it.  Hope was there.  Color was there.  Transformation was beginning.  A new Call has been experienced.

But a huge part of my heart had not quite realized what leaving, really truly leaving would be like.  That day when I closed the door to my old apartment, keys and pup inside, me outside my heart broke like it had never broken before.  I sat on the steps and sobbed.  The pup laid on the other side of the door and whined.  I cried harder and harder and harder.

As I look at this painting today, reflecting back upon the night I painted it, I captured the moment, the sadness, the brokenness, the tearing.  All of it, through paint and paper.  

I learned that to overcome this obstacle of brokenness I needed to be open to transforming the way I am in the world.  If I do not want to manifest the same thing a third time, I have to go about it a different way.  If I want to move into Future Me, I need to open myself to creative ways of being, creating, healing, living, manifesting in this world.

So be it!  Lesson learned....  

A Conversation with the Holy....Painting my Crown Chakra

This is my Chakra, so to speak.  I am a pastor after all.  I have spent years working through my own theology, working at connecting deeply with the Holy, wrestling with angels, listening to God’s Call and Guidance.  I continue to do that each time I put my hand into paint and put that paint on the paper, each time I sit down to blog, each time I open my journal, each time I walk the labyrinth, with every breathe I take.

I was excited about this Chakra...looking forward to what the Holy would reveal to me.  And then I began....

I decided I needed to be expansive.  My faith, my spirituality is becoming more and more expansive as time goes on.  I am no longer contained within the bounds of Christianity.  So I grabbed more paper than usual and covered the wall I was painting upon with paper.  It was a bit intimidating, but I was looking forward to it.

I grabbed a brush (which I rarely do) and began with circles echoing up from the bottom corner and down from the top corner.  Yellow echoing up.  Purple echoing down.  The image came from my dream the previous night.  It looked totally cool.  I liked it.  I liked how the circles met in the middle; how they created a vortex, a center, a Holy Place.  

And then the black showed up.  The next image that popped into my head was a solid black line across the entire painting.    I struggled with that line.  I know what it’s about.  I know what God and I are currently wrestling and I did not want that reminder.  But I put the line up because that’s what you do.  You trust the brush, trust the paint, trust your unconscious to speak to you through paint and brush.  I spread the black line with my hand, adding red and dragging that red up and down like fire. As I stood back I saw the eyes.  I continued with the red, making place where the purple circles intersect into eyes.  It sort of freaked me out, but I kept going....  

Adding the chalice.  First in brown, then filling in the drinking part with blood red.  That stopped me in my tracks.  I don’t actually believe that the Cup is really the “blood of Christ.”  I don’t.  It is just a sign, so why did I put blood in that Cup?  I don’t know.  But I did.

I have resisted religious imagery for so long.  Each time it has arisen, I have ignored it.  Somehow this time it just came out before I could stop it...  And then the water came.  Really?  

I stepped back and sat down on my stool....and the wrestling began.  God and I have been going at it for a while now.  I am making plans.  The Holy is laughing at them.  I am  trying to move away from pastoring.  The Holy is creating numerous opportunities for me to continue to pastor.  I am resisting.  The Holy continues to keep dialogues going with Search Committees.

I want the circles echoing out into the Universe.  The Holy is reminding me that those circle are showing up as the Chalice.  Accept it!  It is part of me.  This is my history.  This is how I grew up.  This is a major part of who I am.  I may be opening my heart to a more expansive experience of spirituality, a more open way to connect to the Holy; but the Holy is reminding me about my roots.  (After all, the Crown Chakra’s element is Earth.  We come full circle from Earth in our Root Chakra to Earth in our Crown.)

I did not want to accept the Chalice.  But I did need to open my heart to what the Chalice had to teach me.  My teacher reminded me of that.  Don’t get stuck on an image that shows up.  Accept it, thank it,  and move on.  Allow the next color, shape, and form to show.  Allow my unconscious to teach me what it needs to.  Trust it.  Trust the process.

The process was telling me to create light shooting up, shining forth from the top of the Chalice.  I did just that.  White, yellow and purple flaming up to the sky.  That felt better.

Then the purple filled in the remaining white space between the water and the black.  And I began to play with the blue, green and purple of the water, melding them together.  The blue began to move up the painting to the top left corner.  The green to the top right corner.

I continued to work at bringing the Light out from the Chalice.  Interweaving it with the blue and green.  Allowing those colors to become part of the Fire.

And then the bottom of the  Chalice started to bother me.  It kept telling me it wanted to reach the bottom of the painting.  I was annoyed with the Chalice, so i did not want to do that.  But it just wouldn’t leave me alone.  So I grabbed the brown and brought the bottom of the Chalice to the base of the painting.  Then the Chalice did not have the right balance between the Cup and the Base.  I worked at that.  It kept getting bigger.  Ugh!!!  It was bad enough to have it up there at all.....

The Chalice became all blood red by the time I was done.  Huge and blood red and majorly bothersome.  My teacher encouraged me to keep going, to not stop.  “What is the next color?  Don’t get caught in the story of the image.  Go to the next color, shape, form.”  Fire.

A red, yellow and orange flame coming up out of the Chalice, like the flame that came up out of the Ash in my Ash painting series...

The problem was that flames are really hard to make (for me).  That was the image in my mind.  It did not happen.  As I began to get agitated that it was not working, I heard my teacher’s voice echoing in my head “Start with the images in your head and open yourself to how they want to show up on the paper.  They may not turn out the same on the paper.”  I breathed out my resistance, my frustration, my agitation.  I breathed out my perfection, my want for that perfect flame.  I released it to the Universe...

and went back to my painting...to the flame that wanted to come out of this Chalice.  It was more like Fire, exploding up and out.  

Then came the gold.  I started with circles along the Chalice, but that did not feel right.  So I took painting in my fingers and made a solid line up the sides creating spirals.  That so tremendously helped.  The painting was beginning to come together.

Now it looked like a bundle of wheat just harvested, held together by the gold spirals, on Fire with the Spirit.  Hmmm....  I can get into that image.

There was one more thing that was hugely bothering me.  My eyes kept moving to it and back.  I actually put down my brushes and began to clean up, to give myself some space, to see if the painting was done.  But that spot kept bothering me.  It kept nudging my Soul.  Something needed to happen there.

It was in the top right corner.  The purple circle was bleeding through.  The black line was blocking the movement of blue and purple.

I decided to address it.  I put a gold circle up and began to pull the red into the circle so that the flame spread up and across the painting, bringing it all together.  Then I brought a spiral from the center of the fire out to the gold circle.  I stepped back and got really annoyed.  The spiral in the gold circle was upside down.  It did not work.  I did not like it.  It stared at me, hauntingly.  But, as is the process, once there it stays.  It is part of me.

I began working with purple down to the right corner.  Working up and down, working purple and blue into the black, integrating the up and down movement together.

Then I grabbed a white-ish green and put it over the gold circle with the spiral; pulled the red back out.  Added a bright pink into the flame.  Brought the spiral’s tail to the edge of the painting so that it’s beginning morphs into the circle.  I stood back and finally felt like I liked the painting.

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When I look at the painting now, I can see the Holy in me.  I can see that spark of Light and Incarnation flaming up out of me.  

The words of Hildegaard of Bingen echo in my soul:

“I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every spark of life.  I, the fiery life of divine essence, blaze in the beauty of the fields, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars. With every breeze, as with invisible life that contains everything, I awaken everything to life. The air lives by turning green and being in bloom. The waters flow as if they were alive.... I am also Reason, having the wind of the sounding Word by which all things were created, and I breathe in them all, so that none may die, because I am Life...”

(Vision 1:2)

Catching on Fire...

This round of Chakra paintings I have covenanted with myself to layer one on top of the other and watch what happens within me and the painting.  So I stood, looking at the semi-finished Sacral painting from the previous week, with my teacher’s comment from earlier in the day echoing in my heart: “You went back to the surface instead of working through what your bumping up against.”

She is totally right, of course.  I did.  I retreated into my inner garden -- the garden I retreated into to find a sense of peace in the midst of the storm I was in last week (and am still in this week).  That is okay.  I went there....to a certain extent, as much as I could emotionally in that moment.

I knew, as I looked at the painting preparing for the session that evening, I would be going back....back to that blood red....back to what I’m bumping up against.  I also knew I needed to move the painting, to change its direction.  The movement felt vertical not horizontal.  So I took it down and was “caught” by my teacher.  (She has a practice of letting the Universe choose where we paint.  For the last few weeks she has allowed me to paint in the same place because I continue on that same painting.)  With my painting in my hand, she decided the Universe should tell me where to paint.  Her wisdom was totally right.  I needed to move to a different wall, a different space.  I needed to be in a more open space, not in a corner.  I needed to not be able to hide from myself, to curl up in the corner and ignore what needed to be faced.

The Universe put me on the most open wall in her studio.  Hmmm.....  

I put my painting up in the middle of the wall.  As I looked at it the only color available to me was blood red.  

I was being invited back to the place I had left last week.  

I was being invited back to the spot and moment when I fled.  

I was being invited back to learn more about this sorrow and wound that I am currently living in.

I was being invited by the Universe to work through it this time...

Not to flee...

But to stand in the midst of the waves that crashed up against me threatening to knock me over.

So I grabbed the blood red.  I knew what I needed to do.  I painted the entire painting blood red.  Covered it from top to bottom, left to right.  Covered it completely.  Hands stained red.  Blood red under my fingernails....

Then I grabbed the white.  That was the color I fled from last week.  I grabbed it and began to allow my hands and Spirit rub the white into the painting.  I began about a third of the way down the painting and began to rub into a column of white.  I curved it.  It felt like I was creating a tornado flowing up and down my painting.  Then came the circle. 

When I stepped back, I saw the shape that the white made and that took me down:  an “S”.  That makes sense.  My heart is breaking from an ending of 10 years.  I feel that loss deeply within my Soul.  I want to ignore it.  Move forward.  Leave that pain behind me.   Look to the future.

Problem is my heart is broken in two.  I’ve been pushing hard the past month and a half to move (literally).  To do that, I’ve been stuffing down that sorrow, the fears that are rising up in me about being alone, about not having a plan for what is next, about leaving all that I know for something completely unknown and unpredictable.  

The blood red and white are inviting me to face those fears, to feel that pain, to invite my Authentic Self, my Soul to show itself and teach something about this space I’m moving toward; about Future Me.

So I grabbed the black.  I created the storm cloud over the “S.”  

And that is when the heart appeared.  I put the heart in the top corner and stopped dead.  Tears rose.  I felt frozen because I knew what needed to happen to that heart.  I knew I needed to break it.  But that made it real... a little too real...  physically breaking my heart.  

I took a deep breathe.

Then another....

And another....

I stood up on the stool and ran my fingers through the heart, breaking it....

And that sent me back to the floor....back to the tears....back to what this series is all about...

I sat there, tears flowing, awaiting the next invitation; feeling that broken heart.... until black arrived.

I pulled black down from the cloud to the bottom of the painting, like the Pillar of Smoke that guided the Israelites through the Wilderness in Exodus.  

And that started the movement...the movement through to a glimpse of Future ME.

Fire came next.  A Pillar of Smoke by Day.  A pillar of Fire by night....

Fire starting at the base....flaming up the painting... 

Red.....

Orange...

Gold...

Flaming up....moving my energy up the pillar of smoke, up....

Up....

Up....

To Green that flowed from my broken heart... like a waterfall

Falling down the painting....

And Light....bursting forth in the top corner....

It was supposed to burst forth from the fire... at least that is what I wanted to do.

It didn’t do that.  It burst forth as I ball of Light.  And not bright yellowish white Light, but cloudy grey muddled Light.

That brought me to a place of stuck and agitation.  My mind kicked in.  The Critic began to tell me that it was ugly, that it did not work, that I had messed up.  

And I began to feel contained.  I resisted it.  My teacher asked if I needed to add paper.  I said no.  I was fine with what was there.  She knew I was bumping up against my box.  I was ignoring that.   The Light bumped hard against that box I’ve been working at bursting out from....

So my Soul, which has learned that when I don’t listen one way, it will try again a different way.   My Soul knew I needed to burst out of the box I had put myself in with just two pieces of paper.  My Soul knew I needed to be expansive. 

So...it gave me brown.  I had no idea what to do with the brown.  I just knew brown.  I put it over the black.  Brown from top to bottom.  And I began to pull it out and up.  I began to realize that I was creating the trunk of a tree.... My Future ME.

And I felt contained.  The paper was too narrow to create a tree with branches like I wanted to.  So I added paper.  My Soul won!

I covered the side panels with blood red so they would integrate with the painting.  I pulled the brown trunk onto the panels.  Then I began to allow the color, the fire, to flame up through the tree...

Red....

Orange....

Green...

White purple...

Covering my broken heart....

covering the ball of Light...

The tree became the Light....

And I found myself again...in the midst of the tree... as the Tree... 

the Tree of My Life.... 

Grounded in the Earth 

reaching up to the Universe

burning 

bursting forth

expanding