An Invitation to Paint...

I’m an Endurer

I stuff it down

stifle those emotions

push them down

down

down

into the Shadow

deep down

into the Shadow of my Soul

I’ve endured 

life

pain

conflict

by ignoring

closing off

the wound that formed

deep

deep down

in the

Shadows of my Soul.

                                              

Until....

one day

by invitation....

I innocently

naively

picked up a brush

dipped it into paint

touched it to paper.

Little did I know

that each brush stroke

each layer of paint

would begin

to open 

that wound

little

by little

by little...

Little did I know

that each brush stroke

each layer of paint

would probe

deep down

into the Shadows of my Soul

seeking that locked

secured

box

where my Authentic Holy Self laid

hidden

stifled

                                                                                                                                      disconnected 

                                                         overpowered by my own enduring.

Little did I know that

each brush stroke

each layer of paint

would begin to 

release

unleash

behold

my Authentic 
Holy Self

begin to bubble up

up through the Shadow

up through the pain

up through the grief

up through the wound

the tearing of my Soul

caused by enduring

 begin to bubble up

bubble up 
those dreams

those visions

those hopes

those longings

that had for so

so

so

so long

been locked in that box as well.

Little did I know that

each brush stroke

each layer of paint

was an invitation

to re-awake

re-emerge

from this sleep of enduring

into the 

vibrant color and Energy

of life

and behold

ME

beautiful

                                                          strong

                                                          authentic

                                                          alive!

Balancing Long Weeks...

I am a firm believer in working at living a balanced life.  I don’t always succeed, but I work at it.  The more I am able to balance work with creative expression and Sabbath, the more my energy grows, the more creative I feel.  It’s like this wonderful birthing cycle:  if I can keep balanced, then I seek to engage my life more and more fully; I have a greater amount of energy I can put into manifesting my visions and dreams in the world.

Holy Week for pastors is a hellish week, really.  Pastors, if lucky have as few as two services that week; if unlucky could have as many as seven to nine services (Easter included in that count).  I was semi-lucky.  I fell in the middle.  Working in a small part-time congregation I had only one of each of the major services:  Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.  Still, I ended up doubling my normal half-time hours.

Since this was my first Holy Week in a long time, I set out to live it balanced.  By balanced I mean playing as much as I worked.  Engaging and feeding my creative artist self as much as I engaged my professional pastor self so that there was some kind of energy for my pastor self to engage Holy Week.  I have to say, I mostly succeeded.  Exhaustion hit, but not until Saturday; collapse happened after Easter Sunday service.  I call that a win!

Anyway, I wanted to engage and feed my creative side.  I have been reading Julia Cameron’s book The Artist Way.  She suggests an exercise of listing things that I like to do and things that I want to do.  Then pick three and do them.  I decided that was the way I was going to keep balanced throughout the week.  I picked three:  cooking/baking, walks/hikes with pup, and painting.  I did them, sort-of.

I cooked and baked every night.  My house became that hearth I love so much and have missed.  Smells of creativity, love, passion filling my small apartment.  Curry.  Chocolate.  Citrus.  Fabulous luscious tastes.  Pleasure.  Eating.  Beauty.  Awe.  Holy.

I hiked everyday.  I will admit I planned ahead.  I planned where to go for my the daily hiking adventures.   I searched the internet for preservations nearby and was blessed by finding more than half a dozen within 20 minutes of my house.  The pup and I explored two new ones and revisited an old regular haunt/hike from last year. We enjoyed the beauty of God’s creation, our feet (paws) on the paths walking over rolling hills, looking at some gorgeous vistas, breathing in the scent of spring, soaking up the Energy of the Holy, resting in Mother Nature’s Goddess arms.

Now, painting.....  I admit that it felt at first like a chore.  To paint in my tiny apartment means I have to rip apart my kitchen.  Set up my kitchen tables as a painting station thereby giving up use of the kitchen for cooking and baking.  My table is my only "counter".  Trying to cook and paint in that same space creates more stress than relaxation. 

I was about to give up the idea of painting when I went and revisited The Secret Play Date (http://kindergartenmind.com/welcome):  a blog about a woman who makes a Secret Play Date with herself each week.  Really cool actually.  Well, the link I hit took me to a play date with a sketch app on her iPad.  Hmmm...  I have an iPad.  I could “paint” on it instead of tearing apart my kitchen daily.  Well, that is what I did.  I spent that $1.99 and bought the app.  I played and had fun and found pleasure and laughter and joy in 10+ minutes of playing on the iPad.

I started out by playing with the different brush strokes, getting to know how they worked, what they looked like.  It was fun.  I began to let go and let happen.  I allowed my painting self to engage the “paint” of the iPad with joy and laughter and spontaneity. 

Each night, I spent time playing on my iPad until I felt a completion with each drawing.  Sometimes it took only 10 minutes.  Other nights I was working at that painting, engaging it, struggling with it for up to an hour.  

Sometimes it was light, fun, playful...  

Other times it was hard, difficult; like walking through that murkiness of power again.  

All rewarding.  All energizing.  All worth my time and effort.

This past Holy Week I reinforced the experience that feeding my creative inner child artist self is ultra important in my journey to manifest these new visions, dreams, hopes into reality.  The more I engage my creative self, the more energy I have to use in manifesting my dreams out in the world around me.  The more I work at manifesting my dreams, visions in the world around me, the stronger the invitation I receive from the Universe (the Holy) to continue to feed and engage my artist self.  It cycles back upon itself, spiraling, liberating, manifesting, energizing.

Try it yourself and see what happens.  Balance your life.  Play as much as you work.  It could liberate you in some unforeseeable and exciting ways.

Struggling with my Third Chakra: Murkiness of Power

A few weeks ago I went to paint my third chakra: power, will, ego.  I thought I was set.  I did quite a bit of work prior to going: reading and listening to Anodea Judith’s stuff on the third chakra, writing in my journal exploring myself in relation to my power.  As it turns out, this stirred stuff up and I ended up battling my painting until I came to a moment, a glimpse, a breathe of closure for the night -- a long late night.

My painting began as an expression of the third chakra -- what I wanted it to look like, what, if it was whole and open and flowing, it would look like.  It was gorgeous.  I loved it.  A large yellow circle began in the middle of the paper.  Then I began to pull down the upper chakras, green, blue, purple; and spiraled them into the yellow center.  I pulled up the lower two, red and orange and spiraled them into the yellow center.  I worked at adding different shades, blending them together, allowing them to mesh, mix, intertwine, and be distinct.  It was enjoyable and I was having a blast!

(I’m sorry that I didn’t take a picture of the painting before I ‘ruined it’.  However, I was playing on my iPad Sketching Ap and created the gist of it.  This image is not as cool as the painted one, but it will give you an idea of the flow, the spiral, the center of yellow bringing together all the chakras in order to ignite and manifest my power in the world.)

When I was done bringing together, blending, spiraling the energies into my 3rd chakra, I wanted to explode that center out across my painting.  I struggled with how to do that.  I landed, after attempting a few different things, on ripping up paper, covering it with yellow, and placing it over the painting shining out from the center like the rays of the sun.  I had a great time.  I love ripping and tearing paper; the sound it makes; the feel and release that come with the tearing movement.  I totally got into it.  I used all the different shades of yellow.  Dumped glitter on them.  Smiling.  Emanating the rays out.

Then all hell broke loose.  Really.  I stepped back (my first mistake) to take in the painting.  Tears rose.  The wound that I thought I had painted out appeared, there in the rays.  Some were solid rays stretching the entire length of the paper. Others were shorter with breaks between them as they reached for the edge of the paper.  When I looked I saw what my chakra looked like, what had happened to my power as I have moved through adulthood, how wounded it has become.  It brought me to my metaphorical knees.

That wound, the one that came forth in my goddess painting, right across my voice, heart and power chakras.  That wound that I had painted out with ash creating a wound on that canvas. That wound that caused me to experience myself split in two, working hard to integrate my dreams and visions back together into one authentic expression.

That wound arose again.  I thought it was gone.  I thought I had painted it out finally when I finished the ash painting.  It felt like it.  That day I was on my knees, tears flowing, clearing, cleaning my soul, cleaning the wound.  But it seems that was only another layer of it.  My teacher shared that she continues to paint out wounds she thought were gone years ago, surprising her again and again.  I found comfort and courage in that.  Comfort that this was normal, for the wound to bubble up again and again a little more each time.  My teacher reminded me that "It only gives you as much as you can deal with in the moment." Courage to face it, to engage it, to have a paint-filled conversation with it.  And that is what I did.  And that is what the next two hours of tough, struggle were all about as I worked and reacted and struggled through the muck of power and woundedness.

I had this deep need to try to bring the rays together back whole solid again.  I attempted a few different things and it was not working.  I so want my power to be whole.  I want my energy to be full of vitality.  I want my will to be strong.  I want to live full of compassion, using my power to transform the world around me. But I learned that will not happen until I wade into the muck of what it means to engage your power as a woman in this culture so steeped in power-over, in silencing women’s voices.  So I began. 

I invited the purple to flow, to teach me, show me, guide me in how to bring it all together.  I flowed it, spiraled it down around the the yellow to the bottom corner.  I pulled the red from the yellow and spiraled it around.  I pulled the green and blue and spiraled it down and around.  

I took a deep breathe and waded deeper in putting a large yellow circle in the top corner.  It came out green.  I added more yellow but it wanted to remain green.  So I let it. Ugh!  

I put a blue circle in the bottom corner.  That one took.  It  came out blue.

There they sat opposite, far apart.  Both wounded.  Both connected by this deep tearing in my soul.  My voice, my ability to express myself in this world wounded as my power and heart were wounded.  It hurt deep down inside to put these two circles up there, apart, alone.  It was right.  It was necessary.  For now that is what my third chakra looks like, that is what my power is like.  It is torn in many pieces, spread out, silenced, working hard to voice itself, to manifest my hopes, my wants, my future, this re-awakening I am in the midst of.  Both needed to show up on their own, standing as beacons of hope, resurrection and wholeness.

And that is when the flames began to pop up, flame up from the bottom of the painting.  As I gave way to the wounds and accepted them, welcomed them, allowed the hope for wholeness to come, I felt it ignite inside myself.  I felt the fire begin to burn once again with a burst of energy.  I painted those flames.  I got into pulling them up.  Allowing them to take over as much of the painting as they wanted.  Reaching right up to that yellowish green circle -- right up through my 3rd chakra to my heart.  I allowed that connection, that integration to begin. 

I breathed deep as the movement subsided.  I breathed deep in a moment of closure.  I breathed deep in a moment of acceptance.  I breathed deep in a moment of true deep tough agonizing healing.  I breathed deep thankful for the courage to engage...

Flowing with the Energy of the Paint

I came to this painting differently than I have with others.  I wanted to continue my conversation with the paint that I am having around integrating my multiple dreams in life.  This time, I decided to set my intention in a different way by asking the painting a question; literally.  I began the painting by painting words with my fingers on the paper; words that represented the dreams that I am seeking to incorporate into my life.  I used the color themes from the previous paintings  -- purple, green and red -- to ask the question.  Then I rubbed the questions, the words, into the paper, into the painting, setting my intention; asking my question.

As I painted the words on the paper, I received an invitation to continue to paint with just my hands.  This changed the painting experience for me.  It became more physical.  There was nothing between me and the paint.  There was no space between the energy of the paint and my energy.  I experienced this painting.  My body had to be fully engaged in the painting for it to happen.  And that was a powerful experience that really brought to life the flow of my energy in my body.

I began by forming circles on the paper.  Purple circles.  Green circles. Red circles.  Then I started moving, blending the paint; pulling the paint up and down, left to right;  allowing the paint to flow however it wanted to.  I added more paint, different colors where I felt the invitation.  I rubbed them together flowing, curving according to how my body wanted to flow with the paint.  Some times I slapped the paint on, large quantities of paint.  Other times, I used one or two fingers to add various amounts of paint and rub them in.  And yet, at other times, I gently added tinted white to bring out the flow of the paint, to allow the colors to do what they wanted. 

I found at times I worked vigorously, really working the paint, the colors and paper together.  At other times, I worked gently enhancing, adding details to the flow.  

For much of the time, I left the bottom right corner empty.  I put a circle there.  First purple.  That wasn’t right.  Then lighter purple.  Not right.  Then white.  Definitely not right.  And finally yellow.  Yes, yellow felt right.  I added different tones of yellow allowing them to come together and become the yellow they wanted to be.

Between changes of the color of the circle, I returned to the flow.  I flowed around that circle awaiting the moment of YES!  And when it came, something broke free; something released inside me.  Something invited me deeper and deeper into the flow of my energy, into how it was flowing, where it was not flowing.  I ran out of time.  The “ah ha” moment came at the right time; awakening me to the work that needs to be done; to the call to go deeper into my chakras, into my energy, into what the Holy is inviting me to do and be in the world.

I have been doing just that for the past few weeks.  I have started writing morning pages (a spiritual discipline suggested by the Artists Way).  I have explored those monsters in my life; those people and experiences that have squashed my energy, my power, my will.  I have written them out realizing that the theme is about my voice in the world.  And that makes sense to me.  

Blue is the color of the throat chakra, the voice, the place from which I communicate my truths and express my thoughts, beliefs, opinions in the world.  Blue is a color I have longed stayed away from in painting.  In my personal supply I don’t have any.  I covered the blue ray in my goddess paint with clouds and the spiral journey.   Blue is the color I chose for those tears on my second chakra painting.  Blue was the hardest color to add to this flowing painting.  (I glossed over the blue time and time when I went to pick a new color.)  Blue is my block; where my energy gets caught; where I have experienced deep spiritual violence.

And that makes sense to me.  I am stuck in the awakening of my dreams and visions.  I am stuck in bringing them to fruition.  I am at the place where I need to use my voice to begin to express and develop these dreams in myself and in the world.   I am at the gathering place -- the place of gathering those who will help me discern and ignite these visions in the world. This requires my voice...

The journey toward integration continues....

A continuation of painting my sacral chakra...

My teacher’s comment regarding painting green and purple on my sacral chakra painting -- “It is there.  Deal with it. (what I heard not so much her exact words)”  has been echoing in my head.  I decided to take this one step further.  I  decided to paint another painting with the question of integrating these two dreams together in my head.  Are they complimentary dreams?  or Are they conflicting?

Images had been coming to me in my dreams, images expressing a merging and yet a distinguishing of these two dreams.  It was almost like they are distinct and yet not.  I don’t know how to explain it.  That was the feeling inside myself that I needed to see on paper and explore through paint and brush.

So I got out my paint and brushes and sponges and paper.  I set up my table for painting.  I set out on this journey to paint out this vision that had been haunting my dreams -- awake and asleep.

I began by painting a figure (myself) standing in the “Bring it on” yoga pose (as a friend of mine has named it), with my arms stretching up to heaven and my feet rooted solidly on the ground.  It feels like a cross between bring it on and praise of the Holy.  I split the figure in half; half green, half purple.  The head reddish-orange.  I worked at melding the purple and green together and it sort of worked, but not really.  I added some white and began to work it into the purple and green.  That was better.  It made it look like the figure was clothed in a multi-colored robe. The head became a sun.  Yellow shining forth from it flowing across the painting.

Then I moved further into the image of my dreams.  The figure in my dreams became a tree that integrated both dreams together.  I added branches flowing from the arms, flowing outward.  The branches curved again into spirals.  That I did not expect, but I should have.  This integration is a journey, an exploration.  It is rooted deep in my spirit and soul, deep in my grounded self.  So I brought the branches down to the ground, bringing the brown into the green and purple and white of the robe.

I picked up the sponge.  I began to add the leaves.  Purple.  Then green.  Then another shade of purple.  Then another shade of green.  I layered them one on top of the other.  I let them come together however they wanted.  

And this is when the journey of this painting become most interesting.  The leaves, the branches, the tree really brought to the forefront the head of this figure.  It seemed to stick out, not right -- at least to my gut.  Orange red did not work.  It did not bring together the two dreams.  So, I left it.  I walked away for a bit to give myself some time away, to allow the work that was done to settle in my spirit and soul.  I took the pup for a walk.

When I came back, I looked at it again.  It was definitely not right.  It needed to be a different color.  I attempted to lighten it with yellow, but that did not work.  Then I had this idea...what if these dreams were like a yin/yang in my life?  So I picked up the brush and sponge and created a yin/yang symbol where the head was.  When I was done, I looked at the painting.  This change, changed the entire painting; the feel of the entire painting; the expression of integration -- and not in a good way.  It felt split.  I could see distinctly the green and purple and how they were not melting together.  And I felt somewhat defeated.  It felt again like that reaction to my sacral chakra when I first put the purple and green together.  Wrong!

“Deal with it.”  Echoing again in my head.  

Deal with it.

Ok.  Breathe.

I went back to the spiral, to the motif of journey and process.  I painted a spiral of the opposing color coming down the side of the trunk and spiraling out at its root.  It pulled the painting further apart, segregating more and more the two colors, the two dreams.  

This yin/yang was not working for me.  It was not helping me express integration.  It was helping me clarify what these dreams were not about.  But how they went together, not so much.  I left it on there though.  I continued the journey to explore the spiral roots of this tree.  I painted a garden on one spiral, combining the colors green and purple.  The purple garden growing out of the green spiral, blossoming out of the center of the spiral.  I liked that.

I painted a forrest growing at the base of the purple spiral, bringing together both the green and the red (from the head).  The leaves appeared unexpectedly, but really brought the spiral to life.  These I liked.  I liked seeing how each dream can bring the other to life.  How each separate dream can offer the grounding fertilizing soil through which the other dream will grow to its fullness.  That is cool!

But I was left with this yin/yang head that was just cutting at the core of the painting.  Look at it.  It really takes away the integration of the two dreams.  

I walked away again.  I gave myself a break from the work.  I was worried that I was running away from the challenge put in front of me.  But I had not clue was to do.  I had no clue where to go.  I sat quietly in the other room.  I played with the pup, because as soon as I sit quietly all pup toys end up at my feet.  What else can you do?

It was in the first game of tug -- real game of tug where the pup was working hard to win -- that it came to me.  The head, the center, the sun (so to speak) of this painting had to meld the two colors together into a color spectrum from purple to green and then smudge into the rest of the painting.  So I went back (to the chagrin of the pup) to the painting.  I picked up the purple and green and covered the yin/yang.  I used the sponge to bring the colors together, to meld them so that you could not tell where one begins and the other ends.  I added yellow to the edges and rubbed it in, pulling the color outward and integrating the edging into the painting.  Then I stood back and looked.  That was better. 

I added more yellow coming from the center, from the sun and shining outward over the entire painting, over the leaves, over the trunk, over the meadow of flowers, over the forrest.  And I left the painting, not sure if it is done.  But I left it with my teacher’s question echoing in my head, “Tell me three more things you can do to this painting...”

It does not feel done yet, just like my sacral chakra does not feel done yet.  It feels like I have made good progress in this processing.  Every time I look at it, I ask myself what three more things can I do to this painting.  One answer comes again and again:  Make the sun rise over a mountain where the peak is a light purple and the shade changes to a deep green by the base.  Yet fear rises within me -- fear of ruining the painting; fear of covering over what it there; fear that is causing resistance, resistance to go deeper and deeper and deeper. 

I need to just do it.  I need to take that deep breathe and paint that mountain and break through this wall of resistance....and yet I haven’t... I just keep staring at it wondering...