Three Paintings completed

The Fire Inside my Heart

Solitude

Presence in Absence

I completed all three of these last week as I cried my way through the days.  So much emotion that at times I couldn't see the painting through the tears and would have to stop.  I have come to think of those tears as essential to releasing and letting go of so much that I cling to.  Life is full of sadness but it is this sadness that helps us to develop kindness and compassion toward ourselves and others.  I was listening to a radio show about the Romantic poet Shelley today and he had a profound vision of Beauty at a very young age that became the love of his life and his guiding compass. He failed miserably in his relationships with women as the women could never live up to his idealized vision of Beauty whom he saw as a  feminine entity.  I suppose Jungians would say this was an encounter with his Anima and she was very demanding of him artistically.  Not sure how is all works but I know those moments of Beauty are what I live for because when they happen my whole soul fills with incredible bliss and nourishment.  I had a dream last night that I was talking with a shaman and I told her that I had finally figured out how to enter inside the rocks. She told me that now I had to learn how to paint from the inside of the rocks and bring it outside onto canvas. It was a visceral dream and left me with a beautiful feeling of fullness inside my being.  I felt much less alone and realized that I am never really alone but deeply connected to the rhythm of the universe.