Yoga, Art and the Spring Equinox

When does winter end and when does Spring begin?

Today I got up at 5:30 am and committed to an annual Spring ritual. A local yoga studio celebrates the Spring Equinox with a daily 7am morning yoga session.  I am NOT a morning person, I am a night owl, staying up into the wee hours of the night. However the morning always offers me a gift when I decide to crawl out of my warm duvet trailing dreamtime with me as I stumble around in the dark getting ready.  This morning's gift was the color of the sky, I don't think there is a word for the blue that I experienced this morning. I had to clean the snow, yes, MORE snow from my car and as I looked up, there was that sky! A blue so deep it was filled with the dreams of those still sleeping. My reward for getting up.

Rapture in a Mosaic Sky / 36" x 48" / acrylic on canvas

I was so happy to arrive at the yoga studio in this "in between time". It was still dark enough that I had my car lights on to drive and the yoga studio was lit with candles.
The studio has four large arched windows that look out over a Park. I settled myself into the stillness of the room and watched as a whisper of pink glowed on the horizon. As we stretched and breathed and welcomed the morning the light increased. It was a beautiful dawn. My second gift of the morning.

Sleeping Bears 1 / 30" x 36 / acrylic

   Sleeping Bears 2 / 30" x 36" / acrylic

     

We had to set an intent for the week and carry these questions with us: 

"What wisdom do you carry from the Winter?"

"What is blossoming in you for the Spring?"

How appropriate, I thought to myself, that my exhibition PRESENCE is opening in alignment with the Spring Equinox. I have been painting all winter, burrowed into my large, cozy studio in St Henri. With the winter howling outside there were few distractions and I managed to produce a body of work that I am very excited about exhibiting!

So it turns out that my hibernation and artwork is in synch with the seasons and this makes me profoundly happy. Unconsciously I have been letting the wisdom of the work carry me forward through out the long cold months. Now the blossoming of Spring invites those same paintings out into the world.

The last painting that I did is filled with light and the title is from a line out of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Nature: 

“Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.”

Uplifted into Infinite Space / 60" x 40" / acrylic on canvas

Everything inside us is leaning towards SPRING!