“Oh yes, Let us burn and build, then burn again. I know I will. Drink when most thirsty, and bathe when my bones are the most cold. For I ache for that ache received within the holy ground of opposites meeting. The place where white can formally meet black in its entirety. Where thirst can meet water in a wild rush. Where warmth is witnessed without having yet forgotten what it feels like to be cold.
Within that space is the purest, un-distilled experience.
In this place, where a dry desert tastes the first drop of rain, and a weeping man meets the eyes of a child smiling, that is when all becomes whole, one, that is God.”
-Me, right now for some reason
Alchemy. An exaltation of our Dream. A prayer to the gold created through transmutation.
This was a tremendously strange experience painting this- in fact when people ask about the process I feel a bit gross casually saying ‘oh it was a vision that came’. Nothing wrong with casual of course (salute to a few men in my past) but when discussing things in the realm of spirit and interconnectivity I hesitate to do any paraphrasing. We either sit down and melt our brains discussing this stuff or we keep it short and sweet.
And those of you who are here reading this are the brain melter type I assume. * Though I don’t recommend assuming often. That gets you into trouble.*
GAH. GET ON WITH IT.
no. I will not. I will not rush.
Last September I took part in a life altering experience with a specific brew of plants. The famous Ayahuasca. It is trendy right now, yes. And it is almost comedic when witnessing the -casual- nature at which it is spoken about. A plant that rips one’s sheet off from their eyes to witness a reality that is SO gargantuan that it overflows from your pupils. It overflows and overflows like rivers and pours into your mouth and into your blood and holds you within the rhapsody of it until you burn away and rebirth yourself.
And so I was. And for the months after this I heard languages and saw visions that would shout me awake at night and slam into my eyelids until I wrote, or sang, or painted them.
This was the loudest of them all, or most persistent. And I was a very willing servant to the creation of it. Fueled energetically by the air around me it seemed. Hours and hours I poured into it without fatigue or doubt (which are old friends)
Now, I am not a huge proponent of articulating the meaning of things. With each articulation of art and love it seems to lose pieces along the way. Like trying to understand a song by studying each note. But I am gonna do it anyway because I am under no obligation to be the person I was a minute ago.
This painting is a representation of a journey towards our Choice. Something I believe sits atop one of the highest pillars - choice. A decision. The decision.
At the bottom of the painting is the ‘earth bodies’. A form that is both the masculine and feminine, duality, and grounded body (the jaguar was a personal addition but I am keeping that significance to myself) standing amidst the protection of its ancestors. This body, us, hands the golden arrow upwards to Dream. She is the vision, the artist, the spirit and muse that sends this arrow into the ether, to all. But without our decision to believe in it, or handing her the arrow, she has nothing to shoot.
Above the dream, is our highest self, the grandmother, the all loving and all knowing that holds our journey and choice within her arms. For it all is as simple as a mother’s love as she hears her child’s first breath, watches her child begin to walk, speak, and awaken to themself. She loves the stumbles just as much as the step. Because she loves them.
And that is everything no?
Just as we love our mistakes as much as success because mistakes are the bricks to build it. We love the package deal of it all. Even not loving something is a package deal with love. HA!
And this painting is it all. It’s the beginning and the end and the fact that both are the same.
It is the Will, the want, the fear and failure, within the hands of what is bigger than us. But also, us.
This all sounds quite grandiose, yes. Dramatic, if you will (a word I often rephrase to simply ‘important’). And it is to me, yea. It means this all to me when I look at it. That being said, so do rocks. And fishes. And poorly frosted birthday cakes.
It’s all part of it’s all its all ‘spart of it all its allpa r its prt all ofit al lllitissslapaopatrospofita itallpoartitodalllllpritsalleverything.
So choose your dream, hand it to the archer, and let it fly….and the journey will begin. As you choose your dream you choose to persist through the shadow and discomfort of the journey to Self. Keep walking. And as you show your will, so will the world show you love. You will break you will burn and you will baptize your ashes with water and spit and tears. You will stand up amidst seeming nothingness and hesitate to continue.
And with each minute of this madness, this story, each second and millisecond within it,
we are met with a choice.
To believe or not to believe in more?