Everything’s Different and the Same
In the beginning....
We have really turned a new corner this week with the powerful energies of the total solar eclipse, Mercury in retrograde (along with several other celestial bodies) and the massive crystalline upgrades we are all receiving. Here in Hawaii we are having some powerful thunderstorms tonight which is SO unusual. There are some years we have zero thunderstorms and in most years, maybe once. So when it comes, I definitely take notice.
I love painting at night, especially when I'm starting a new piece. It is just so quiet, introspective and still. Tonight there was so much powerful energy coming through I began a new 30" x 40" canvas with a glob of bright green heavy body paint.
My usual go-to paint is Golden fluid acrylics. I just love the ease, the flow and the great pigment in those fluid acrylics, but I also have a great collection of heavy body too. Tonight as I breathed deep and connected to my womb energy, the color green was coming through in massive waves. As I could feel the thunder and see the lightening, the green became more and more vivid in the eye of the womb. So I took a bright green heavy body and just put it directly on the canvas.
Of course, there are many places to go once you have a bit of paint on a totally blank canvas. I often start my paintings this way, rather than put the paint on my palette and swipe the brush onto the palette before touching the canvas. I just sat for a moment and watched the green slowly make its way down the canvas a bit. I helped its motion with a short spray of water. Then I watched some more. I continued connecting with the energy coming from the great void, the vibrations of this total eclipse, and the power wanting to manifest on the canvas. The totally new begining-ness of a huge blank canvas is always so exciting. I have NO idea where it is going to start, what journey it will take, and I definitely have no idea what will be on the canvas by the time I am done. Or I should say...by the time "we" (me and the universe) are done co-creating a manifestation of Divine Love in color.
I brushed some of the green around and then felt called to a super bright pink. That's when my mind started churning...I began thinking, this is an odd color combination for a dark and stormy night. Hmmm... the juxtaposition of the two colors reminded me of a Lily Pulitzer dress I had many years ago living in New York. When I thought about that dress, I thought about all the years growing up boating with my family out on the Long Island Sound, going to the Hamptons, Fire Island, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. I remember going to concerts at Jones' Beach, waterskiing, tanning, Beastie Boys on the "Boom Box" and looking for cute boys on the beaches. Here I am tonight, 6,000 miles away in the middle of the Pacific...watching the storm light up the pitch black sky, 6,000 miles in physical distance, and feeling like light years away in time.... I'm a mom now, with a teenager that surfs and is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and an 11 year old that loves to golf and flies drones. Now my daughter and her friends surf (instead of waterski), tan, and look for cute boys on the beaches. I say a prayer of gratitude...for endless summers, limitless coconuts, and the warm tropical breezes...and I continue.
I suddenly remembered that "back then" was when I was struck by lightening. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the first of my challenging initiations into my shamanic path. My best friend and I were swimming in the water near a dock that our boat was tied to when a storm came out of nowhere and lightning hit the water. It was painful, quick, and one of the scariest experiences I've ever had. I was reminded of why I am here. Why I paint. Why I teach. Why I mother. Why I pray. Why LOVE is everything.
Tonight, as I sat in front of the green and pink paint, I was in awe that these two tiny globs of paint unearthed all of these memories. Of course this window of time with this powerful Mercury Retrograde is all about going back and reviewing things that need to be reviewed for clues, releases, and insights. I truly do love Mercury Retrograde for so many reasons.
I came back into the present moment where I am here, still, an island lover. Still, an ocean dreamer. Still, a human who cannot even fathom her roots being planted more than a thousand feet from the shore. So much is still the same, but at the same time, everything has changed.
It is amazing to me how much emotion, feeling, power, movement, and energy moves through me during a painting session. If I wrote it all down, each painting would almost be enough for a whole book. Truly. This "Lily Pulitzer" combination of colors really brought me to a place of reviewing my WHOLE LIFE. That's pretty powerful. As I sat and stared into the canvas, I was brought back to my core, my center, my womb, my heart, my energy. I don't paint while the brain is turned on, because my process is heart-energy-visionary driven. When the brain is on, the last thing I want is a paintbrush in my hand. But I DO allow myself to think and remember and process anything and everything that appears during the process. I just set my paints and brushes down while that happens.
I picked up some more paints. I added some turquoise with a brush, and then I was called to the high flow acrylics. The energy was now about feeling deep flow and ease and movement on the canvas.
I once again sat and watched as the paint moved down so effortlessly to the bottom. I listened to the thunder and heavy rain outside my studio windows, and breathed deep. What IS the theme emerging in this energy? As I contemplated that I started to feel the energy of alchemy. Of brightness and color coming from the pitch black night - the void. I began to feel emergence and growth, new beginnings and incredible feminine power. I felt bursts of color, symphonies of the rainbow in the third eye.
Then the power went out.
The house was pitch black. I could no longer see the canvas. My kids were already asleep and my husband was reading nearby. He lit some candles and I looked at this new beginning by candlelight. It was time to let this medicine piece rest for the night as I contemplate everything that is different but yet the same. In the light of day tomorrow, I will greet her again and see what she has to say to us all, Until then, Aloha. <3 Liana