12 Jun Paint
The sky got really so dark that I could not see color, late afternoon. By sunset the heavy rain had stopped and I was able to go for my usual sunset walk. Upon my return, I ran back into the barn to look at the painting on the easel again; (I had carried it in my mind, continuing to make changes even while I walked).When I got back, I could see just enough color as I was mixing paint, working on the painting which I had never intended to do at that time. Not being able to see well freed the ideas to flow, more than I had experienced all day, all week, so now I have an exciting new beginning for tomorrow!! I waited for that lower left corner to open up all day long, (actually day after day), and it just did not; it just got more and more rigid, painted w/ideas that I have already learned, applied, painted again and again. (It is hard to break old habits). I applied paint in the dark, knowing how much that lower left corner stagnated, risking what was there, having been worked and reworked, not afraid of losing it at all. I loved how the freedom made me feel, how my hands moved the paint across the surface;….simply, I did not like the ideas that got me so stuck, reminding me how set in my ways I can become. The rest of the painting was so alive but the lower left corner was not reinforcing that source of life. Painting in the dark was more about painting allowing the imagination to soar, as the ideas were flying in from elsewhere, from cultures and travels and from outer worlds. The presence of the rest of the painting was now being honored, reinforced. Breathing life into that lower left corner was much like breathing into an asana pose at it’s maximum stretch, holding it, breathing into it until it really opens, then staying in it as though I had learned to levitate.