It's a much cooler day today, and I am reaching mid-afternoon of a long day of painting. It is a good place to be; involved in a creative task, with the mind stretched upwards, outwards and into the ether!
I often talk about painting being like meditation, or a walk in a powerful landscape: in the absence of quiet or a place to walk, working at the easel is a means of entering an entirely new world, and building a relationship between this dimension, the inner landscape, and the larger inter-relationship-with-all-things.
In my own work, I find a re-synchronisation occuring very soon after beginning to paint, write, make. It is similar to the sense of well-being and/ or wholeness which came after sitting with my Buddhist group back in Scozia: I'd arrive fairly rushed and aggitated, and usually would feel oly slightly self-aware during the meditation, but after the sitting, well, there would always be a significant shift. Unexpected, subtle but definite,clear, un-argue-ably there.
I paint intuitively: it is often a little (or a lot) unnerving to paint through chaos; to begin, and to trust that there will be a destination, regardless of knowing it (or not) beforehand. But this is the essence: trusting, following, being present, spontaneous. It is a metaphor for stance in life; for being alive and attentive to the everyday, to the everymoment. There is a secret that opens in this presence, in the space where one is fully aware: it is something huge and complex way beyond my/ our understanding- but something to do with the connectedness of things on infinite levels. When I paint, once I have finished painting, my mind, emotions, physical being, I am linked into a more flowing and intelligent relationship with the world.
Trying to structure this thought is a profound task which I'm currently undertaking; an attempt to convey the transcendental creative experience! I'm writing a book on how to bring the power of manifestation into our everyday- how to harness it, if you will, and to use it for the betterment of the micro- and macro-cosms.
