Visual Transformations: An Earth Woman , a Golden Mask and Love

Paintings, Matt, where are the paintings??!!!  Yes, I know and I'm ready for that time to return.  However, there is a lot of maturing and growing right now.  Paintings will follow.

I wanted to talk about how images and meditations move organically.  Images change as our understanding and growth opens.  Many times, you just don't know what to do with the images.

While meditating, starting first with grounding my self in the loving heart feelings from the Sprituality Maturing dream sequence, I had a new image come to me.

Once I was breathing calm and deep into my body while feeling the surge of the loving heart feelings, a woman in a black burlap bag was in front of me.  In my mediation I took off the bag and she smiled.  I recognized her as being connected with the earth's early people.  She represented an indigenous spirituality, if you will. 

The world was completly ink black.  I breathed those earlier loving feelings of the heart deep into me.  I felt the urge to raise my hands high into the air.  As I actually did this my mediation vision changed.  The world became filled with rich color, lucious green grasses, tall trees and beautiful blue skies.  My hands were holding a sphere of color centered on her in which we both shared.  

I lifted the sphere's surface as far as I could.  At that point a solid gold mask was at my feet.  The mask's face had a hat attached to it.  I picked it up and it was obvious that it was a pope's hat on the mask.  There is only one thing to do with a mask and so I reluctantly put it on.   

It was very awkward.  Could my ego stay at bay while I put on a Pope's mask?

The golden face melded with my face and it became the flesh of Pope John Paul's II.  I've always associated him as a progressive in the Church who broaden the love and forgiveness in the Church's inter and intra personal relationships.

I stopped there.  Time for bed.  :)

I worked with those feelings for several days.  I realized quickly that I needed to bring the two together.  So much of my focus has been about bringing the heart the and the head together in relationship.  She was the heart and he the head.  I finally got the two together.  There were a tight sphere located between by heart and head.  

Another image, during a meditation, presented itself so I could understand that relationship better.  It was two friends from my high school, a man and woman.  I was so envious.  They had a really close friendship even though they weren't dating.  At least not as far as I knew.  They were bff.  I took that feeling and moved that into the earth woman / pope sphere and let that feeling define the relationship.  ....this became very important later.

A couple days past as I reinforced these bff feeling in the relationship.

There are some big dynamics happening right now and I was mediating about them.  All at once clarity happened and I had an answer to my question from wisdom.  At the same moment the Pope was back.  This time he had separated and was sitting directly in front of me, looking right at me.

So now what to do with this image? Working with images isn't always clear.  The best practice is to continue the growth messages from the past heart messages.

I tried to bring the pope back to the earth woman.  They happily joined then he returned, sitting there looking at me.  "What?" I said.

I decided maybe I should approach the Pope.  I approach him, knelt and placed my head in his lap.  He lovingly touch and consoled me.  However, he still was just sitting there.  

He just sat there for several days.  

Then I focused on her.  The color sphere world was getting smaller so I raised my hands during the meditation.  The sphere increase to a point where it included the Pope.  Immediately the Pope became the sun!!!!!!  I cried right there and then saying "I believe", "I believe".

It was a whole complete world of love.  It is what love is.

I was a little confused about the relationship, the Pope was so far from her.  Then I remembered the bff feeling and looked for it.  It was there, they were separated by distance but not by loving relationship.  They needed each other and loved each other in a nurturing way.

Since then I've reflected on my life.  I've felt love but never knew love.  I thought about my first relationship long ago.  She was completely dis connected with her heart.  Unable to let herself feel love.  I starting looking for love.  I realized I've been confusing irrationality with love.  Irrationality is not logical and it does have enormous feeling to it.  It can be fun but also very painful, extreme in its experience.  This must be love, I had confusingly thought.

Now when I see the Pope sitting in front of me he is Chuckling in a giddy way.  Have you ever seen a chuckling Pope?   LOL

I now know the difference and won't ever again confuse the two.  

Happy Day to You!

Who am I and What Role do I Play in Our Relationship

I felt like I wanted to write a poem based on a conversation.  A conversation that was spread over 4 months.  Each smaller haiku is one significant moment within that whole experience.

First, here are some new words I've learned over the last 8 months.
AlCan is what is refereed to as the Alaskan Canadian Highway or as American's say, the Alaskan Highway.
Frost Heaves are sections of the highway where the freezing temperatures freeze the moisture in the ground and create these huge buckles that are like waves on the highway.  Many require you to slow down to 20 - 30 mph in your RV.
SoCal  Southern California
Sweetwater is a county park in San Diego county.

AlCan's lasting sun

"The creative road drives me."

let old journey set

Endless trees wind road

"Matt, trust our moment's sweet fruit."

turn opens, new stretch

Frost heaves jolt RV

"Creative hearts can flourish."

"Be here, path will smooth."

Release Anchorage

embrace timeless Denali

peaceful trust in us

SoCal's rattlesnake glare

"I'm Mother, Go find work, Man!"

heart fades as fangs pierce

Sweetwater's summit

"Dawn, let my feelings, be here."

desert land blows parched

Nested head embraced

soft hands rain out shaking tears

love's space moistens roots.

Needless to say there has been a lot of breaking down of the old structures and beginning to define and start to build the new since January 2009.

This theme of Who am I and What Role do I Play in Our Relationship has come up many times.  Just this morning, I spoke with the grounds keeper here at the park.  (I've had a short term contract to work for him.) He started telling me he hasn't seen his wife and kids in over 3 weeks.  His wife kept laying into him to go find better work and bring in more money, money like he used to bring in.  Work is very difficult to find.

She finally decided to move in with her Mom and take the kids.  She won't return his phone calls.  Apparently, there relationship definitions had turned into him being at a certain income level.  When that went away, so did their relationship definitions and the marriage structure fell down.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time we've heard this story as this recession continues.

The Impossible Question this morning on the radio was "You have to go through 285,000 of these to find the perfect one"  The answer was relationships.  It made me wonder how they figured in Time into that ratio.  We all feel we've found the perfect one when we get married.  As time moves along we grow in the direction of our choices and focus.  It is work sometimes to keep that relationship growing together when both have grown and matured at different rates and diverting focuses.

Pleinku Painting Miramar Lake CA

Cool morning breeze slows

Mocking bird's happy song calls

Paint flows off my brush

Painting Details

It was a really good day painting for the first time with the San Diego Plein Air MeetUp group.  There was a good turn out of about 9 artists.

For the first time, I've heard new comments about my paintings.  The first was a fellow painter who repeated out loud a lesson they took from my painting..... paint loosely.... reminding them self to practice that lesson.  (I've walked away from many a good painting reminding myself of the lessons I had just learned)  A fellow painter also walked up and said.... Matt, you now have a career as a professional outdoor painter.  Wow, such complements!

I made another connection with a beginning painter.  It was good to talk and shed some light for that person.  We talked about color and how to see it.  "Color is seen in relationship.  If you want to see the color of the lake, look at the land and notice the lake.  Its strongest color mass will become obvious and you will start to see how the tonal gradations move across the water."  We talked about how to find the color on the palette..... 1st. Hue  2nd, Tone  3rd, Saturation  4th Temperature.  And of course, we talked about what that really means.

Lastly we spoke of how to deal with the enormity of field view and select a composition.  The experience is one where you start looking for something you enjoy.  You start enjoying and realized you've enjoyed a view that would take 6 canvases.  I introduce Pleinku Painting to her.  Starting off by doing a simple poem helps to put WORDS to what you see and what feels the best.  Let that be the focus and be true to those feels that created the words.  Seeing is a visual language and sometimes it is very difficult to really understand what you are seeing.  Putting words to a poem begins an internal dialog and grows to include the visual langue.    ...take small steps.

The goal is to enter each moment with a unison of experience of the heart felt feelings and the thought of mind.  The mind experience narrows and focuses perception while the heart expands it.  The simultaneous experience allows one to focus on a desired effect while keeping our relationship with the largeness of life open.  This relationship allows for unexpected solution paths to open up and directly impacts the desired effect synergistically.

The narrowed focus of the mind makes it real easy to break the relationship with those heart energies.  I had many of those moments several days ago.  To reconnect during my daily activities I would just remember one of the three dreams.  I could pull in the dinner party.... Matt, you belong here.  The feelings immediately surged and I could reconnect letting those energies flow into my mind.

Fantasy...

As I start paying attention to my thoughts and listening when the heart is not connected I hear my fantasies, my projections.  After I posted my last blog posting, I heard my thoughts in fantasis.... goals that my mind was creating by itself.  I immediately reconnected with the heart.... Matt, Creativity wants to hug you.  Being centered again I was fortunate to very quickly have an image come into my perspective.  It was a blue violet profile of the Madonna holding a child.  The back ground was a low saturated and flowing yellows, yellow-oranges and oranges.  I realized right there and then that my fantasies were not going to happen.  Instead, as the image suggested, I needed to love the blog as a mother would her toddler child.  I then shared that love with the blog.  Immediately the art, etsy, blog and the business i want to start using google analytics was all rolled into one, as if none could exist without the other.

....i'll talk more about daily fantasies as projections and how to look at them later.

Enjoy your day.

Pleinku Painting: Mountain View Cemetery

A Pleinku painting from Oakland CA's Mountain View Cemetery

Her graceful lines flow
confidently steps with love
She leads me onward

Painting Details

Sometimes it just seems like things don't move fast enough.  Sometimes you want so much to be "there" where things are supposed to be moving and you're not.  Anxieties increase or frustration begins to build.  I showed up at the cemetery to meet up with the North Bay Plein Air painting group.  I could'nt find them.  So I went ahead and looked for subject matter to paint.  I looked and looked and looked for a good hour and half.  Nothing was really resonating with me.  I was feeling I should have already found and started to connect with subject matter.  Those negative voices kept getting louder and louder in my head.  I was getting frustrated because I wasn't where I thought I needed to be.

I laughed the other day.  I was actually "where" I wanted to be with things moving.  The problem was things were moving so fast and the situation was so new that I felt it difficult to ground myself in the moment.  It would be easier in a lull period.  LOL

It seems more and more to me that the lull periods in my life are meant for really focusing on the moment.  Really listening and cultivating those feelings that connect the heart and the mind.  Listening to my projections and undoing and maturing them.  The lull really is meant to provide the foundation for the coming growth.  The growth times seemed to have too much dust in the air to see clearly, too much change is happening and it can be very difficult to focus.

I went back to the statue I was to paint.  I quieted my mind by working to clear my thoughts with each exhale.  Any thought that entered I would say "that thought takes me away from the moment".  It would then leave my awareness and stopped bothering me.  I could start to see her lines more clearly and the tones that blanketed her.  Time to paint!

Afterwards I did meet up with the group.  It was really good to meet them and relationships have continued on-line.  I really hope to paint with them again.

Spiritually Maturing So My Outside World Relationship Can Grow

The evolution into Pleinku painting, or any manifestation I create in my life, was lead first from maturing my spiritual relationship within myself.  I'm going to introduce my current spiritual story line and outline three dreams and how i've connected with them.

But first it is important to describe the difference between the thoughts in our mind and the feelings in our heart.

The brain has very discrete thoughts driven with logic.  1+1=2, a very well defined thought with a very concrete boundary.

The heart communicates abstract feelings with associated imagery.  The heart will search the mind to find the best image that describes the new, abstract feeling.  This found image association does NOT have to make logical sense in the mind.  The abstraction is very important because the feelings introduced by the heart are new and therefore our mind hasn't formed logic to fit the feeling.  All new experineces are abstract.  We don't really understand, its brand new.  

And so the heart will introduce an image to reflect the feeling but the mind's logic draws a different conclusion.  The mind can really start to freak out when two or more images are brought together that would create an absolutely ridiculous situation within the mind's logic.  Hence, for a long time dreams have been disregarded as silly and meaningless.

So let me walk you through my last three dreams and how I've worked them into my reality.  This choice is very important for my life and art to grow and mature into new and more meaningful expressions.

Dream 1...

I was with a large group who's purpose was to build a new building on campus.  This building was different in that it was to be built of wood, an organic focus.  The building was to be placed right next to the oldest and most prestigious.  The construction was about to begin when I stood up and stopped the project saying "It is very important that the building's proportions be considered.  The building must reflect the beauty of its purpose".  I was instantly brought to the building site, at the footers.  At my back was a new person for me, my mentor.  He said he will guide me and help me deal with the stress of the build.  

How very exciting, a mentor.  I've wanted one for a long while now!

In my next mediation, I focused on two goals: to fully accept the building project and to fully accept the mentor relationship offered to me.  It was very important to make these choices in an awake state, a state more easily heard by the mind.  I wanted this choice to come from the mind.

Dream 2...

I had two consecutive dreams that had the very same message.  The latter was more clear for me.  

I was in a basement and an invitation had been sent down to me to come up to the dinner on the first floor.  I had many reasons why I didn't belong; however, eventually I went up and was greeted by many people.  It was a very large dinner with a very friendly and festive environment.  I was there, but reluctantly.

I needed to make the choice that I was willing to accept that I belonged to the party.

I first worked on just the feeling of the dinner party.  It was very friendly, safe and abundant.  I just worked on accepting this feeling in my heart.  I did this over several days, just letting that feeling set in my heart.  I reached a point where it was a very large feeling and then I let it move into my mind.  I felt an immense rush and surge through my whole body; physical changes were happening everywhere.  I invited that energy to reprogram my mind.  Create a new thought structure lead by the feeling that would allow me to accept that I truly belonged at the dinner party.  Once this started happening, I felt a physical calming of muscles in my chest around my heart.  My heart's feelings and my mind's thoughts were working in unison.  ....great experience.

Dream 3...

Here is one where the mind can really start to freak out.

I was naked and standing over a toilet as if to urinate.  Directly opposite of the bowl stood another man, who I know and he was also naked.  He stepped toward me, putting his foot right into the bowl as if it weren't there, and hugged me.

Yes, I woke up with red flags everywhere.  Why, what, how, ugh????!!!!

So let's work with the feelings.  The naked man was someone that is extremely creative.  It just flows out of him.  So it was really the most creative part of me reaching out to hug me, not this man I know.  Now naked.... yes, vulnerable with no barriers.  So bringing these two feelings together has lead my mediations.

I've started by just accepting in my heart this feeling of having my own creativity hug me and being totally open to it.  Yes, it feels good.  Some of these mediations may happen while walking into the next room and last only 3 seconds, just feeling those feelings - accepting them.

As I laid in bed this morning I began to let those new feelings move into my mind.  Many times as they moved in step by step, my sleeping wife would move closer to me at the very moment the energy moved more into my mind.  I let the energy fill my mind and it expanded on its own and it created new images.  The final image was an enormous tree whose expanding branches had pushed my brain out to the tips of the branches.  At that moment, I clearly heard my mentor say "that is enough" in a tone that suggested that the fullness has happened.

So again I concluded at a place where the new feelings were brought together in both heart and mind and they were thinking/feeling in unison.

It is so important that I take these steps.  I am in a position where I must create a new way of life and a new revenue path for my family.  The old has died.  The new path can only be found from a new way of thinking/feeling.  I want the new way to be very organic and limited only by creativity.   

Reflections in the Water, starting down the path of Pleinku

Pleinku arrived with me while on a journey.  We, my family, had taken an extended time off to travel to Alaska during the summer of 09.  

Smithers, BC

I underwent quite a decompression and many anxieties came with it as the old structures came down.  For the first time I truly needed to be focused on the moment.  Releasing my projected negative conclusions and seeing fullness versus lack.  It was the best way to find peace and not drive me and my family crazy.

My dreams were giving a new direction.  New images of masculine and feminine together were given, asking me to be a stronger man while having deeper levels of compassion in my relationships.  This all grew into stronger awarenss of the energy in my heart area.

During the day light hours I had a form of walking meditation, living from the exhale.  Each exhale was about just feeling the moment.  If any thoughts or feelings jumped in then they were recognized as projections which kept me from the moment.  I began to see each one for what it was.  I started to connect with my dreams with these projections so both day light and night times could start working together.

The effect of "seeing" while living on the exhale was a clearer view of tones.  I could more quickly see compositions and the tonal masses that connected and moved the eye through the compositions.  I could see the tonal contrasts which were minor and which were dominate.  It was so freeing.

As time permitted I pulled out the field easel and started plein air painting.  I found my self drawn to water. It was everywhere we stopped and always the most interesting.

Alice Lake, North of Vancouver, BC

Just east of Vancouver, BC

I found it odd my compositions, painting upside down trees, but I kept with it trusting this was needed.  I didn't want to analyze them so they could manifest the needed experience.  What started to fascinate me the most was the part where the reflection in the water gives way to the sand beneath. At that point my visual perception had to flip.  I wanted more for this section of the painting but couldn't satisfy my desire.  It was time to start asking myself questions.

After doing these two paintings, I reflected on all of it.  I realized I was painting reflections, or more importantly, projections.  The upside down and right side up was just how I felt.  The sand portion was really becoming a door way to what was behind the projection.  That was exactly where I was, undoing my projections and getting to what is deeper within me.  I really wanted to get under that reflection and swim below the surface.

continues.....