It’s Day Nineteen and I Have Thoughts
Some of us create with an end product in mind, and some of us create because the act of creation gives us life force. If we’re doing the latter, it can feel really important to edit as we go with our end goal in mind. But that’s NOT what we’re doing here. What we’re doing here is getting comfortable with uncertainty. We’re befriending silence. We’re engaging with the painting as though it might be a portal we can fall into, or out of which someone or something may come through.
If we get stuck on correcting what’s wrong, we run the risk of ending the session drained. Whatever is coming through might say “well, to hell with you then if I’m not good enough”, because, hello. Wouldn’t you? If you turned up by invitation to hang out with someone and they immediately started fussing with your hair or fixing your eyeliner, you’d be none too pleased. ESPECIALLY if you’re new to each other. Later, maybe, that kind of tending can be received as an act of love, but too soon and you’d shut down.
I could have spent my (precious, sacred) ten minutes fussing today. In fact, I was tempted, because, AND I KNOW YOU CAN RELATE, it’s hard for me to live with something once I’ve perceived it to be “WRONG” somehow. But this practice is teaching me a lot, and today I leaned HARD on what I’m learning.
I decided that the anatomical issue with her eye drifting too far from the bridge of her nose is not a RIGHT NOW problem. I opted to leave that for NEXT WEEK ME, or maybe even NEVER ME. I turned my attention to what’s RIGHT instead and focused on deepening the embellishments with some Pitt Pen instead of trying to “fix the eye”.
Then, I grabbed the copper. I laid it down thick and opaque over the hair. I needed new ground—a place to rest my eyes without the distraction of all the marks and visual noise from the original quin gold glaze underneath.
Then I added gold details.
In other words, I stopped trying to perform surgery on her face and started adorning her crown instead, and the moment that choice was locked in through action, there was a massive shift in the energy. The draining problem of BuT tHe EyE iS WrOnG disappeared, because the focus was on deepening and illuminating.
I had a purpose, and that purpose was made manifest in that layer of copper that brought this goddess even further FORWARD, eye wonk and all. The life force in today’s practice came from touching down AROUND the flaw. Letting the flaw BE. Emphasizing what was BEAUTIFUL today.
And doesn’t that sound like it could apply to our lives?
Yeah, it does.
See you tomorrow.
xo
Effy
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