Today, for I was unable to paint yesterday, more about why below … I painted the tree to the left in several colors, which took some bulk of the time before I had to rest, due to my back. I used a mix of Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, and a pale mix of Neutral Gray/Titanium White/Acrylic Glazing Liquid, until I felt that I had matched the mushroomy tint found in the original Nature (foto). (Nature) (NATURE!)
Why do I do that with that (word) Nature? Because it is threatened. Because I’m painting something that exists now that was threatened then. That as I’m painting is light and free, but was some kind of fearsome threat then. And I cannot help but paint it this way.
Do you see?
I am flashing back, yes, as I listen to something like Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, right, perfect for this painting, this historical period of time, the Vietnam Conflict. But the jungle is innocent in this foto. In this painting. I feel like apologizing for its innocence, its joy, its playfulness.
For my intention, and my original feelings when I started the series were shocking and horrible. Those feelings are lost, gone. Am I to force myself to remember them while I paint? to put blood in the forest in the abstract?
No.
The jungle is reborn, even in the ancient old growth, every SINGLE moment. I will not add the war that was, that for some still is. I continue to flash but it does not reach the painting anymore. They no longer connect. I have been healed to some extent of … my Vietnam trauma.
Some. for I just flashed on the … well, continue to flash as I speak of it. It’s all still there. But it refuses to taint the jungle. I shall not paint with a knife after all.
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I am growing, too.
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Yesterday a friend drove us to Frederick, MD. It has been YEARS (!) since I’ve been there and it is only 30-40 minutes North of here, across the lovely and thick, powerful Monocacy River, where we like to hike, on the C&O Canal. (that runs from Georgetown (DC) to Pennsylvania (woo!).
Frederick is amazing. Food, shops, antiques, galleries — we went to the Curious Iguana, this wonderful bookstore where I wanted to eat all the books they were so incredibly deliciously inviting.
For real.
I took my first novel Rebekah’s Closet and the owner Marlene said she would read for consideration in the Local Authors section. Woo. We shall see. It’s a … delicate, fantastic, raw, confessional, ? read.
I also took one of my freshly printed (!) getting them out (!) Flash Sale cards to a local art gallery just on a whim (eep!) and am to call back in a week to see if they would like to show any of my paintings or fotos. We shall see. 🙂
Then we walked around for fun, and had a lovely Thai lunch, conversation — fun!!!
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walked Chipper, cooked dinner for the week, did a load of much-needed light clothes (white tees!) and crashed —
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lit the candle on my altar and meditated to Ravi Shankar
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did my belly strengthening exercises — woo!
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Tomorrow is a heck of a day, with a doctor appointment for medication management at eleven am, then picking up the Wild Peonies at what is now Washington ArtWorks in Rockville, MD, then going to drop (I hope) a good deal of cards at Plaza Artist Materials, also in Rockville.
Whew! then prolly to crash again. So not sure about anything like painting or blogging tomorrow.
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Today the flashbacks were bad starting with brushing my teeth and during my bath, suddenly. I dreamed last night that I painted six large abstract paintings in my old room (my first one) in my “growup” home, on six full-size easels like the one I have here, in the nude, and exhausted myself in the process, then fell to the floor. My mother then came to the door, and said, “I don’t like them at all.”
I don’t know if that is related to the intensity or sudden return of today’s flashbacks, for recently the flashbacks have been while resting or very intermittent, compared to the full-on, full-up, arresting nature of the ones today, much more traumatic and interrupting, not fleeting and more manageable. I had been thinking that the Prozac increase from 30-40 mg had really been a good thing, or this Meditation for the Love of It book was really doing wonders for my psyche, or Spring, or … all three?
But this was surprising today. And of course I can’t tell you what I flashed on, to protect the guilty. Bah.
Effing Eff.
Just reporting that.
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Maybe it’s because I seriously meditated to Ravi Shankar for about two hours last night.
One thing that is in the Meditation book is there is this layer (some dark layer I forget the name of … lemme go get the book) I looked it up, the Causal Body (what a weird name for it) anyway)
apparently the Causal Body layer is dark and has stuff you need to process psychologically and clean up or you (I think this is how it works) at the very least will suffer in this life, and at the most you will suffer in other lives — gah
so, how do you get at it — you meditate and analyze your dreams and go to counseling and stuff — you don’t avoid looking at your stuff — looking at the mirror — you listen to people, friends, family, folks, life, Nature — everything — you are AWARE — all the time — to what is going on around and within you — so that you can be on top of your stuff — no denial, folks —
it’s yours — or you will suffer for it — your karma
dude
so I’m on that stuff seriously — you might have noticed — 🙂
but even I am in super-denial about stuff out of fear and pain, serious pain in my heart and psyche — like bouncing around inside myself with personalities it’s so hard — for real —
anyway — so i’m working on it
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I can’t say enough about learning and meditation being the way out of suffering — and the way in, kind of, heh — but it’s so worth it
it’s like exercise —
doing my belly exercises — it will NOT get better unless I work go there, there specifically — I cannot avoid going THERE, exactly where I cannot bear to go — ha
that’s how it works —
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okay — I’m a paint some more because I’ve got some more energy 🙂
have a good night!
amyjacksoncc 