When a Resource Whispers During Challenging Times

I recently followed the whisper of an impulse to take a 2 hour online painting class. I’ve been experiencing overwhelm and a lot of painful feelings as I support my 92 year-old mother who has been developing dementia, and I didn’t feel like painting. But I know it can be fun for me. I didn’t quite feel like committing to anything even as small as this but it was with someone who’s online course I loved 6 years ago. And there was a glimmer of curiosity because Flora supports a process she calls “The Art of Allowing.” It’s the kind of spacious invitation to notice what is calling to me that is right up my alley of things that can feed my soul during tender times. So when the email showed up I followed the quiet voice and let the bedraggled and burdened and “sloggy” parts come along too.

What calls to you?

The invitation was to paint together on zoom following Flora’s lead to “tend the soil of our soul” while “allowing our creative spirit to reveal a mystery upon our canvas.”

The mystery is what intrigues me.

It’s about seeing what might emerge and following that.

The theme was to support the inner “lush gardener” and to “follow the meandering path which leads beyond the garden gate.”

I haven’t been feeling lush. And although I’ve long had a passion for gardening the feelings have been buried lately. Even seeing color in my garden has felt like too much. These are common feelings when we are feeling overwhelmed or depressed.

I could also grumpily feel the draw to play with paint, make a mess if I wanted to, and see what might show up in a field of support with others who were also doing this in a gentle space that allowed us to be wherever we might be.

Making room for the unexpected

After greetings, Flora started the class with a guided meditation that led us to a gate. I dozed off a few times and considered just laying down and listening to the course instead of painting. The bed magnets pulled at me and the weariness made me want to give in. It would have been ok to choose that option and I knew there would be a recording that I could watch later. Instead, I decided to take the next step, stay vertical and see what might happen since I’d made the effort to show up.

When I opened the gate in my mind’s eye during the guided meditation, the first thing I saw was the soft lace of gray green moss draping off of branches. Opening the gate a little further, I saw trees standing in the brackish water of a swamp.

The water was still. Like a mirror. And it was Quiet.

It was far from anything I would think of as a lush garden for the theme of the class. But it felt peaceful. And my soul felt met.

Looking around, I saw a flock of white lotuses floating to my right. I had thought of the lotus the day before, a flower I’ve been drawn to for years now and that I have adorning the walls of some of my living space.

And then I found myself gently floating on my back in the dark brown water filled with riches from soil and who knows what other goodies.

It was an unexpected bright beginning to the class. The things that surprise us are a sign that we are allowing something to emerge rather than trying to make something happen. It was an indicator that I was listening and present to whatever might want to show up if I made space for it.

The experience gave me the colors to start painting with: the gray green of the moss and the brown of the swamp water. Then, for fun, I was drawn to gold as a 3rd color.

This led to the dabs of paint in image #1 at the top of this section as we created the background and the foundation for what might eventually make an appearance. After the first layer dried, I added the moss green. And on the third layer in #2 above, and in the section just below, I added the white lotus blossoms.

What are you drawn to?

Playing with paint turned out to be the fun that the whisper had imagined it might be.

It woke me up and brought in a gentleness that has been helping me with the challenging experience I am working through with my mother’s circumstances. It’s a softness that comes and goes in between the grief and resentment, the rage and a familiar feeling of my life being interrupted. Being with Flora and her guidance while also having the freedom to follow my own impulse was settling. Joining others who were enamored with the opportunity to make space for painting added another dose of connection in a time when it’s easy to feel separate.

After the class I sat with my painting in #2 above. I loved how it felt with the colors and brush strokes, and how it held a feeling of the riches and magic of the swamp. It didn’t need to be anything more.

Yet I was then drawn to embellish and emphasize the lotus blossoms, as seen in #3. I highlighted their presence with layers of brown water beneath each one. I then made them literally stand out by mixing a thickener with more white paint. I bought that thickener years ago and had never tried it before. It was sandy and gritty and that unexpected oddness was ok with me. Maybe even a little more of myself thrown in.

What I had before me was something abstract that conveyed a sense of peace. It had space for the field of lotuses. It was messy and unstructured. And it felt complete just as it was, conveying a sense of joy when I looked at it, which was a gift of its own. The whole feeling from the product of painting was a resource that I hadn’t expected since we never know quite what will show up.

Is there something more?

In Flora’s process of “allowing” there is a next step if we are interested, which is to look for a figure or anything else that might lie amidst the brush strokes.

In her work, she has honed the ability to find feminine figures that represent a divine essence that is speaking to or through her. This was what I had explored in my online class with her 6 years earlier.

After Flora’s course I had developed a new eye for seeing things within my dabbling with art. I had brought forth and emphasized animals in a trio of small paintings I had created around prenatal therapy I’d done. But I had never gone as far as to bring forth a face. I was intimidated by the amount of time and physical energy it might take me and did not trust my skills to create something on top of what I already liked in my occasional musings with paint, just as they were.

I was also curious.

Seeing more – giving it a little time

After the class I spent a few days just enjoying my new painting. I could see what looked like small forms and groups of people here and there within it. I saw no larger figures.

I loved the idea of seeing an actual face in my creation and, as we often experience when working with chronic symptoms and the unknown, I didn’t really know if something new or magical might happen for me even though it can happen for others. I was ok with that even as I had some hope and wonder.

I saw the face for the first time about 4 days after the class. It was the random act of highlighting the lotuses that brought her forth in #3. The more I looked, the clearer she became.

She looked as though she was swimming with the lotuses.

I sat with her. Contemplated whether to leave her just as she was, in a place of grace. Or take a risk in trying to bring her forth more clearly. I also felt tired and weary and the idea of doing more felt like work rather than play.

So I simply observed.

And then I woke up some days later with another whisper and a hint of an impulse. What if I just tried it? Took a chance? Took a risk?

This too, is how resources sometimes call to us. Not quite clear but with a gentle whisp of invitation.

I had chosen paper to paint on for the class rather than the canvas that was recommended. Painting on paper felt less intimidating and helped me feel I had nothing to lose. It was just paint, time, and energy.

Resources can be like that.

There are times when they feel like effort and work. Like showing up for the class. And there are times after we let them lie, patiently, that we feel a hint of them calling. Instead of more work, the impish parts of me, along with the risk taker and the one that peers out from behind the corner, come forth.

I started small by printing a picture of the painting in black and white and lightly sketching out her face to see if I could do that first bit. Then I tried sketching a hint of her outline in pencil on the actual painting.

Next, I used the acrylic paint to highlight the outline with a border of moss green around her face, neck and shoulders in #4 above. I could see her more clearly and each step felt ok as I tried it in small bits.

Then I began to paint the layers that defined her facial features in #5. What amazed me during this process of taking the risk was how much of this image already existed – from the shape of her face and shoulders to her lips and her left eye. I hardly had to do anything other than paint over a few brush strokes underneath and adjust proportions a tiny bit. To my surprise, it was within my skill set.

Sometimes taking the plunge towards allowing for resource is actually easier than we imagine and easier than other experiences we are having.

Taking risks – one step at a time

I was in awe of what was emerging.

Each step after highlighting her face felt like an increased risk as I felt the wonder of what was now in front of me. Each change was a place where I could stop. The question of how much farther to go kept me wondering.

So I waited for impulses.

First was adding a delicate crown. Then the lapel of her garment. I was afraid that either would be too dark, too dominant. That they might take away from something serene about her presence. I then added her hair. On looking back, I found that each of these additions brought her forth more fully and grounded her. She was no longer floating in the water. She was becoming more present.

On top of that, I had SO MUCH fun. And every step was imminently satisfying.

Appreciating the Inbetween Moments

The last “call” was a sense that there was something wanting to happen on her head. I started by adding a single drop of gold paint to her emerging crown. When a large glob came out instead, I kept it.

The bird followed and was an experiment. An Inbetween moment. It looked a bit like a baby phoenix. The process of beginning to rise out of the ashes feels congruent with where I am moving towards, except I’m not sure I’m out of them yet…There had been a sense of birds and feathers in the foundations of the brush marks over her head. I didn’t like how this looked and my rendition of it. After a day of staying really clear that I disliked it, I watched a video that Flora published of her own completion phase from the course and how she had course corrected in one of her paintings as well. It lent me the extra snippet of permission to do the same. After all, as Flora emphasizes, it’s only paint.

The new crown consists of wings and feather energy and lightness with tips of gold. Something is rising and lightening and grounding.

Allowing meaning to seep in

I’ve been sitting with her for a few weeks now. At odd times of day. Sometimes briefly in the early morning before my walk. In the near darkness before bed. Dreaming. Feeling a strong, quiet presence when I look at or think of her. Watching the gold shimmer and shift with the light so that sometimes the whole painting glows. It quiets and calms something inside me that has been fluttering with anxiety.

I never imagined I could paint something that feels so beautiful and so meaningful to me.

I was reading a book at the time I was painting that caught my attention when the author realized that since she couldn’t change the multiple difficult situations in her life, one option for her was to Surrender.

This feels like another theme to add to the sense of quiet strength that has been gently imbuing my feelings and sense of self in my life, as it is right now.

I’ve also come upon and read not one but 3 books that refer to Mary Magdalene and the middle ages for maybe the first time ever. About the power and awareness and strength of women in so many roles in the past, including as priestesses and witches. About how that power has been profoundly suppressed for milenia. Not only for women, but also for the feminine in men and all folx. It has made me wonder if some of the fear I have been working with on an almost daily basis for 6 or more years may link to layers from the past and effects of systemic, institutional oppression. Layers run deep.

And here I find her. Accompanying me as I slowly absorb all that she has to share with me. In her quiet power. Coming through. Vibrant. Present. Calm. Part of the flow. With all that Surrender means with its foundation in a sense of Self, power and resource that I am feeling a twinkling into. Of letting go without throwing ourselves under the bus. Of allowing ourselves to have our strength as well as our soft underbellies.

She is a multifaceted resource within a resource I did not see coming.

What resources whisper to you?

Resources: Flora Aube and the Art of Allowing

If you are interested in learning more about Flora Aube and her Art of Allowing you can learn more here, watch an example of how she works on youtube, and consider her self study online course I loved and that she still offers.