LISTENING TO THE WIND IN MY VEINS: Finding other places from which to speak and act

"Forget about enlightenment.
Sit down wherever you are 
And listen to the wind singing in your veins."

-John Welwood

Hallelujah for listening to that force, that howling in my veins like March winds moving into April showers. Spring is here, and there is a shift in my BEING. 

I AM HERE.

GREEN HEART OF THE NOVICE. (image (c) Hallelujah Truth)

YES. 
HERE...

...Painting each day in a new way for me. My quest is to "Embody the Mother," for the performance I am collaborating on with Lynn Hesse.

I have acquired a very large pad of newsprint paper (24" x 36") and placed it on an easel. 

Instead of sitting hunched over a small tablet of paper with a micron pen or watercolor pencils, I am standing--no dancing-- while I paint with a dripping brush. 

For more than a year, I have been waiting for this moment of transformation when I would naturally move to another media, another size format, and another place from which to speak and act!
 
The drips running down this green Hallelujah image on the right were perceived by you visiting Pilgrims as tears. Tears? Movement creating flow. Can the drips be the wind in my veins? The bounce in my step? The desire for water to be water and to follow the pull of gravity?

Relinquishing all judgements, I embrace curiosity. Which images of THE MOTHER will appear and how? 

Right now, I am experimenting with both green and blue paint to "embody the Mother." I'm applying paint from a water jar with liquified acrylic, using tubed paint like a paste and applying it both with brush and fingers. 

My goal is to paint three images a day under ten minutes (because that is the length of our performance! Energetic music helps me express the "wind in my veins" and my dancing flows from that rhythm. I feel called to dance. Dancing becomes a necessity, a part of this creative act. 

Besides, I want these images embodying the mother to emerge from my body.

Oh I have my goals! My goals exist inside of the form I'm using to make these images, not the images themselves. The image making process--dancing to music and listening to my body--is my objective--to experience THE MOTHER physically. The images become the artifacts of the physical and spiritual experience!

CREATIVITY offers such a personal way to explore and listen to the HOWL!

As for ENLIGHTENMENT? Let's forget about it for now. I want to be HERE inside of the PLAY. Just this morning, Lynn Hesse and I received the good news  that we will be performing "Embody the Mother" as part of the Decatur Arts Festival at the end of May.

That's Coffee With Hallelujah. Soul Blog with me and tell me what is howling in your veins right now. What is departing with March winds? What is arriving with April showers?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I am so appreciative to Mark Nepo and his reflections in The Book of Awakening for its rich thoughts and quotations from others like John Welwood. Thanks to Cynthia Winton-Henry, co-founder of InterPlay, who suggested I try making art as part of a performance because this improvisational way of being is very energizing! And Lynn Hesse! Oh my! What a journey we are on--THANK YOU!