september- violet

I’m writing the palette early this month as a view into this moment rather than a retrospective of the month. I have had some eye opening experiences in the last few days that have left an impact on my work already. The color I see reoccurring in the paintings is violet. A variety of purples have found their way into most paintings lately, violet being the most recognizable. Purple is the color of intuition, associated with the third eye, and the 6th chakra. Of course, I don’t think about this when I am painting, however now that I am standing back and looking at my wall of drying paintings, I have to wonder what the connection is.

Life has tested me in the last couple weeks. Everything, (including my commissions, finances, relationships and communication), has been shaken up. I can see now that I am the shaker, which always makes me smile. I used to think these things were beyond my control… that life just happened. Now, I can see that on some level I willed them to happen. I yearn for growth in this life. I made a commitment years ago to live fully and to my highest potential. In that commitment, I accepted my higher-self, soul, intuition, God, creator, life energy, as my guide and the driver of my vehicle or person. I’m going to tell a story about my driver that may explain how I feel at the moment.

A brilliant chauffeur offers me a ride. I cannot resist the lure of this driver and for some reason I know I must go. Without asking where we are going, I find myself on a really bumpy, rough road. The bumps challenge me to decide what to hold on to for the ride. I am grasping for something, anything, as we churn up dirt and rocks at mock speed. What is really important? What do I really want? These are great questions that I could answer logically, yet logic does not answer my questions anymore, especially since I don’t know where I am going or even why I am going. Furthermore, the driver is driving really fast, extremely fast, as if to say, “no time to think, we must go NOW”. Ok, I surrender, I trust we are going in the right direction, if there is such a thing. Funny enough, this bumpy road ends at a vast open horizon. Now what? Are we lost? I wonder. We stop, my stomach settles, and I realize I have held on to nothing along the way… and I am totally alone. Alone. …Driver? Hello? echoes into the vast landscape of eternity. Nothing.

I am mad, in both senses of the word, angry and crazy. I let this fruit loop driver take me away from my safe paved road, I didn’t even pack a bag, and I have no clue what I am doing here. What have I done? My life is torn up like the road behind me. Then I smile as it dawns on me, like the eternal sunrise on this vast horizon I am now facing… I am exactly where I want to be. Deep breath… What a view! Wow! And I have nothing to hold on to, nothing to carry, nothing to weigh me down… and infinite choices on the horizon… I am overwhelmed. I cry and in my tears I can see a reflection of myself. I am the driver. I have been all along.

My logic gives one last kick… I need to make a path. I need to find home. I need to find my way back. Yet I do not move. Stillness. Logic is the backseat driver that I cannot hear over the pounding of my heart. My heart is expanding into infinity and I cannot stop it. My chest is physically very uncomfortable as I realize this is reality. I have created this journey and I am living it. Life is amazing when I allow myself to trust the unknown, follow my intuition, imagine, and embrace the mystery. I am so free. I associate this guidance, or driver, with the color violet because it seems to bring adventure through some channel of faith. There is some motivation that is bigger than I will ever be able to logically understand. I am extremely grateful for the possibilities I can now see on the horizon. My vision is through my infinite heart, rather than a narrow road, and the spectrum I can now see definitely does not stop at violet. In fact, I dare say, it begins with violet…