always more than i could know

process painting has lead me beyond my ideas of anything.
i thought it was not to be shown.
it was a rule i kept and became one that kept me.

but the point is to paint, letting go of the need to show it.
this allowed me to go deeper, to let my self express.

what is painted, is often universal, bigger than my small me.
i'm glad for that.
i'm glad to show it.

She's got my whole world in her hands

I brought this painting home from my studio last week. 

This is how the process continued. 

I had been entering entering entering, making smaller and smaller marks, and then yesterday the feeling of purple rose up, and this purple one embraced and seemed to carry the whole. I needed to paint larger and larger areas of color. The judgements were loud, "this is not process painting" -"I'm missing the connection." 

Gladly, I just let myself paint the large purple figure and the green landscape she stood on. 

She holds everything and everyone. 

The process continues now, I am in it. 

Trusting that the process works when I allow it, I notice that I like to paint. 

I like to allow myself to be on the path I've found myself on.

Thankfully, there is room for humor on this path!

what is form?

what is form?
what takes form?

the word form is laden with meaning from the hallways of the art school i attended.
i used it thinking it was meaning shape, the shape of anything.
something takes form.
form was laden with meaning.

but when this painting began to "take form," there seemed not to be any particular edge to this or that "form."

once again, process painting takes me to new places and toward new understandings.

passing through

the expression continues
comes closer to home

in the world 
my mother's voice is strained
in my inner world my heart is straining 
to express

in relation to her
the care
the helplessness.

words don't quite hold
all the feeling
the open door lets the conditioning pass through.

grateful for paint today.

the door is open

I don’t know where this is going.

I don’t know what this is about.

I want to put it - my experience - on hold, 

to see it,

to know it,

to judge it,

once and for all.

is it good?

is it beautiful?

is it wrong?

is it of value?

And it keeps moving.

Life brings gifts 

And there is fear.

There is mistrust. 

There is anger.

There is such a need to control.

So I paint.

I let the feelings have a form

Snakes

Little openings 

Blood

Knives

Dark beings coming out from under the bed.

Like that.

Letting it be like that.

Letting it (what is it?)

Letting all of this life I am living have a form.

I keep painting,

Feeling the energy move,

Feeling the mind want to know,

the door remains open,

Endlessly open

to life itself.

to my life.

And 

There is a knowing of something true.

From a true place

Awareness knows

Here is kindness

Here is care

and 

Here is wonder.

Here is wonder not to know

And wonder to know that I don’t know

And that I feel much

And I paint

And sometimes I call it courage.

Nothing 

good or bad 

really wants to stay

Because of this open door.

It welcomes everything to be felt

And to pass through. 

I like this word AND

It is an endless invitation of welcome.

I paint and I write, today.

I am encouraged by someone who loves me,

sometimes more than I can love myself,

to do so.

dear reader, 

sister or brother,

may you too, engage fully in and with your life today,

may it pass smoothly, through and through, your open heart!

the lineage and the hands that hold all this

i'm learning that i can still learn to be with the death of 'me'.

i started the painting with myself last week, 

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my mother.

then i thought i had brought God in and later on it was my grandmother, my mom's mom, 

then i thought a lot of thoughts 
and i had a lot of feelings, too.......

and then the black hands came in to hold all this, 

all this.....

God is holding all this for me.

i am learning that being "at a loss" is not such a bad place to be.

the upper hand

grateful

for 

mind and heart

in process

heart's longing is getting the upper hand