Painting #10, “Tulips”, March 3, 1995.

In September of 1994, preceding the trip to my hometown, I attended a flower drawing workshop at Esalen. The work there connected my way of tapping into the Sacred through the energy of flowers. The flower devas became a reality for my there as I had my first real mystical experience with a flower. After a profound meditation, I looked at flower in the garden there and it began to spin, radiating an incredibly dynamic energy visually. I could not believe my eyes at first, but I came to believe in the reality of the flower Goddesses at that moment. I had forgotten about this energy until I met up with a flower grower at the farmers’ market in Santa Cruz. A woman there was growing the most beautiful tulips in the world. Her name was Kathleen Seaver. I again experienced the energy of the flowers as I felt the flowers to hold the energy of love as I had at Esalen. I brought a whole bouquet of these beautiful tulips to draw in my studio.

When I started this painting, I knew I wanted to combine the energy of the flowers with the depth of the Cave Painting which preceded it. The background of the painting with its deep and rich brown and violet became the cave energy. The radiance of the flowers was enhanced against this background. I struggled with a small vase in the painting for six months. I later painted a larger vase and created a larger container for these flowers. The painting then felt completed and I was able to let it go.

The message: The energy of the heart does not want to be contained. It needs to be shared and in this sharing, it expands and is the basis for all healing. In our everyday lives, flowers can remind us of this sharing and the potential for love everyday.

This painting was inspired by a connection I had with the Triple Goddess through community ritual I have facilitated for many years. She is manifested in the form of the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone, the three major aspects of the Sacred Feminine. The ancient setting symbolizes the primal origins of the Divine Feminine and the power of Darkness.

The message: The power of women at all ages and stages is centered in the primal, instinctual nature she embodies. This energy is hers and hers alone through her body and must be brought into the light of day right now. With this change, our planet will survive.

This painting was a spontaneous response to having issues of money arrive in my consciousness while I was in my studio just fooling around one day. The painting initially started with the spherical image and the dollar signs.  Later in the evening this little creature arrived. Part of my process is erasing images out of a background color and revealing images I do not expect.  Upon doing some research I found that this image was related to Native American mythology and was a “Spirit Dancer”. I then realized that this was the energy framework that would bring abundance to me, whether or not it involved as much money as I had thought I needed.  The coyote was also part of the trickster, a good omen for doing business as well as losing ego around it.

The message: The flow of authentic energy, represented by money in our culture, is most powerful when linked with Spirit!

This painting was inspired by a dream, which combined a love relationship and the presence of a snake. The snake, in many cultures, represents the primal energy of transformation as well as signifying the autonomic nervous system (the unconscious).  At the time, I had a physical disorder connected with this nervous system and was intrigued by the possibility of affecting a cure by working with the inherent rhythms of this system.  I learned to slow down my breathing and spend less time in highly activating activities.  I also learned to spend more “down time” in nature.  The woman in the picture represents the instinctual feminine energies and the water, the unconscious.  The hawk is the symbol of awakening to the soul’s purpose.  This painting changed the course of my life.

The message: It is through a commitment to a relationship with the natural rhythms of her body that a woman’s true calling are revealed.  Vision, creativity and love, all expressions of the Divine Feminine and denial of the radiance of the human body in essence denies the existence of intuition, art, creativity and the gifts of the invisible world.

This painting was inspired by my wish to have the masculine and feminine energies in balance and harmony. It followed a story that my brother told me about being essentially rescued on the high seas after a sudden storm overtook his fishing boat and threatened to sink it. A pod of dolphins suddenly arrived and calmly accompanied the boat back to the harbor.   This story spoke to me about the possibility cooperation and love between the species.  It was evidence of the beauty and harmony that can come about through faith.  In this painting, the female dolphin is in a state of radiance while the masculine dolphin honors her.  The geometric shape reflects the future of consciousness.

Message; Humanitarianism will be the salvation of our species and our planet.  Similarly, cooperation between the species as well as the sexes is absolutely imperative to our continued existence.  This will occur as we accept within ourselves both the masculine and feminine sides of ourselves and become whole persons.

Many years ago, my friends Lucy Ruggles and Jil Windsor and I had a women’s group called the Aphrodite Circle and we were discussing how each of us might relflect the essence of a certain flower. Lucy and Jil said they were most drawn to the Passion flower as my particular essence.  The next day I was walking over a nearby river bridge and there was a  mass of passion flower vines near the pathway.  I brought one to my studio and later that afternoon I painted this picture to the strains of Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”.  I had recently seen the movie and was profoundly impacted by this man’s commitment to his art and the great lengths he went to to put his inspiration into form, against all odds.

Because of the power of the music, as well as the background theme of his love affair that fueled his passions, I felt a synergy of the erotic, the lovely and the cosmic. Combining these three forces is the basis of grace. I felt like a midwife to this painting which came to represent a sense of awe and appreciation for this magical energy which can visit us under the best and most unexpected times.

The message: Surrendering to one’s inner passions leads the way to a state of grace: it is the process of putting passion into form that creates powerful and exotic beauty.

This painting was done one year after the sudden and unexpected death of my beloved brother.  More than any other single event in my life, I felt the extreme tragedy of this occurrence and was opened to Spirit in a new and powerful way.  This painting was homage to the myth of Psyche and Eros, a story that continues to be an inspiration to me.  Psyche was transformed by pure love and brings a gift from the Underground in a box.  That gift is Beauty. Psyche integrates the energies of the masculine and the Feminine and is transformed and elevated to the Divine by the inner work she does in order to accomplish this difficult feat.  She is then charged with the creation of joy and beauty and bringing them into the world.  The music and butterflies represent the energies of joy and transformation

The message:  It is only through our willingness to open to pure love that true joy and beauty will return to our lives as a healing force.  We can all be assisted in this journey by invisible and unexpected helpers as Psyche was in her journey with Eros.