Reality is love creating story. This is true of quantum particles playing out their dance and true of the universal macrocosm playing out its dance of stars, black holes, and galaxies spinning through space. It is true of our own multi-dimensional selves. We are all aspects of love creating story. In group is found the wholeness of that story.

The wholeness of our story requires perspective to see and understand it. This is like painting, each painting looks like a discrete separate form. Yet the arc of all the paintings I have ever created are one continuous process. So a failed painting is not a failure. It is a moment of recognition of how the process works and that knowledge is revealed in the subsequent paintings.

So it is with the story of humanity. It may look a mess, just as paintings look terrible at certain stages of development, and it may not achieve its immediate aims, just like an individual painting may appear to fail.

It is always a matter of perspective. If one painting is all there is, the failure of it is a calamity. But if the perspective is of a continuum of the process of painting, a failed painting is simply part of the larger process. So it goes with humanity. But we have difficulty finding the perspective to see that when we are deeply enmeshed in this immediate experience on the planet.

a

Painting by my nephew, Mason

“If I wanted a perfect painting, I would go to the store and buy one. I want yours, that is uniquely you,” the loving mother told her young child. The child was worried he could not make a picture that was perfect enough. I appreciate the mother’s intent, her effort to nurture her child’s creativity, but I would say something different to this little boy.

I would tell him there is no perfect painting. Implying that there is and that I preferred his still allows the concept that his work falls short to remain in his mind. And all paintings have flaws of some sort, which is wonderful because it means we do not ever have to stop creating. We can always reach for more.

Instead I would characterize his concern as a function of technique, since painting a picture combines the inspired expression of self with techniques that make the most of the type of paint and paper. I would tell him children have a great joy and power in expression of self that most grown ups have lost, which is why we value the artwork of children in the first place.

Around 8 years old, children typically start learning with a practical purpose, how to make things happen correctly in the physical realm, the need to know how to do things. This is healthy enough but is far healthier when that inspired sense of self, that innate gift from the divine, remains intact. Which it rarely does in our culture, our school system, our ways of training children into adulthood.

So I would tell this young man I would like him to treasure that creative joy and power in his self expression, that it is a gift from god. It is too easy to take something for granted when you do not know what it is like to not have it.

He can learn more techniques to be able to put on paper images that more clearly express his inspirations. That can be great fun. But many people lose the inspiration in the pursuit of technique. When inspiration is lost all that remains is a dead mechanical rendering, which may be a pretty picture at a glance.

But that painting is just like plastic fruit in a bowl. It may superficially look like living fruit, but there is no life in it. The painting is dead as can be. I would caution this young man to go ahead and learn as much more about painting technique as he would like to know, but to keep his great joy and power of expression alive while he does so.

Combining that inspiration with strong technique is what makes truly great paintings, paintings that deeply move and inspire others. And young as he is, this young man has a head start on doing just that. The world needs a lot more of that joy and power.

a

The first inspiration for The Illumination of Gaia left me stumped. I knew the look I wanted for the painting, but lacked a model for Gaia herself. A few days later a Peruvian healer friend of mine dropped by the house for a visit. I had not seen her in some time, but quickly realized she would be an excellent model for my new painting. A woman of striking appearance, she carries a great earthy energy.

I asked her to pose for me and not only did she agree, but she delighted me further by not freezing up or becoming self conscious. Some people immediately turn into awkward sticks of wood, so this ease in modeling is not to be taken lightly!

That let me proceed with the painting I had visualized. I did not particularly paint a portrait of my friend, but used her features to create an image of a wild earthy goddess. I wanted her face illuminated with the strong beauty of a divine feminine vision.

I initially intended to paint the orb of the Earth with night time lights. However, I spontaneously painted the inside of the Earth instead, adding several alchemical symbols that deal with the transformative process.

The theme of this painting reflects my own contemplation of the upcoming Earth Healing Retreat February 19-23, 2011. I will be teaching an exciting new Earth Healing CCT class along with a watercolor workshop. In the watercolor workshop we apply the creative processes of Earth Healing to unleash creativity in a powerful way. More information can be found at my Art Energies site.

The painting is done in acrylics on canvas, 30" wide by 40" high. The original and limited edition prints areavailable at RiverStone Gallery.

a

Shrill arguments rise about the rhetoric of violence, arguments trying to dodge taking responsibility for what has been said, deliberately blurring the crucial distinction between dissent and violence itself.

I suggest listening instead to K.D. Lang sing this song. The lyrics speak of bafflement, pain, anguish, and the broken heart. We as a nation feel all those things as we seek a different state of being than the one we experience today.

The voice of K.D. Lang takes us beyond the lyrics of the song and into the soaring of the human spirit. We always have the option of going through the pain to an awakening of our greater spirit. May we as a nation choose to find this soaring of the human spirit and bring it into direct action in our lives.

a

Here is the perfect painting for the grinch in your life! Gunslinger, the rooster, has an unmistakable attitude that would make me hesitate to meet him in a dark alley. He is a great protector indeed.

I had great fun painting this rooster study in acrylics on canvas. The piece is only 18” by 24” so it will fit nearly anywhere. At least anywhere you want a commanding presence in a small space.

My artist husband said it has about as much oomph you can get in that size painting.

.

Contact RiverStone Gallery for the original painting or limited edition giclee prints.

a

I had an idea brewing for a large tiger painting, so I did this quick little 20” square sketch of a painting. After I painted the eyes, I became loose and playful with the acrylics. Using two pairs of complementary colors added visual impact.

Tigers are intense predators, but gentle and playful among their family members. My intention was for the painting to carry the spirit of tiger.

To my surprise, I sold this piece before I had even cleaned my brushes. That undoubtedly means I should soon paint the large version I see in mind’s eye!

a

David Sandum, an artist living in Moss, Norway, organized a Twitter Art Show to benefit the library. Since Twitter uses 140 characters in each tweet, he decided to ask 140 Twitter artists to participate. Each painting is the size of a 5″ x 7″ postcard and should produce a delightful and varied show of works from many different countries.

The backlit poppy silhouette shown here is my contribution to the show, a mixed media work. The poppy is painted in watercolor and the black and gold in acrylics. I varnished the piece to make it easier for handling when they display the works in the library.

I am happy to participate in such a worthy and interesting project!

a

An Awakening Fire is a visual translation of the past two years of my life, shown in the form of a shamanic dismemberment. Actually, this may also be a visual translation of the enormous changes the Earth herself is experiencing at this time.

For those of you who have not experienced a shamanic dismemberment, it occurs during a shamanic journey when the power animals and others suddenly shred you to pieces. If received without resistance it is not painful and when you discover yourself reassembled, you have been purified in unexpected ways.

I wish I could say that the real life equivalent was as easy as a shamanic dismemberment, but that, alas, has not been the case for me or for many of the rest of you.

In fact, creating the painting was itself a drastic event, due to the powerful energies it evoked in such a highly compressed manner. Five feet wide, the painting engulfed me for weeks.

The eyes of the hawk have the intense focus of a being on a great mission. After all, delivering the fire to ignite awakening instead of burning destruction requires a precisely coordinated use of power.

The painting allows you to move backwards and forwards in time. The flaming hawk has clearly just flown through the fragmenting figure ignited into an explosion of light near the center. At the same time you can see the flaming hawk flying straight for your own heart and you know you will soon be that exploding figure yourself.

Poppies, especially Shirley poppies, for me always represent transformation at the deepest levels. Ethereal, ephemeral, and yet stubbornly enduring, they are a beautiful expression of the transformative powers of light.

The leaf dressed in fall colors exemplifies the old falling away, a necessary part of any transformation. Another beauty and grace finds expression in the leaf.

And what shall I say of the eye? Is it the eye of the fragmenting figure, startled awake? Is it the eye of the observer, watching all that unfolds?

The Earth has been caught up in the process as well, or perhaps the Earth has caused it. After all, how can we live on a transforming planet without feeling the same impact ourselves?

A shimmering crystalline pattern descends on the left. Perhaps it is the web of life connecting all life. Perhaps it is the crystalline grid that allows change to process more rapidly and easily than our electro-magnetic systems have been able to manage.

So the golden music sings to us, opens our hearts to a greater vision, a new receptivity to divine harmony. After I finished this painting, I slept, dreaming of myriad layers of information in the painting.

I woke at 3 a.m. For the one and only time in my entire life my biological mind had stopped its incessant chatter. Suspended in an unmeasured time of divine harmony, an exquisite stillness was my only awareness. May you find your way there too.

.

.

Artist’s Note: Contact RiverStone Gallery for information about the original acrylic painting and limited edition giclee prints.

Copyright © Lexi Sundell 2010. All Rights Reserved.

a

Paintings can be complete surprises and this one certainly maxed out in that category. It started with a headache. Not an ordinary headache but a completely head-busting blinger of a headache that went on all night.

I got up in the morning and it eased slightly, but not a lot. A great white light was in the center of my head, surrounded by pain. I could see it was a major energy shift happening, but it was going far too slowly to suit me.

I wondered what would happen if I put my awareness in the white light in the center of my head instead of just watching it. When I did so, I saw this image and immediately wanted to paint it. I thought the process of painting it could move me through this latest shift more rapidly. My aching head liked that idea a lot!

I went into the studio and started hunting for a stretched canvas I could use, but none were the right height/width proportion for the image I had seen. I started sorting through a stack of panels leaned against the wall and found one that looked like the right shape. When I pulled it out and turned it around, it had one of my canvas giclees laminated on it. I had not yet gotten around to hand embellishing the print.

That poor print was doomed. I put it on the easel and painted it white with my acrylics. While it dried, I laid out tracing paper on the table and drew the outlines of the image I had seen. By the time I was done, the paint was still wet.

Annoyed, I got out the heat gun and played it across the paint. I am happy to say I did not set it on fire. The paint hastily dried and I took it to the table. A sheet of graphite paper let me trace the outline onto the canvas and I soon was painting.

My head still ached horribly, but somehow I was really enjoying painting. I kept at it like a woman possessed and the headache gradually eased. The last of it finally disappeared by 3 p.m. I finished the painting at 6 p.m. and was just cleaning my brushes when my artist husband came in the door.

I asked him to go down to the studio to see something. He assumed I was going to show him my progress on When A Flower Dreams, a painting I was in the midst of creating. When he saw this unexpected abstract on the easel his immediate response was, “Where in the hell did that come from?”

As he looked at it I explained how the painting came to be. He said I should have headaches more often and that he wished he had painted it. He likes most of my work but I have never heard him say that about any of my other paintings.

I had not told him the title was Metamorphosis. So I was delighted when he said, “If there was anywhere to put it, which there is not, but if there was and if it was me, I would paint a butterfly in it.” Abstract or not, it had clearly communicated to him.

That, along with the fact my headache was completely gone, was quite enough for me.

Copyright © Lexi Sundell 2010. All Rights Reserved.

a

In the bad news of the day BP stands tarred in condemnation for the horrendous crime against nature their incompetence has unleashed. The bad news does not stop there. It is not just BP. This is an issue for all of humanity and none of us can dodge it, disclaim our responsibilities, or ignore it.

Only one issue in this matter is of any significance. Are you as a human being aligned with your soul in service to the divine so that you live every day in reverence for the life of all beings and the earth herself? This is a question both for the individual and for humanity as whole.

The primary purpose of humanity is to master free will and choice. Two main paths lead to this mastery. One is the often traveled road of self destruction. By ignoring our connection to the divine we can focus on our own unbalanced emotional needs or mentally driven ideas that spin out of control without the vital surrender to the divine. Greed, war, excessive self-indulgence, and other atrocities mark this path.

The far less common path is that of choosing to surrender to the divine which leads to the joyful acceptance of all the life on this planet. This path usually gets scant attention, which is reason enough for our predicament in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Mastering the art of free will and choice by massive self-destruction is a gruesome and painful way to learn the consequences of our choices, but the mass consciousness of humanity has mired itself in that path.

I have witnessed a wide range of responses and reactions to the oil spill. I saw a comment online by someone complaining his vacation to Florida was being spoiled and he wished the oil spill had been delayed a few days. How small minded and self interested is that?

Others have reacted with anger or emotional pain at the huge destruction to the ecosystem. Still others are left wondering how to survive with their livelihoods damaged or destroyed. And then there are those who discuss using a nuclear bomb to seal the oil leak.

Blaming BP is epidemic. BP is, of course, far from blameless, but their acts are only the tip of this particular iceberg in human consciousness.

No one doubts that this is a time of massive upheaval and change. The havoc in global financial conditions is unmistakable, even to those who usually keep their minds buried in their television sets. Other changes even more unpredictable loom on the horizon.

So what on earth is going on? That is indeed the question.

Great transformational energies are moving through our entire solar system, our planet, our own individual beings. This is not a tidy process. Everything mired in outmoded patterns is getting thrown out in the cosmic house cleaning. New patterns we do not understand are replacing them, in a great stew of chaos.

The earth has her own deep transformation moving with inexorable power. For untold eons this planet has been a refuge for those of us who came to hide, to struggle with our wounds from unknown battles. The earth has been a sanctuary, although not often recognized in that role.

Now the earth sets a new course as her own transformation unfolds. She is no longer holding the sanctuary but is moving into some new role of her own choosing. That profound shift has been like an earthquake in human consciousness, just as though our anthill had taken a huge kick.

Without pause, another change enters the world with the BP oil spill. The earth is choosing not to tolerate the misuse of humans she has endured for so long. The choice to master free will and choice by self-destruction will be accelerated now, even as the choice to master free will and choice by service to the divine will also be accelerated.

The division is wrenchingly deep as humanity tries to make its own evolutionary leap in this chaotic flux of energies. Unfortunately even some of those who cry out against the destruction in the oil spill are still doing so out of self interest.

I love the beauty of this planet and the way I have experienced it in my life. I do not want to let that beauty go.

However, I have to ask why should the earth hold back from choosing a cycle in which she is loved and respected by all who live here? Does she deserve to be plundered and despoiled? Do any of us deserve to be plundered and despoiled?

The answer seems obvious enough to me. If I am serious about my choice to align my soul with the divine, I must surrender to this process. I do not understand it all and I do not know how the transformation will complete. As humans we may not be part of the picture anymore if too many hold to the path of self-destruction.

I do know the choice that I find worthwhile and trust that path for myself. And I ask for a blessing for the earth in her new cycle as she shakes off the old patterns, the old ways of being.

So what choice do you make at this crossroads for humanity?

a