From the night’s stormy heavens a bolt of lightning shatters the dark.
Spiralling on the Earth, a great black snake absorbs the electricity
and disperses it around her body in the form of a mycelium-like green network.
I feel a little bit like this snake.
OK, maybe I’m being a little dramatic, but this image, of a snake absorbing a supercharged stream of energy, and dispersing it into a lovely mound of greenness–it’s applicable.
It’s applicable because I’ve produced more work in the past eight weeks than in all of last year.
Part of the reason for this is the effect deadlines have on folks with ADHD (remember, I have a show coming up!), and part of it has to do with focusing on absolutely nothing else. But the biggest part, I think, is the heavens above me, or, as I am more inclined to see it, the Fields of the Otherworld, are supercharged, and though I have abandoned nearly all other regular practices of well-being (daily hikes, journaling, gardening), to some extent or another, in the last eight weeks I have also begun and sustained a regular practice of meditation.
It has made a world of difference. Plus there’s nothing like a short-term, life-challenging illness to sort of shake things up (let me just say I’m totally fine, healthy, and prone, apparently, to random and mysterious illnesses).
And as for this piece, I will say, there is something utterly alchemical about creativity. When I sit down and engage my creative energy with the object of my attention––a lightning bolt, or an owl, or a tree––that thing, that seemingly “other”, becomes activated within me. I experience a sort of merging of consciousness. So that, while drawing this piece, my fingers covered in the black, gray, and purple dust of my pastels, the hot crackle of cloud static becomes a curious feeling within me.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve observed before. But the more I practice it, the more heightened it becomes.
