Runs With Brushes: August 2011

I was living in New York City, on 47th Street. Hells Kitchen. That summer I started having vertigo off and on during the day, sometimes at night. I would move and suddenly the room would move with me. I would have to sit down and collect myself. I wasn't sick, didn't actually have vertigo, but I hate saying "dizzy spells" as it doesn't sound right. In the evenings I was having gentle out of body experiences, not full, but I could feel the expansion that comes with it as I lay down to go to sleep. I used to get these as a kid, started during adolescence if I remember correctly. Laying down in bed I would start to feel like I was growing at an alarming rate. I felt as if I was being gently rocked side to side and then moving at a sudden speed. It used to scare me, but I decided one day that it didn't have to be unpleasant, that I didn't have to fight it. Once I let go and stopped fighting I soon felt a more pleasurable, incredibly overpowering rushing feeling like I was taking off, or out, or somewhere, and then I would usually fall fast asleep. These stopped for years, and didn't return until much later when I was living in N.Y. The summer of 2001 they started up again, this time with a whoosh. These only happened when I was alone, never when next to another body which I always felt a bit curious about. They still don't for the most part. Some nights I try to make it happen, but can't. At any rate, this coupled with the feeling of vertigo during the day didn't sit well with me, and as I recently quit smoking decided that I was experiencing latent withdrawal symptoms. I try to be a big mind over matter kind of guy. When the vertigo would come on I would talk myself out of it and carefully continue navigating whatever task was at hand. At the time I was dressing Michelle Lee in Tale of the Allergist Wife. Frequently I would be backstage and feel this vertigo rush, and be in the middle of changing Ms. Lee, or any number of activities. Internally I felt something was up, something was coming, something was going to change. My dear friend Vita shared with me a Catholic tradition of August 15, the Assumption of the Holy Mother. I understand from her this is a Day of the Water. A day where you would take yourself to the water; lake, stream, ocean, any body of water apparently, and anoint yourself. The Holy Mother would heal you of any affliction. I found this to be such a beautiful idea. I thought of my dizziness, the rushing out of body experiences, the aural buzz I could hear throughout the day (that is another story for another time), which I eventually learned to tune in to but haven't quite grasped deeper information from. I thought of the weird time I felt we were all living in. It all felt like "It" wasn't enough. Like we wanted more, like we were all unsatisfied. I thought of this Holy Angel who would come and heal of us of whatever needed healing. I painted an image of the Angel. On her shoulders she carries a vessel of Healing Water, this gift. Around her waist hung the holy prayer beads. Mala. 108 of them. Our prayers make up the beads hung from her waist. Our prayers bring her to us. She anoints us, heals us. She wraps her long arms around us and holds us safe. She steps out of a holy light into our lives and soothes our pain, heals our heart. She enlightens us.
After I finished this painting I saw that it appears as if she is stepping out of a light bulb. A few weeks later I painted a lightbulb that was burned out, shattered, scattered, fragmented, ruined, destroyed, exploded. Its image a ghostly burn that can never be forgotten.
Later I would paint a combo of these two images, which has remained unfinished to this day. A painting that I began long after midnight but just a few hours before the morning of September 11. I was unable to fall asleep the evening of September 10. I felt sick to my stomach and tremendously anxious, so I got up to paint thinking it would help. Working through feelings when I can't sleep usually helps me relax. Sometimes it is just because I exhaust myself, then my emotions calm, my mind can rest, I can sleep. The painting I created then is of this same angel being held upside down. She is being lowered by others into the vessel of healing water she carried previously. Next to her are two burned out, exploded, shattered, ruined, destroyed lightbulbs. (This unfinished painting I have never photographed or catalogued. Its image won't be seen here).

I've never shown these two paintings. I understand now where they came from, what they represent, and what I was going through physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What I believe we all were going through at the time, and what we were about to experience. I accept all of it and still marvel at the wonder of the unconscious which whispers to us all. All the time. The unconscious which is connected to our Higher Self, and All That Is. That understands all and yearns to communicate with us through any means possible.
Life is precious. Nothing is promised. Love all.