I Witnessed her at my house, no heat in the studio this winter. We set up a cozy scene in my makeshift studio-living room, and I put her in charge of arranging the candles. She was thoughtful with her task, arranging four in a row and a single white one on its own. We blessed the space and settled in...
It wasn't long before there were tears in both our eyes.
The story of her Choices; of a baby aborted, a series of miscarriages, a son born and raised... So heartbreakingly tender. So real. So weightily carried for 67 years. And here we were, in my little home, with my own son's toys around us, hot tea in home-made mugs, the couch left over from my marriage, as she opened her legs and spread her story.
She had been dragging this weight a long time. Her own life's story of coming out strong and happy from a life of extraordinary adversity would put brave men to shame. I knelt at her feet, nudging into the tender places with soft questions and dropping soft droplets of pink on the canvas.
We invited in the beings.
We invited in forgiveness.
We cried.
Eventually the time came toward a close and we sealed the space and I sent her off with a hug. Over the following weeks I continued to work on the painting here and there and little extraordinary things started to happen. The presence of children kept showing up in the painting. My own son, woke up early the morning I was going to put the first layer of gold on and helped me lay it in with his own finger tips (he has never participated in a painting this much). The blue of the painting came from a bizarre kid's ink pen from one of his craft kits (a pen which consequently stained half my house! But I digress...). I would hear children's laughter while I painted and often left painting sessions feeling very much like the spunky tutu-wearing girl I was at 5.
In the end, I nick-named this painting the "RainbowCrystalDiamondHeart Painting" after what I wanted my mom to legally change my name to when I was 5 (not a whole lot has changed). I found myself saying, "this would be a perfect painting for a little girl's room"... Admittedly not something I say often about my work. Came to find out not long after that all four miscarriages were baby girls.
So essentially I made a painting for a little girl's room that never was.
Oh my.
She confessed to me when she came to see the finished painting the other day, that she had almost not come for the Witnessing because she was so worried that what would come out would be so dark. Seeing the finished product, a painting of undeniable innocence and sweetness, moved her to tears. The forgiveness landed at last and she was freed from a lifetime of guilt.
We are so brutal to ourselves in our thinking. We judge and condemn and trap ourselves inside prisons of our own making. Torturing ourselves behind the thick walls of our skulls. All in the name of culture, bound up by the things we have been told are right or wrong or good or bad. Wrapped and knotted and squeezed till our light is dim and our health is compromised... And yet, there is, in the very essence of it all, such sweetness, such unlimited potential and freedom. So much gold and bright colors...
What knot could you loosen if you gave yourself permission to do so? What colors would it set free? These are questions worth sitting with, I find. In the end, we imprison ourselves far worse than any jailer...
xo,
AMIEL
