“That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above.” - Arabic saying from the Emerald Tablets, 6th to 8th century

Widely interpreted in many different ways, I see this phrase most distinctly in nature and in the largely untapped emotional and energetic potential of our own human species. When I started painting for the show in March, flowers appeared in the sky as well as star-like flowers on the ground. We are grounded to the earth and yet we have otherworldly qualities. I see starlight in hands and running through bodies. We hold internal worlds full of rivers, gardens, entire ecosystems - some healthy, some in need of careful tending. Each person requires the waters of emotions and of energetic movement, the grounding to the earth and the nourishment of the body, the fire and the vitality that stokes us into action, the information in the air that enlivens the mind and brings new perspective. These are the riches we have to tend. 

The natural world, both above and below is talking to us all the time and is always extending offerings, both energetic and physical. There are rhythms and systems in the skies and on the earth that reflect optimal ways of being. There are plants that heal on a physical level but also have the capability to shift energetics on an emotional and spiritual plane. We have a whole world of generous care givers in the plants and flowers around us. I think stars and planetary alignments hold that ability to guide and help us as well.  

The way guidance comes in is as varied as the stars and for me, often comes in the form of images. As I was painting the diptych “Everything is the beloved”, I saw a funnel-like composition with a blue dome at the bottom in my mind’s eye. Instinctively, I knew this was a composition for another painting and imagined flowers inside the funnel shape with more neutral tones outside of it. I sketched out the idea and kept painting. That week I spotted a book about Botticelli and his fascination with Dante’s divine comedy.  There on the page was his depiction of Dante’s Inferno, the same composition as mine, with layers of purgatory rising up out of a dome. I had unintentionally turned Botticelli’s Hell into a funnel of flowers emanating from or falling into the blue earth below. The word “Florescence” kept ringing in my head, a word from a book I had been reading a while back. Richard Rudd, author of “Gene Keys”  called the 15th chapter of his book “Florescence: An eternally flowering spring”. There he writes on the possibility of moving from the denser energies of dullness to magnetism and then to the flowering of consciousness that if tended and grown illuminates the possibility of unconditional love. Dullness is not in and of itself a bad thing - on the contrary. It is a portal and one that can be used every day through the mundane to create magic. Even painting can feel mundane. But through attention and devotion, there is built a trust and love of seeing that transforms into beauty, into magnetism. Ideas draw in more ideas, like a magnet. Synchronicities give way to epiphany and gratitude. We come alive to our own flowering. This flowering of consciousness takes us into the depths both below and above - falling or rising (who could say which?) into the layers of self not yet discovered.