Easter Basket

Easter Basket

My artist father “lived for” finding the meaning, messages, and symbolism hidden in his favorite artists’ work and in his own art, as well. He was a graphic designer by trade, but by night, he “painted from the right side of his brain” and often stayed up till the early hours of the morning, exploring his unconscious mind with the soft boar bristles of his acrylic paint paintbrush. He kept journals filled with the insights and meaning he found in his paintings, and in his dreams, too, and often filled an entire book with the analysis of just a few key paintings or dreams. His journals are a great treasure to me. They are filled with much wisdom and insight. My father considered his creativity to be “answered prayer,” art to be “a Glimpse of God,” and painting, “Angel Consciousness.” After he died in 1998, I found great comfort and solace in his paintings and his writings, as I was better able to understand the man he was and the “deeper meaning” that he spent his life so desperately seeking. I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me. –William Blake (1757-1827) I believe he found his “deeper meaning” in his last painting, entitled, “Easter Basket,” painted just three weeks before his fatal heart attack, when he collapsed on a sidewalk, fell into a coma, and stopped breathing on Easter Day. The painting depicts the figure of a basketball player (an important symbol in my father’s life, as he was an avid UCLA basketball fan), sinking a ball into an eye-shaped “basket.” With one foot off the...
Creativity

Creativity

“I cannot do without something which is greater than I, which is my life–the power to create.” –Vincent Van Gogh Losing Yourself in the Divine: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice by Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D., A.T.R. When you create you lose yourself in your creation. Time seems to stand still and all else is forgotten. You participate in the divine play that is creativity. These moments offer a glimpse of who you really are: a being fashioned in the image and likeness of God. Like the source of all creation, you are a creator, too. It is your divine birthright. The person who says “I’m not creative” is uttering blasphemy. The truth is that you are the Creative Self expressing through the human vessel of your body, emotions, mind, and soul. Creativity flows through you as a universal life force, called by many names throughout the ages: chi, prana, shakti, the Holy Spirit. It is this energy of love flowing through you that also gives life to your creations. Read More… Accessing Inner Wisdom through Creative Expression by Aviva Gold, MFA., CSW, ATR-BC, REAT Visual prayers are born from holy intention and devotional awareness in varied forms of expression as imaginative and diverse as the situations that call them forth. The remarkable women who find themselves compelled to consciously create altars, spirit dolls, collages, hand- made books and journals, quilts, and wearable art, do not refer to themselves as artists. Most of them have always felt intimidated by the idea of making art. However, women who are moving into the later years of life often are infused with newfound courage....
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