Finding the Light
Last few months ..especially with the lockdown have been intense. With a lot of churn..lot of alone time ..lot of ‘inner’ material showing up, and with nobody to project it on..became ..my very own vessel.
I found myself experiencing deep grief, at personal and collective levels.. that sometimes did not even have a known source and holding it till it started to melt somethings inside. Facing some of my worst fears… and composting them. I let myself move through writing, dreaming, painting, singing and cleaning ..a lot. It has felt like a long dark night of the soul.. I kept tending to it, determined to not turn away..but really enter the abyss and shut the exit door behind me.
I painted and let the emotions be my guide..and I just followed.. I watched as my paintings changed themes and moved … from planets, to crows, eagles owls…to faces of women. And suddenly I realized for the first time I was painting faces of people..something I was never able to. Earlier all my paintings had blank faces.. and if I ever ventured to draw..I could only draw one eye..I was never sure of getting both the eyes in symmetry. But now as I started painting ..the eyes of the women, especially, stood out.
I started to notice a “light” in them, that I had not painted. It puzzled me. This was also visible to others. ..so I was not going crazy I reckoned..
Every now and then, I check my version of reality, with what others also see.
At first I thought it was some kind of optical illusion… or a one-time accident. But every painting had the …unmistakable light..in the eyes, that I did not know the source of. hummm…
“Perspectives shift when you Practice the process and Process the practice “
This curiosity got me thinking ..Where was the light coming from ???
I went to the space and science as I often find myself do when I need to find some out-there answers (pun intended)
Here is what I found out …
We have always considered the Sun to be the ONLY source of energy and light…and so the planets and moons that were at the “right “ distance from Sun would have a belt of Liquid water..which provided the fundamental environment for life to happen. A little closer to the sun..the water evaporates and little away it freezes and so no life. Life needed liquid water. This is also known as the “goldilocks zone”.
To take this logic further then as one keeps moving more and more away from the Sun..it starts to freeze…and get less and less possible for water and therefore the possibility of life to exist.
So far it’s all making logical sense….
But then comes the Story of Jupiter, the biggest planet of the system… and especially one of its Moon Europa…(Jupiter is incidentally also my birth planet..just some trivia)
So, Jupiter, because of its size creates a lot of tidal force on Europa as it orbits around it. It gets ..“hit” and pushed and pulled..a lot. And just like a tennis ball that is “warmed up” before the game..by hitting it a few times ..the Moon Europa ..literally gets warmed up ..from the inside, as it takes the hits…and keep going. It starts to convert all the push pull tension into energy..and this internal warming starts to melt the ice ..creating water…and so …potential life conditions…
The possibility of life existing only around the Sun was no longer the only perspective.
Phew !!! ..
This made me pause to reflect on just how similar we are..the cosmos and us.
We take a “known” source of light as the only source and keep looking for light out there.. Giving up, when we don’t see it .
But what this Jupiter and its moon Europa taught me was to ..see how water and life conditions can be created by generating the heat from inside..by using the push pull to ones advantage and not depend only on external source of light..but create your own energy …find your own light.
I finally felt I had some answers to the mysterious light in my paintings.. It was not a reflection. It was an emanation.
The light was starting to come from inside me…I felt this innate sense of freedom….
And this change ..showed up first..in the Painting.
Art does set you you free.
I didn’t have to endlessly wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.
I was self-lit.
