Where I Am is Where I Am Going Original Painting

Where I am is where I'm going 

The journey holds the diamonds of thought

The glistening crystals of dreams in fruition 

Unforgotten dances of the mind

Beginning they're spinning 

Beginning their own paths 

Lit up by truth's embrace 

Taking me up like wings 

Wings that swing me into 

A world of dreams 

A place where the dancing only rests 

Long enough to pick up more momentum

I fly through worlds unbound 

I dance into my dreams and they dance back at me 

With their crystals of sparkling beauty 

So surreal yet embraced by reality 

And I find I'm here again

In the beautiful place of purity 

where I began 

Where it all begins 

The beginning 

The desired place

Where once I left in search of more reality 

More of anything I thought was me 

And when the destination comes into view 

You'll find it's nothing new 

Only what was once forgotten 

Now remembered 

Now realized 

The beginning becomes the destination 

The pure sparkling world without any lack 

The imagination 

That childish 

Wildish

Dreamland 

In need of nothing 

Fruition was always there 

At the beginning 

In the pure uninhibited mind of a child 

My own mind

Without separation we would not understand connection, without seeing ourselves in our humanity we would not understand who we are to The Divine, without going our own way would we choose to follow the path unfolded for us. 

I was walking by the river and the thoughts were pouring in and out and flowin’ about. I thought about how children live life to the fullest and how they don’t have to be taught to enjoy being alive and all the wonderful things that entails. I thought about how many adults get lost trying to find a way to enjoy life or at least what they think that looks like. All along, the path of the adult is to learn how to be a kid again. To get back to the basics of life and enjoy the little things in each moment. To live out each day with a sense of freedom and joy, not thinking twice about taking the desired actions. 

Later on that day I drew a single curved line on the painting concept I had drawn in my sketchbook a few weeks earlier, connecting the river (which originally ran off of the page) to the hands holding the scroll. From the beginning I had planned on turning the river into a galaxy as it ran off the canvas as well as painting the hands as galaxies, so it was simply just waiting for the connection. 

That walk by the river also inspired a poem that was written shortly afterwards, and when I was almost done with the painting I decided to paint the poem on the scroll as the words to complete the piece. My first painting with poetry on it. (The words are the ones in the above poem)

I can’t remember how or when this piece was inspired otherwise because I had had the idea written down for a very long time in my notebook. However I can not get enough of the thoughts this concept provokes and it has inspired so so many new ideas I’ll be painting soon! It reminds me a lot of the Step by Step You Lead Me painting; a life pathway to be interpreted in endless ways. I have a feeling I’ll be painting a lot of these, maybe with glowing stepping stones, tunnels and archways! 

This is a very mixed and jumbled interpretation, but ‘tis the mind of an artist. I’m just letting you in on what I was thinking about while painting it. 

Some interpretations I am noticing are The Hands holding the scroll, the rest of the piece I’ll need to stare at longer and contemplate more. 

These hands can be none other than The Spirit’s, The Unfolder of the future, The Infinite Upholder. I love to use hands as a symbol of My Sanctifier, I often think of The Hand of salvation reaching out to me in my darkest moments to lift me up, a beautiful picture my mother gifted me with that I’ll paint one day (a concept echoed in my waterfall painting). I also feel so connected and in-tune with my own hands as I use them to do my favorite things, such as painting, it’s easy for me to picture my hands being held by The Hands of The Guide as I paint. Emotions I have gleaned from the writings of David in the Psalms where countless times I read “You uphold me with Your Righteous Right Hand.” I wrote first about this here while I was in New Zealand about 3 years ago.

   I do not believe that the galaxies or the universe are The Source “Itself” because the universe is too physical a thing for me to reason with, but there is a beautiful symbolism to The Hands being made of space and galaxies in my images because it is the largest thing that our human minds can wrap our heads around, and I imagined space being infinite and ongoing in all directions forever with no end, much like I view Eternal Source, although in a less physical sense (Even though it is true that the physical and the spiritual are deeply connected beyond our understanding). 

Furthermore the hands are very feminine, with pink Saturns, purple planets and a light shade of grey for the infinite blackness. I was not intending for the hands to be feminine, but I was looking at my own hands as models so it makes sense, but even the colors fell into place and I realize how beautiful a picture it is of the motherly side of Our Mother, because The Source of Life is neither male nor female but holds all qualities of what we understand in our human minds to be male and female within “it”. Indeed an Unsearchable Existence may very well contain other sexuality we know nothing of on our planet. As humans we are often bound by our sexuality to act and behave in certain ways, but look close enough and all people contain feminine and masculine qualities within themselves created for balance and flexibility. We are all made in the image of The Divine, so even if one were to believe that The Creator were a male, they would still have to believe “he” would have feminine qualities. And why is this important? Ah, another question to explore! 

I am still unsure what the stairs and river mean to me, they are just different phases of life I suppose, you know, unknown things. What I do notice, is that the path leads back to The Hands, it’s as if I walk away from what I truly desire searching frantically with an analytical mind, the adult mind, for who I am, for something to make me understand why I’m here, where I’m going, if I’m worth anything at all! Only to be led back to my Joy, my hope, my salvation, The Very Presence of Life. Why walk away in the first place? Without separation we would not understand connection, without seeing ourselves in our humanity we would not understand who we are to The Divine without going our own way, would we choose to follow the path unfolded for us. 

All I know is that I’m grateful for the chance to contemplate these images that teach me.