Finding Focus
The vision for this painting unfolded over a few days in early January 2022 after a very odd month of December, when I had been feeling unusually ungrounded, like I was floating in an abyss, struggling to land. Whatever I was trying to do to ‘land’ was not working. I couldn’t even see the land! I had never felt such an extreme sensation. It affected my ability to engage with my husband and kids, which felt quite scary. At times it also felt like life was taking a pause while ‘things’ were being rearranged, but whatever was being rearranged, like puzzle pieces, was taking too long.
On January 5th, I got the urge to drive down to the coast with my youngest son, Ian, who was 5 then and had not returned to school yet. I felt we both needed a bit of ocean time. It was a long drive, and we were only there for 1 hr, but my inner voice was nudging me to head to the ocean. The ocean represents the subconscious mind. There is so much depth in this space that we do not know. The element of water represents our emotions and the nurturing aspect of our being, and I was craving to get close to it.
On average, the human body has 60 - 70% water. That is the majority of our physical makeup, just like the Earth. How often do we explore this aspect of ourselves, and how comfortable are we navigating and looking after our ocean? At different stages of our life, this will vary, of course. There are times when we are comfortable and at other times when the ocean gets deeper and darker. However, in the darkness, we become conscious and emerge with new levels of awareness. As Carl Jung wisely said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
In the years I have been learning and practising “grounding and presence”, I have come to experience many layers and depths to this practice. The more we expand (in consciousness), the greater we need to ground that energy. I have experienced a correlation between the depth of our insights, our connection to Earth, and our biological mother. My connection to Earth has deepened in relation to how deep I have journeyed and healed within my maternal lineage (my ancestors). Fathers are born from mothers, so I find the maternal lineage one of the most important areas of inner healing work we can do in our lifetime.
As a mother, I have witnessed how my inner journey and healing have impacted my two boys (my future lineage). I am grateful that I have been attuned to this since their birth. They reflect back on everything, and I listen. While I get many things wrong, they have been my greatest teachers. Ian had been showing me through his actions over the past couple of weeks where I needed to focus so, in turn, he could find his focus.
The following day, on January 6th, I listened to my favourite grounding meditation that brought everything back to focus. There were a few tears of joy as I felt the energy flowing through me again, lifting me out of the ocean into conscious awareness.
The Vision
In my inner vision, I felt myself connecting with my soul essence and the light that resides in my heart, which I referred to as my inner sun. I then felt the light travel up to the stars and down to the Earth's core. The energy that was flowing through me felt very strong and familiar. I felt I was back - back home in my body. It made me emotional.
The next day, on January 7th, I repeated the meditation, and my inner sun, which I usually envision as a sphere of light, became a multilayered pulsing heart. On the third day, on January 9th, I joined an online meditation circle, and in my inner sight, I then saw golden light fall like drops into the Earth. The Earth opened up like two mountains receiving this nourishing elixir.
Our connection with Earth strengthens when we navigate within ourselves and connect deeply. Many will intellectually grasp this, but few will truly feel it or be attuned to the communication network within and without. Our physical bodies are made up of Earth; therefore, the clearer our bodies are in their organic structure and resonance, the stronger the connection. We are the microcosmic reflection of her, as we are of our biological mothers who birthed us.
As I was working on the drawings, many synchronicities unfolded, indicating that something was being expressed collectively related to sovereignty. At the time, I was also writing a new article Inner Integrity, published on my website on January 22, 2022. I finished The Pulsing Heart on the 28th of January, the end of the Venus retrograde.
The Morning Star
In the skies, Venus was transitioning from evening to morning star, symbolizing her emergence from the underworld to start a new cycle. In Sumerian times, Venus' counterpart was Innana, the goddess of fertility and abundance. The story goes that after Innana spends time in the underworld (Venus in retrograde as the evening star), emissaries from the Earth search for her. They rescue Innana, and she comes back to Earth resurrected. This is the phase when Venus appears in the sky again as the morning star. Various stages of 'shedding' (of the ego) take place and can be attuned to the journey of the chakras.
Around this time, I was also getting ready to embark on my subsequent two Viniyoga chakra courses - the Solar Plexus followed by the Heart Chakra. I had been on a Viniyoga journey through the chakras since the year before. The deep dive into my Solar Plexus helped me reconcile some resentment I was still holding onto, but it went much deeper than that.
"The energy of the solar plexus is linked to the physical organ of the diaphragm, which governs the projection of our personal power into the world. When we wish to declare our power, we speak, move, or sing from our belly - like a diva or dramatic ancient orators of old. Our physical power comes from an active and dynamic diaphragm, but one that is at the same time fluid and supple…Our primal, or first, emotions are located in our intestines; they govern our ability to receive primal physical nourishment from our food but also primal physical love. This important area is the sacred site where our umbilical cord once connected us to the placenta and represents the nourishment of the mother. Wounds around connection, belonging, and primal nourishment live here - often holding grief and fear. Therefore, the relationship between the solar and the moon balances our capacity to be firm, fiery, and powerful with healthy boundaries or soft, watery, and sensitive, open to merging. They also govern whether or not we can assimilate both food and emotions - shutting down our ability to digest in times of stress." - Womb Awakening by Bertrand
When I moved onto the heart chakra, I grieved deep unidentifiable hurts stemming from childhood. Then, an old issue resurfaced related to my bile; for a few months, I was quite ill and struggled to keep food down. It was awful and uncomfortable, but I knew I was purging something emotional. I went to the doctor even though I knew there was nothing they could do. As usual, results would come back ok. I went to a Reiki Master healer instead of taking the recommended medicine, and the session helped shift the "fever" that was moving through my belly and ready to leave, which it finally did.
By the time I resolved my tummy issues, I had already been back consulting in international development for a few months. It had been 4 years since I had left my career, and I was surprisingly motivated to reengage. My perspective changed, and so did my priorities. While I was feeling much more confident and stable in myself, over the years I had to learn to cultivate temendous emotional resilience to stand my ground and hold myself strong like an iron rod amid massive changes, projections and misunderstandings. Despite my strength and resilience, I felt more alien to my profession than ever before, but it was time to merge in order to emerge.
While I write this and reflect back many months later, I find this timing uncanny as I was drawn to visit the ocean in early January to emerge and meet the sun, my inner sun, the next day, when Venus was conjunct with the sun. A couple of weeks later, she emerged as the morning star. In February, I worked on the geometries of my new painting, titled Emergence (see image on the right, which I will write more about soon); a painting that evolved from a painting titled Integrity, Furthermore, in Soul Plan, the energy of 11.2 - assimilation, structure, and harmony - is my Soul Destiny, and Venus is the celestial body associated with this energy. Getting a Venus cycle calendar may be a worthwhile investment!
I could not see any of this while I was 'living' for most of 2022; only in hindsight could I connect the dots, write, and share this story with you today. I share to portray the incredible synchronicities in which we live. If we look up to the skies or deep within our subconscious, we will find the same patterns - a beautifully orchestrated melody creating and guiding our path to enlightenment.
And to my relief, I was back on Earth; I had landed.
The Collective Ocean
This brings me back to the start of this article: the ocean. Many months later, I recently found myself questioning the current trends in water-related foreign and governmental policy. Suppose we understand deeply our own body of water - our ocean - and its relation to the Earth. In that case, we may begin to resolve the problems we began - as humans - in the first place and no longer see them manifesting externally.
Imagine, for a moment, capturing the equivalent amount of the water in your body in a bucket. Now, remember all the things you consume or apply to or on your body. For example, the foods you eat, are they processed? What are the ingredients used? Which ones are synthetic or genetically modified? Which ones were grown in fields that use pesticides and hormones sprayed or injected into vegetables and meats? How about all the items you use - soaps, shampoos, creams, or hair dye - and the ingredients that get absorbed by your skin? How about the toxicity (pollution) we inhale from our environment? Or the synthetic medicines we consume and inject into our bodies? Thoughts impacting your well-being, for example, any negative thoughts you may be thinking or feeling throughout your day? Imagine taking all that and putting it into the bucket of water. Would you drink that?
Imagine changing your habits and how you eat and consume, supporting the companies that are developing alternative products and therapies that are safer and more organic for your body; your ocean? So that you stop polluting your water. More individuals taking responsibility for their microcosm, contributing to the collective ocean. When we stop polluting our water, it will naturally extend to the Earth because we are the microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm. How many more governmental agencies, policies and laws do we need? Or is it more issues and conflicts we - the government - seek to generate instead of well-being?
I cannot raise the ocean without raising my breath. Our ancient cultures knew the right balance between o2 and co2 within the body. They created mantras that ensured this balance, but much is lost to many of us, and many illnesses and diseases have shown up as a result. This same principle applies to Earth.
“Over millennia, these cultures developed hundred - thousands - of methods to maintain a steady flow of prana. They created acupuncture to open up prana channels and yoga postures to awaken and distribute the energy…But the most powerful technique was to inhale prana: to breathe. Breathing techniques were so fundamental to prana that ch’i and ruah and other ancient terms for energy are synonymous with respiration. When we breathe, we expand our life force. The Chinese called their system of conscious breathing qigong; qi, meaning “breath”, and gong, meaning “work”, or, put together, breathwork” - Breath by James Nestor
The Painting
The Pulsing Heart reminds me to return to my essence (my inner sun) and nourish that connection to find balance, alignment, and strength.
As soon as I finished the painting, I sent it to my mother in a text (she had no idea I had been working on it) and asked her what she saw and felt. I share her words, originally written in Spanish, translated below which I feel are a beautiful depiction.
“The light that radiates from the diamond of the universe enters your mind giving you flashes of illumination and purification to pass them to the heart in concentrated drops of security and permanence.” - Alicia Aurora Alday
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