destruction

I think Kali is working by my side right now....

Gently blowing her breath of change into my life

This painting (not yet finished) has been the evidence of a huge shift.

She was the second portrait that i started from my course with Connie Hozvicka of DirtyFootprints Studio. I was working with all the tips for making things look realistic... the colours the placement of the eyes....

and then i looked at her neck and saw that it looked like a tree... and then something compelled me to make the roots, the leaves...

the sensible voice in my head was saying "this is going to ruin it" "That is just making it ugly"

but something else - i like to think courage - kept my hand moving - making flesh coloured leaves, fleshy coloured tendril roots...

I kept thinking about the concept of Homoempathicus... and how this painting seems to speak of my sense of our connection to nature - of plants as living sentient creatures, of our need for interconnectedness to the planets beings of all kinds....

i felt alive

i felt excited

and then yesterday i went to see "Eat, Pray, Love". I was touched by many parts of it - but the part that dropped into my belly like a stone was when Elizabeth Gilbert was sitting in the catacombs under Rome and realised how the life of this ancient structure was guaranteed by the ruin it had undergone. That ruin had lead to it being reinvented as other things

Ruin is the way to transformation.

RUIN IS THE WAY TO TRANSFORMATION.

this seems unutterably HUGE to me right now

Kali your breath is hot in my ear.