Committed to creative, sacred living, the lifestyle as well as the magazine, makes me want to articulate what those words mean. I turn first to the books by my bed, the ones I’m reading now, many of which have the word sacred in their titles, but I find no succinct definitions.
Faith Nolton comes closest. Author of Gardens of the Soul – Making Sacred and Shamanic Art, she begins her book by describing what she means by sacred art: …sacred art is about our inner creativity, about reaching out to find the deeper layers of reality, the energy within forms, and recording in pictures what we discover. . .such acts of life-affirming art ‘making’ weave positive threads. . .(that) may repair broken strands of soul, or bring blessing and healing, and are gifts to Life and Spirit. . .(linking us) into a vital source of well-being.
I appreciate Nolton’s words deeply since my painting and my writing serve to release the feelings that my body doesn’t want to hold tight. Repairing broken strands of soul – oh yes. Linking me to vital sources of well-being – oh yes.
This winter, on a snowy afternoon, a friend died - while snug in her home - when a freak avalanche roared down the mountain slope into her backyard in suburban Missoula MT. The enormous paradox of that act of God shook me almost more than her dying.
In the last few years, I’ve acquired a prayer painting practice and I knew my grief and horror would find both insight and solace there. The process of putting paint to paper, the hand holding brush doing this not that, the colors begging to be used, the textures showing up, the oddity of one big ear, the unplanned egg and the unexpected butterflyhuman, the white fanciful bird carrying soul thread,
In My Shoes with Deborah Jane Milton
Copyright Deborah Jane Milton. All Rights Reserved
my willingness to be in the flow for several days straight all that is what I call my prayer painting practice. That intuitive painting process relieved the pressure of shocking grief and brought illumination to and appreciation for the human tightrope we always walk – precious moments balanced between this breath IN and that breath OUT, always...until the body ceases living.
I gave this painting to my friend’s best friend who accompanied her in the hospital throughout the days she lingered in her body after being rescued. C’s eyes glistened as she said, “You have no idea all the stories, the facts, the symbols you’ve embodied in this painting. You have no idea…” And I didn’t and still don’t. What I do know is that I – 500 miles away - nonverbally communicated with both of my friends and their shared experience. Such communion is beyond words. Such communion is being in touch with mystery.
My bodymind gave itself over to the non-questioning process of painting the image that needed to show up. In that immersion I experienced grace.