The Dream
I make many mistakes when I paint. And it is often through these ‘errors’ the gift of seeing, or knowing, comes.
It is only after I have made a mistake that revelation of what is, or what needs to happen, becomes clear.
It is through the struggle and surrender to these mistakes, in the effort to find where I need to go, that I discover the way. A way. And it is often a painful process. Relinquishing ideas, concepts, preferences, attachments – to things all good and worthwhile in themselves, but often inconsequential for fulfillment of what the painting is choosing to reveal.
And so I have learned to paint with respect. With patience. With forbearance. And faith. Lots of it. And a growing capacity to cope with what on the outset may appear as disturbances of process but which ultimately are way-showers and forgers of distilling greater understanding and truths.
I have learned to allow myself the wrestling with ego, fear of erasing things I have worked hard to construct - only to realise they don’t after all serve a purpose, and perhaps even obstruct/obscure something I didn’t know was there but is now shiningly clear. Bit by bit I add. And add. I build. I take away. I erase. I layer and layer and then rub and rub at the canvas and worry I will accidentally wear a hole, and what will happen then?
And then at some point, the painting is complete. The initial vision that compelled the need in me to paint it, with great hope and anticipation, as if along the way a great secret would be revealed, has taken me through a journey of contemplation, frustration, disappointment, self-doubt, reconciliation, tenderness, revelation, and ultimately, forgiveness, and love.
Perhaps greatest of all, is the development of the muscle of patience and compassion – for/with both myself, and the painting, and ultimately, acceptance of the essence of unknowability and Mystery within the journey of seeking to be True. True to something ineffable.
This practice, through the act of painting, is gradually transferred/incorporated into the realm/s of life that are not about painting. And this is where it is most needed. Especially when experiencing depths of personal challenge evoked through the word the Wyrrds.
The correct spelling is wyrd.
In ancient Norse wyrd is apparently rooted in the idea of unescapable fate…. the connectedness of all things. Death and Rebirth. The Goddess of Fate…
Alongside this it can mean All time being Now, including Past and Future.
We are All of the Wyrd.
We each have our own personal experience of the word wyrd. From which many profound and life-changing events are born.
After the following dream, dreamed 4 nights before the Launch of Zentaimprints - the painting Lion of Judah found its way onto the canvas.
Painting this painting carried me through a personal time of the Wyrrds and holds for me still deep story of those great mysteries of fate, death, rebirth and the inter-connectedness of all things in a way that is beyond conscious knowing.
The Great Sanusi Credo Mutwa - whose presence was embedded within the dream has now passed - on the 25th March 2020. This Great One held so much on behalf of all humanity and the ancestors. He held this as a bridge into the future that we are now stepping into - as we Awaken and open our hearts to the rebirth of our planet and all Consciousness.
The Gift of Credo's presence will remain embedded on this earth and in the hearts of many across the globe, while his Spirit finally rides free on the wings of the StarLions and the great beings of Light that uphold All.
Bayete!
The Great Lion
Dream 14th Feb 2018
I am moving through the inside of a large ‘neutral’ building, it is semi-dark. The first space/room I enter is square and completely empty - except at the center - in which are two huge larger than life utterly Resplendent White Lions sitting motionless side by side facing me. They are sitting on the ground and yet above it.
The manes of the two Lions are massive halo’s glowing with Light – White Light.
An element of fear moves through me but then I realise I am singing to the Lions - some kind of prayer or invocation - and as I sing I am flying, moving toward and then past the Lions, on the right.
I recognise the Lions and I are energetically resonant/One and there is no need for fear.
Now I find myself in a room/space diagonally behind them (on the right again). This room is rectangular in shape and more brightly lit. It is also somehow more emotionally complex and I notice a few people are also present on the outer edges of the space.
There are two lions here, one I don’t fully see/take in, which I know is female - she is not fully present yet to my vision. For now the attention is on the Great Golden Lion in front of me - laying like a Sphinx - so I am witness to his entire body on the side.
He is huge, like a great Mythological Beast in the proportions and presence of his body.
I then see that the lower part of his body, his belly, resting on the ground - has breasts/udders, almost like elephant breasts - swollen and heavy with both ‘milk’ and the weight/burdens of all that He/She carries/bears on behalf of All. For this Great Lion is both male and female.
I feel great grief and compassion for the dignity and forbearance of this Great Lion, this One who is like a Christ in Lion form, manifest on the physical and yet also on the metaphysical.
When I wake Credo Mutwa (Africa’s great Keeper of Ancient Knowledge & one who has demonstrated the most profound forbearance throughout his life) comes immediately to my mind - it is more of a physical sensation than a ‘thought’. I wonder about the female lion - I sense she will be revealed, or reveal herself, when the time is ready. It is as if she is the future.
Zenta Gabrielle Z