CONVERSATIONS
WITH THE COSMOS
A journal from the edge of seeing
03. November 4th
Embracing
Darkness...
The Light came first, but it was the darkness that revealed it.
Name 7: DNA of the Soul
Aleph Kaf Aleph – Restoring the Original Light
Work-in-progress
Begin with Walking into Silence...
At the edge of remembering
The darkness surrounded me, and by now I was used to it. Yet the call for Light woke me to the dangers hidden within it.
I breathed in, ignored the panic, and painted the central letter, Kaf, the vessel that brings form and protection. The painting steadied. It was holding Light, but not enough, and the old fear rose again.
In my haste, I ignored my instincts about building Light in layers. There was no time. I mixed thick white acrylic with fluorescent pink and laid it on thickly. I used no retarder, the medium that slows drying, so although the paint was thick, it would still dry quickly.
I stood back. The painting needed Light, but this was as false as the curtains it was trying to penetrate. I stared at it. There was nothing to do but remove it.
Work-in-progress — The call for the Light
Sacred cleanse
I grabbed wire wool and a bottle of holy water from the Red Spring in Glastonbury and began cleansing the canvas. At first it was dismay. Then delight. Water dripped onto the floor. Swathes of white paint loosened, and the first brushstrokes became visible again.
I laughed.
The cadmium yellow marks began to breathe, answering the questions I had forgotten I had asked.
In silence, we meet the essence of ourselves: the one unafraid of the dark, the one born from it.
I continued to cleanse the canvas, letting the curtains fall away, and the revelations deepened.
Work-in-progress — Revealing the Light
The returning Light
As the letters Aleph, Kaf, Aleph took form on the canvas, their power pulsed along the horizon. I had seen this before, in meditation: a lightning flash becoming a beam of Light, as though I were looking out across all of existence from the edge of the Earth. I began to understand the power of the 22 letters of Creation.
My sketch of the vision, made before painting.
Work-in-progress — The Light answering the Call
From the left edge, light blue emerged. From the right, fluorescent pink danced across the canvas to meet it. In their meeting, a conversation began, and Light burst forth. The breath of heaven was being made visible once again.
Chaos was finding order.
The image had not taken form as I had received it. The galaxy was not ultramarine, and the letters sat on the horizon instead of in its gap. Yet the point of Light where the lightning had begun was there, at the centre of the Kaf.
The soul had answered the call for the Light.
Our divine nature
As the Light returned, a silence deepened. I thought again of the Name as a garment for the Divine. What did such a garment conceal, and what did it reveal? Night after night I had painted over the Light. Yet it was through those very layers that I recognised the flash I had seen in meditation.
Perhaps this was what the garment was for: giving the Light a form in which I could see it.
I continued to layer the Light in paint. Time was spacious. Delicate, precise brushstrokes crossed the canvas and called for more colour.
Work-in-progress — The Light's emanation
As it began
The same colours that had covered the soul’s essence now liberated it. Lines of fluorescent pink, light purple, cadmium yellow, light blue, sap green, and white burst from the edges, applied with the edge of the window squeegee—the same tool that had first brought forth the soul’s essence.
I had painted the image in acrylics, black ink, and acrylic pens. The centre needed a medium that could reflect more Light, so I took out the oil paint. Its first marks deepened the frequency and anchored the Light already radiating outwards.
I applied dots of Light, gentle touches of the divine. The last brushstrokes, cadmium yellow and orange, sent forth a burst of Light from the centre and ended the painting as it had begun.
When I began, I wanted to protect the first yellow. I was afraid that if I covered it, I would lose the Light I felt as I drew it across the canvas. Only now could I recognise that same Light in the hand that had kept painting through the dark. My soul had been there all along.
Name 7: DNA of the Soul
Aleph Kaf Aleph – Restoring the Original Light
Acrylic on canvas, 100cm x 150cm (40" x 60")
Meditate with this Name and reconnect to the source of all creation through the twenty-two Hebrew letters, the DNA of the Soul. Quiet the mind and rest in divine protection as you return to the soul.
Aleph
The remembrance of our divine nature.
Kaf
The sacred vessel that receives and gives form and protects.
Aleph
The breath of the Infinite.
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