Articles: Familia Reflected

Familia Reflected

Allies from another country…

The painting “Familia Reflected: Allies From Another Country” was created from a dream of incredible quintessence; a dream that brought me to the feeling of dimension, an extension of another world that now pervades and permeates the very atmosphere of my life.

In the beginning of the dream I am traveling with someone who is with me only in presence. As we come to a doorway we separate. I continue to travel downward in direction. My motion is slow and deliberate. Iam not aware of my surroundings until I find myself with a round table in the middle of a room. The surface of the table is very shiny and smooth. Sitting at opposite ends of the table are two beings. The one nearest motions me to sit next to it. I am unable to tell if they are men or women. Their appearance is androgynous coupled with a strange fluctuation of being sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine. Clothed in long black monk-like robes with hoods loosely fitted around their heads, their dark faces are framed in a deceiving light.

I sit down at the table and the one who is across from me asks to see my fist. “Don’t you mean my palm?” I ask in surprise. “No,” it commands. “Let me see your fist.” I reach my arm across the table and place my fist in its strong dark hands. “You will make it in this lifetime” it says, first examining my fist, then looking me squarely in the eyes. I then question, “Don’t you mean I am making it now?” “No,” it repeats. “You will make it in this lifetime.”

“Your mother loved you very much,” the creature next to me says as it explores my palm. “My mother never loved me,” I contradict. “Everyone you meet mirrors you,” it says and I explain, “I mirror everyone I meet.”

Although I don’t recall the rest of the conversation I know that it continues that way for quite sometime, going over issues that I was concerned with at that time in my life. I will say something; it says the opposite. It says something; I say the contrary. But there is no argument, no debate. This is all done in a genuine attitude of fact.

The energy begins to be very active and more black robed phantoms float into the room. They sit down around the table. Even though these creatures penetrate the surroundings with an ominous aura, I feel they mean me no harm. Yet there is an uneasiness that is growing.

It becomes quiet. My mind is determined to lift the veil from this riddle. The inhabiting of this strange room with these curious beings grows into a sense of apprehension. Fear rises in me. The fear is a cue to the creature across the table. It gets up and comes around until it is standing behind me, bending down while it is encouraging me to also stand. It leans forward close enough so that I can feel it grow in height. I wait transfixed in anticipation. It moves closer, reaching down to wrap its arms like wings around me. It cradles me securely and rocks me back and forth. I feel a great warmth and an incredible sense of peace and harmony enter my body. I know by this embrace I am being fine-tuned with the universe. I say: “Is this someone I know or someone I will meet?” They all sing out in onegreat voice of resonance, “This is Familia.”

I feel myself slowly moving into waking consciousness like a tiny canoe slipping through the water to the shore on a gentle current. And as the days pass I am haunted by the hypnotic chant of the voices of these dark-robed phantom beings. The sense of love and belonging that continued to travel with me, grew with each recall of the dream. And then within this mood I become compelled to reproduce the expression of the vision. I knew at once I would not paint the embrace at this time. It proved to be more a feeling, a sense of an impression rather than an image. So I let it go until later, knowing in my heart that the images were there in me and would come forward in time.

There are rare occasions that do exist when a piece of work seems to magically create itself. Forms come together, seeming to have a life of their own, bleeding through the canvas like a stain from the other side of the cloth. And I remember, as each face became alive with an expression of familiarity, the round table emerged as the moon, a mandala of the sky, or a crystal ball anchored by the enclosing figures around it.

Soon I was to recognize the essence of the painting as the presence I traveled with at the beginning of the dream; the spirit split into visible forms living now in waking hours, peering through the window of a portrait of a dream.