On an impulse, I joined Brian on the trip down the Turnagain Arm, past Beluga Point, to the pull-off where we gather the mountain’s gushing water into our bottles for drinking. He agreed to sit in the car with me for an hour so I could draw. During the drive down, I became aware of the oneness of the sun with its reflections on the surface of the earth. The recognition within myself of that unity (which felt like an act of will)  seemed to render strength to my mind and body. I knew that this awareness must inform the drawing process.

The currents in the Arm are turbulent and chaotic, related to the movement of the tides, the shallowness of the Arm, and other factors I don’t know about. I drew the near shore, the far shore, and the currents. I was especially aware of the sun’s myriad reflections on the shifting waters. It was time to go and I would have to finish the drawing at home. This made me uneasy, because I like to be looking at the place I’m drawing.

When I was meditating the next morning, it became clear that it is possible to energetically return to a place and reconnect with it. So that’s what I did as I continued to work on the drawing at home.

I had also been reading a book that I had purchased at the recommendation of my friend Dianne Iverson– *Life, Paint, and Passion: Reclaiming Spontaneous Expression, by Michell Cassou and Stewart Goldberg (with a forward by my writing teacher Natalie Goldberg). The method can be briefly described as allowing images to come from the inside and go onto the paper uncensored, but with a conscious connection to yourself and the tools being used.

Under that influence, the challenge was to let go of my attachment to composition and to allow what wanted to come onto the page to come. The feeling of aliveness within me was the touchstone for how the ink shed itself upon the paper. If I hadn’t had years of writing practice with Natalie, it would have been a lot harder than it was to stay in the spot that kept the censor at bay. Thank you, Natalie!

I did kind of marvel at what came onto the page. There was a voice saying that this is silly and this is not what I am “supposed” to be doing with the assignment. But I knew it was a voice I should not give my attention to. In the upper left, the trees became dark figures moving; in the past I have “seen” similar moving figures on the surface of the inlet waters (although they were radiant light rather than dark).  A different kind of figures appeared in the water. On the edge of the shore, right against the huge chunk of drifting black snow/dirt/ice, someone else appeared, totally unexpected.

Perhaps the first unexpected happening was that the sun wanted to skip across the horizon. I thought, no that’s not accurate! But clearly the sun wanted to present itself in this way. And who am I to say this is wrong? That opened me up to the rest of the goings on.

So there we are! I have no idea what will happen next.

*When you let these images take form in their own unique way, you are in touch with something beyond yourself. The universal is not separate from the personal. On the contrary, the universal uses the personal to manifest.

— Life, Paint, and Passion: Reclaiming Spontaneous Expression, by Michell Cassou and Stewart Goldberg

Hmmmmmm…

… the noun hiki and the verb hiku both  derive from hi (sun), meaning ‘to draw back.’ In Japanese, there are other words carrying the same vibration which are derive from hi, such as hiki-yoseru, meaning ‘to draw something near to you’…

— Meishu-sama, Foundations of Paradise

August 2014– Wayne Vaman David Robinson saw a bear skull on the beach at this very spot! Another verification that this is REAL.

This is interesting, as I felt that by perceiving the sun as one with its reflections, I was drawing the sun into myself.

14: 388– This union of the soul with God is like the light of the sun which extends from its reflection in water right up to the sun itself.

— Jnaneshwar’s Gita: A Rendering of the Jnaeshwari, Kripananda