This is the name that artist Miriam Louisa Simons of Australia gave to her series of paintings she did following her breath with the strokes of her brush. (That funky piece to the right is my own :) Louisa’s art is literally breathtaking and inspiring at the same time, as well as brilliantly colorful and luminescent. I know anyone who is creative and all who are artists will appreciate her work. I recently found her work, although I have been reading her blog for some time now, and love the simplicity and directness in her writing.
In her description of her “Breathscribe” series she says: “During meditation, as the tide of my breath took me deeper and deeper into stillness and silence, the idea arose to work – somehow – with that rhythm of inspiration and exhalation… What if I painted the flow of my breath?”, she asked... “The relationship between breath and spirit revealed itself. Over time, the paintings evolved in their own way…”
In seeing her “Breathscribe” work I was enamored with its color and rhythm. I was reminded of the power of awareness, of just seeing, and of bringing awareness to the breath, to life; to always come back to the rhythm of the Breath, the rhythm of Awareness, and surrender to it. Where does the breath go? Where does it lead? At times it seems to lead to the Silent Wisdom within, to where Spirit speaks in the Heart of Hearts. At times it seems to lead nowhere in particular. One must listen in internal silence for the breath of Spirit to speak, if it speaks at all. It arises on its own, speaks as it wills, giving voice in the pen, in the brush, in the song, in the dance, in the thought, in the idea, in the beauty and fluidity of color and creativity – expressing that which is known in the Silence.
Enjoy the Heart Smiles… :)
Painting the Enso in my previous post, and practicing a few others, actually primed the creative pump, let’s say, and I went back to my Cray-Pas oil sticks and started drawing vortexes of color. This is a delightful “practice” - to be spontaneous and just create for the sake of creating and playing with color; playing with the movement of the oil with hands and fingers as they make sweeping circular movements gliding the color on paper to blend it, smooth it. It’s fun to step back and just see what emerges on paper, how it takes form, what it ends up looking like, even though the intention is circular. Some colors glide better than others, and look softer. The darker colors drag more and need to be coaxed into blending and smoothing. But they sometimes also create more “character”, a more textured look. Some look like waves encircling themselves, others like imaginary rabbit holes without end; one feels ethereal, and one appears a little dark and stormy. I was going for metallic silver and dark blue, but it came out gray…
