THE CELTIC TAROT
Now available as a download on iTunes
HEAVEN & EARTH
Heaven and Earth (2011)
This first acrylic painting is a personal reflection of my spiritual journey over
the past 30 years. Where I am now is in deep contrast to what 'Courtney' had been
seeking externally. Although the personality of Courtney remains, the entity that
he was is now falling away, thought still occurs, pain and fear also are experienced
but separately now and less and less within an egoic story. In the painting the seeker
searches in vain for the answer to the urge within him for union, not realising that
he was not separate to begin with. My searching over the years, though driven by
the urge for what i called 'oneness' was also driven by the fact that as long as
i kept searching the ego was safe. I am coming to see more and more that there is
no 'I' to awake, no movement into awakening, since that all involves duality, but
more like a falling away of the ego and mind. The circle, 'The Motionless Mover'
at the centre of a mandala or cross portrays everything moving around the still centre.
There is no sound without silence and no movement without stillness.
From this centre,
I experience things very differently, like a story unfolding that i can immerse myself
in or have an experience of the story that I am neither 'separate from' nor 'part
of' -
So where am I in the painting? I am the painting,
the paint, the brush that stroked the canvas, the inspiration, the physical entity
'known as Courtney'.