A Painting Painted From the Future?

"Volcano" by Bettina

So often, we don’t grasp what our creations are about, until later sometime in the future….. As things unfold, my painting titled “Volcano” gets to have another dimension yet , more than I could possibly imagine at the moment of creation….. I wonder, did I paint it from the future?

Painted before we left for Costa Rica, out of the blue, working through my resistance of it as I had decided and concluded that I didn’t want to paint a landscape (whatever that was about), it came into being, from running water, splashing inks and pouring paints.

I painted it vertically, supposedly abstract. The painting had it’s own plans, and I couldn’t move it forward until I turned it horizontally and applied more colors and creating shape, until late in the night when colors are not discernable clearly any more and intuition does the mix.

Out of that process, “Volcano” came into being. I looked at the finished painting, and I thought “This looks like Costa Rica!” I have experienced it many times before, this process of painting in and with the energy of a place weeks before I would go there.  So, here “Volcano” told me about changes and transformation, things falling apart to be put together again in a new way. It carried the energies of ‘dramatic ‘ earth changes, and at the same time, there was no drama but such a peace and allowance of all of that.  The hills were going to continue rolling, the trees would be dancing in the breeze, birds would continue singing and the earth breathing and being. Fireworks painted onto the sky, in anticipation of an elemental celebration.

I knew I was entering a portal of transformation that I had opened a long time ago, for just right now to step through. The trip began.

Costa Rica has been, for me, a place for big changes, not the little changes. Those changes that challenge you to the bones and have you walk a narrow path between the choice to stay and the choice to go. In the end, it’s all just a choice. Challenging what I thought was real that wasn’t, held significant that wasn’t, realizing the lies of this reality and then the question “Ok, so what now?”

Well, it is 2015. I am in Costa Rica. My plans were to paint, sing, offer energy work and be a contribution to this space here in any way, shape or form.  And, yes, things usually don’t look the way you think. Ever noticed?

And my body had it’s own point of view too.

A flue/cold grounded me for about 7 days shortly after arriving here.

Patiently, I gave my body the time to rest and release. The releasing, shifting and changing has been going on all these months of my stay here. The mountain seems to be contributing to this too. Heart palpitations, at times head aches, sadness welling up from pockets in my universe that I hadn’t been aware before. There was a sense of ‘nothingness’ and ‘uselessness’ rising within me, power dwelling up from depth that I hadn’t been aware before.

Powers that I wasn’t aware before having made me wonder…. Earth was constantly asking for my energetic contributions which I very happily gave, to the point that I put that trickle onto an automatic transfusion system from my body to the planet.

This nothingness, this quiet, like the quiet before a storm….. “What was that?” Asking more questions revealed that there was nothing that I could do about it other than just be with it!

A week ago, I got sick again, with high fever. While lying in bed, I got a sense of urgency, a heating up of things. I said to my partner “It’s heating up!” while my feet where burning! I couldn’t remember having had that kind of a burning sensation before, it was so different … more like a ‘fire-walk’. I asked my body what that was and what it required. And again, I got that there was only being with it and staying in bed. My body was asking for my allowance and patience. In one feverish night, Earth Being showed up and she held my feet, asking me to please receive what she desired to gift to me. I started weeping! How much did I care for the planet? So much that I was so busy with gifting to her and forgot about receiving from her. I broke open, and the fever expanded into a pulsating heartbeat. The earth walk was heating up, and fiery elements were dancing around me. The choice. Yes, choice. When had I ever chosen for me? What was I choosing now? Going or staying? I chose to stay. “I don’t know how this is going to be, what the walk will be, where it will take me, I have no idea, but I’m staying! I am here, now! I am choosing to be aware and present!” She smiled, and her old face gently lit up from the tears falling from her kind eyes. Tree being was there too, big roots reaching into the earth. Oh yes, the trees! I love trees, and they have had their place in my life, all lives. Heart beating in no-motion, still and strong, present and graceful. What being space of communion trees are!

She was there at my feet all night, and I sensed every molecule of my body and being spinning and speeding up, my heart in a wild dance, my body sweating.  ‘Will my body be strong enough for this?’ And there was a wild ‘Yes!’. So I expanded into space, out and out and out, singing with the molecules and the space and the motion and the laughter and the tears.  

Next morning, I had the clear awareness that one of the volcanoes was going to go off, here in Costa Rica. Earth is heating up, the elements are cooking and boiling, changing, transforming, laughing in an ancient dance.  More questions created awareness around my stay. Do I stay, do I leave, what will each choice create? Staying for now was what came to me. Whatever my contribution was and will be here, would I ever find out? My knowing told me that there was a contribution in my being here and my body being here with me.

Three days later, still recuperating, I could almost not make it out of my bed. I was nauseous and made it to the bathroom last minute… After that cleanse, I felt relieved. Later that day, I heard on the news that Turrialba, one of Costa Rica’s 12 volcanoes, had erupted big time that  same day, with ashes and smoke covering the capital city San Jose and the surrounding province, which led to the airport closing for 24 hours.

And I looked at my painting, and I wondered “What did I know that I hadn’t acknowledged that I knew?” And “How much more aware can I be from here?” The discomfort I had at home when thinking about going to Costa Rica, the knowing and the choice to go because that was what created more for the future. Discomfort? Yes. Is discomfort wrong? No. It just is. Is it awareness? Yes. What if discomfort is an intensity of awareness that shows us the beyond-of-limitations-space?

So, I wonder, what is my awareness telling me from here?