Some art is really meant to be felt. It carries an energy that speaks to our being beyond words, beside the mind, through the emotions and the heart. Sometimes it can produce a whole visionary experience, in which we see or feel a process or events that are associated with the picture.
I recently had such an experience with two of Michelle Soule’s pieces about the transformational power of flame and fire. While you might well have a different experience (or none at all) in “viewing” these paintings, the messages I got seem to be more than personal. These are energies that we can all tap into in our own way, and are very much in play for many of us in these times of accelerated growth and emergence as spiritual beings on planet Earth.
“The Violet Flame”
The first painting, “The Violet Flame”, felt to me like an invocation, where the figure is calling in this energy and offering it too us. When I closed my eyes I felt myself in the flame, a sheet of violet flame, saw myself stepping through it, but my shadow self held back, afraid. I called and beckoned and after hesitating it stepped through the flame after me. As it did those parts that were not really me, things I carried for others, or limitations and programs that had come from society were burned away, and what joined me was a smaller figure, but one made now of gold.
This is the alchemy of transformation that is open to us when we are willing to turn inside and delve into the “dark” places of our soul. It is still our soul, and part of Soul. When we remove the judgments and fears we are gifted with valuable aspects of ourselves that have been “hiding”. This violet flame helps us in this process, purifying us as we step forward to claim our full spiritual essence. It says to me that in the “dark night” of our souls we are not alone, and spirit will aid us when we summon the courage to step forward through our fears and resistances.
“Risen”
The second painting, “Risen” is about another aspect of this birthing process we go through as we wake up to the reality of our spiritual selves. In this painting the figure is evoking the energies of the new born star behind it. Rather than holding the energy for us, it is calling forth the new solar wind, the energy is rushing out of the painting at us. With perhaps more urgency than in the Violet Flame, as we stand facing it, our being is blown open and the cloudy and retarding energies we carry are separated and carried off. We are being forced to wake up, to come back from dream (the figure lying behind in shadow, perhaps in the “field of ideas”) and step forward brightly in this world.
When a new star is born from a cloud of collapsing gas in the depths of space, it becomes so hot and pressured in its core that the fusion of atoms starts to occur. Pairs of hydrogen atoms combine into Helium and a great light and energy is released. This rushes outward through the star, until coming to the surface it forms a solar wind. The pressure of this light will blow all the remaining gas and dust out away from the star, leaving only a few planets that have solidified in orbit circling this new born being in the heavens, and first light rushes outwards to announce a new member in the community of stars.
We are at this place of igniting our souls, going deep into the pressure and heat of our being, owning our spiritual essence, lighting our being and throwing off the limitations, the shadowing energies that hide our true brilliance. We are needed in the world in all our power and glory. This new wind is clearing our being, challenging us to wake up and step forward.
What has been a quiet invitation is becoming a commanding roar. We can allow ourselves to be birthed in this wind, or continue to let our souls sleep in another world. We are all needed here in this one, to help birth the new realities that are coming through not just for us as individual beings, but collectively and planetarily.
If these paintings speak to you, or you know these energies from other sources, invite these flames to help you in your journey, and know that you have powerful assistance when you need it. Be reassured that once this light has been lit, even a little and deep inside, it will grow until it fills you, and you have come fully alive. This is not about doing something, but allowing yourself to be in the way you are meant to BE.
(© 1/2008)
