Abstract sumi e, “Wild Flowers May Grow” from a poem by Rumi.

Wild Flowers May Grow – 1903S 14” x 18”, triple matted, on mulberry paper, by Marilyn Wells, $385. Also available as a print. See MarilynWellsArtStudio.Com

Very little grows on jagged rock.
Be ground. Be crumpled
so wild flowers will come up
where you are.
– “Surrender” Rumi 1903S

We want to learn how to leave off being so rigid, so sure of our opinions. Humility and an open heart will allow the wild flowers to come up where we are in our past, present, and future, all here and now in one present, if we open up to this.

painting from heart and soul insights

In connection with my abstract sumi e, “Wild Flowers May Grow”, recently I came across an interesting post by the venerable Cynthia Bourgeault Blog, that helps me explain these paintings, and this one.

Firstly, I speak of these paintings coming from “heart and soul”. Secondly, as I continue my own studies, I understand better what this means, and I will share with you further in this blog as I find better words.

We are moving into a different construct, mode of being, as our current linear, rational, consumerist, self-absorbed, dual and divisive world is fraying at the edges, on the skids, and must either self-destruct or move into a different way of being. That structure is called “Integral” by Gebser and our understanding also borrows from the “Imaginal” border land between our current mode of being and the layer of being just beyond or surrounding us at higher frequency. Called the Kingdom of Heaven by Christians and Jesus.

When we tap into it, as I did in my abstract sumi e, “Wild Flowers May Grow”, I embody a poem, or piece of prose or music, in my heart and soul. Then, with a few stokes of my brush and the sumi or black ink, I release the Ch’i or Energy of that knowing on paper. Finally, I find the end result also reaches out and touches other peoples’ hearts in the same, hard to explain in limited words, way They often say they feel they have been heard. They are warmed in their own hearts and souls.

The experience is said well by Cynthia Bourgeault in Introducing the Imaginal.

Introducing the Imaginal

“Experientially, received within one’s own quiet subjectivity, it appears as an allusive aliveness, a meaning presenting itself in “glimpses and visions,” a foretaste or reminder of a higher order of being to which the human heart actually belongs and to and from which it responds, with infinite tug. The imaginal nudges us, beacons us, corrects us as we stray from our authentic unfolding, rewards us with dazzling glimpses and reassurances of that “other intensity” to which we truly belong, and in whose light the meaning of our earthly journey will ultimately be revealed, like the treasure buried in the field.”

Hope that helps a bit. Will say more as I go deeper in my own understanding of what has intuitively blossomed forth in my sumi e abstract painting.

’Tis curious that we only believe as deep as we live.”
– Emerson