Shadow & Light
23" x 15"
Watercolor and pencil on Paper
Today's painting is entitled Shadow and Light. This in short I claim to be my 'ode' to George W. Bush. This painting came to me just as George was rallying support to go to war in Iraq. The constant convincing on his part that there were indeed 'weapons of mass destruction', and the only thing I know is was what I felt at the time 'my gut feeling' as he would plead again and again on National Television. What I saw as he was speaking was a man lying and as he kept doing it to rally support he definitely got better at it. In fact I would pretty well say he's become very good at it.
Now I'm not here to bash Bush, my take is that he in fact is a puppet on a string, it's impractical to think that Mr. Bush really has that much power when there are so many around him advising and strategizing on his behalf. In fact Mr. Bush is just the face behind the machine 'The republican machine'. Now that is his choice of course or maybe it was truly a choice made for him by interpersonal influences, only he knows.
With that in mind the painting actually depicts something that we all struggle with and that is our shadow selves. This painting is of a figure with two faces, two sides. It is a internal struggle that we all deal with. We as human beings have free will to make our own choices. We are constantly faced with wanting to do the right thing, and sometimes we slip and do what we think is the right thing but for the wrong reasons and so on. The variables are endless but the struggle is the same.
If you, like myself are on a spiritual path, you will definitely have come face to face with this struggle and probably still do from time to time. It's not always cut and dry, but we do get better at it and ultimately we must regain our intuitive power as to what is right, really right in any situation that we come to face. This alone can be very challenging with all the outside distractions and obligations that we have. In fact it gets down right unsettling when what the situation calls for you to do what makes you entirely uncomfortable even though it really is the right thing to do. It is I believe in those situations we have the most spiritual growth, and by this I mean the realization that we truly are only responsible to ourselves. Now that is not to say that we should not indeed be loving to others, in fact quite the opposite by being loving to ourselves first and foremost we are able to be more loving to others. And of course on the plus side we will attract the same into our lives.
The shadows may seem scary but they don't have to be if you enter them with love.
