The Soul's Palette

I AM ALONE in a cavern, and the only way out is to keep painting until I discover the light that will guide my way. My workshop companions are sleeping in the world above, unaware of the fear that fills my every cell and permeates this predawn darkness. I have been at Aviva Gold's "Painting From the Source" workshop since last night, and there is still another day to go. And what have I painted? What am I supposed to paint?

I recall Aviva's words: "Let the painting speak to you. Don't try to control it. Don't even think about it."

Looking at the paper tacked on the wall, I gaze at the smears and squiggles I slapped across its surface the night before. I remove my glasses, unfocus my eyes, and stare, listening, praying for the picture to reveal what I must do.

"You're thinking too much," I tell myself, then struggle against even that thought. "I'm no painter," I mutter in frustration. "I'm a novelist. Why did I ever think...!"

And then a vision floats into my consciousness - an image of words not as concepts but as pictures, as symbols. I tack up another clean sheet of poster paper beside last night's effort.

I can see the letters in my mind's eye - no, right there on the paper in front of me. As I reach for a brush, my hand is drawn to a particular one, which I allow it to choose. My eyes scan more than a dozen open cups of tempera: yellow, peach, fuschia, turquoise, black. And then I see it deep earthen red, like the baked clay of the Southwest. It reminds me of my daughter, Kiva, who is named after the underground chambers where the Hopi hold spiritual ceremonies.

"Yes," I think with a smile, feeling the color tug at my abdomen. I spoon some of the thick liquid onto a plastic plate that serves as a palette, turn to the paper, and watch as painted letters take form:

the wind stirs in the willows the wind stirs the grasses the rocks are ringing they are ringing in the mountains a slender antelope he is looking to the mountain the whirlwind comes gliding the whirlwind comes gliding

The words dance across the paper and through my soul. Is it a painting? Is it even words? Perhaps it's the very reason I have come this weekend. Not to paint or even think about why I am here, but simply to touch and reconnect with the source at the center of all creativity, the source that feeds not only the artist's brush but the words flying from my fingertips when I sit at my computer and write.

As the sun rises an hour later, my fellow painters file down the staircase as if descending the ladder of a sacred kiva. One by one they enter the studio, our place of sanctuary and renewal. I have completed my poem-picture and put it to one side, where it can call to me as a muse.

Aviva, as she is known to everyone, is far more bright-eyed than anyone has a right to be so early in the morning. Like some sort of spirit dancer, she is barely able to contain the fount of energy that flows from her voice, her movements, and her paintings. Her smile is comforting yet penetrating as she gathers us in the middle of the studio to honor the morning and the process to which we dedicate this weekend. She speaks for a few minutes about that process and about the need to stay with our painting until it tells us it is finished.

As she talks, I sense that something has awakened within me. While painting that poem, the rush of words felt cleansing and connecting, and I realize I am eager to take up the brush again. This time I'll start with a fresh piece of paper...

"I want you to return to last night's painting," Aviva says, looking at me as if she can read my thoughts. "There's a reason you painted what you did. Something was speaking to you. Stay with it at least 10 or 15 minutes. Then you'll know if you should continue." I try not to listen. I don't want to face that first so-called picture of mine - that series of disjointed strokes that, if I cock my head and squint, resemble a dysfunctional peacock. But I promised myself I'd follow the process, so I dutifully turn to the wall and look that bird right in the eye.

Trying to obscure the image of a peacock, I turn the picture sideways. Now I am able to focus on the essence of form: the splay of what had been a tail, the arch of the back. Suddenly I feel drawn to explore that form and bring it to the surface.

I spoon several colors onto my plate and choose a wide brush, which I allow to make bold, sweeping lines that follow the curves, highlighting and defining the form just below the surface. Minutes later I step away, and what stares back at me is no longer a peacock but an enormous eye.

I move ever more quickly, ever more sure of myself and the process. Soon a second sheet hangs beside the first, bearing a mirror image, and a pair of eyes gaze at me. But something isn't right - not exactly wrong but incomplete. Without understanding why, I reverse the pictures, then hang them about two feet apart. The eyes are now a pair of wings. I tack an additional sheet of paper between them, and the figure of an angel emerges.

As I continue to paint, I sense that my angel is being transformed into something different, and for an instant I am frightened. But I realize that the fear is only my mind desperate to control the process.

"Look into the shadows," I hear Aviva chanting. "Paint the shadows."

And then I catch a glimpse of it in the brush strokes - no, in the space between the lines. Another entity wants to come forward. It embraces the angel, yet contains so much more. I add new colors to my palette and allow the being to emerge.

No longer an angel, it has become the kachina of a thunderbird standing with its wings outstretched. But it wants to take flight, and as I imagine it soaring, I realize I am envisioning it from above. I add a final piece of paper, and what had been the top of its head now lengthens into a slender bill. My kachina completes its transformation into part Native American totem and part Chinese kite - an enormous hummingbird in flight.

The hummingbird has been my muse ever since I wrote my first novel while a pair of hummers darted back and forth in front of my window. I had not expected it to make an appearance today - especially in such bold form.

It is not until the final hours of the workshop that I realize why the hummingbird has come. We each take a turn standing before the group. doing or saying whatever inspires us. One woman leads a drumming ceremony. Another shares her discovery that in her painting she is exorcising the burden of caring for an elderly parent. Yet another woman's pain is almost too much for me to bear as she stands before a three-dimensional sculpture covered with long strips of paper. Relating her suffering from an abortion she desperately regrets, she parts the strips to reveal that the painted-over fetus has reemerged as a child of light floating in the heavens just beyond the curtained veil.

It is my turn now, and I recite the final lines of my dawn poem:

in the wind a child is born comes dancing down the mountain the child bringing the whirlwind dancing from the mountain in the whirlwind a child is born that we may know one another that we may know one another

I become aware that this process goes far beyond the painted images. The poem that unleashed my painting is in fact the heart of a novel I have avoided writing for more than a decade. The hummingbird challenges me to trust the source and to let my words flow like tempera from a brush. The angel, the thunderbird, and all the other images that are a part of my creation hold a key to what I must do with my life.

There is a final moment of magic as the workshop draws to a close. We gather on the porch to say our goodbyes, and suddenly somebody gasps and gestures to a small frog that has appeared as if from nowhere. Pure silver, without even a hint of green, it is unlike any I've seen. This is not the first frog of the weekend. They appeared in two paintings, one hiding in a field bathed in a shower of iridescent silver beams. Earlier that day we discussed how in Native American lore the frog symbolizes cleansing and renewal and thus is an apt totem for our workshop. The little creature sits staring up at us and then, almost without notice, is gone.

As I walk away from the porch, I do not want to leave, yet I cannot wait to return home, to fire up my Macintosh, and to tap back into the energy I discovered this weekend. My hummingbird will be hanging beside me, speaking to me in words and feelings and images. I may never take up a brush again - my paint may be the pixels of a computer screen - yet this weekend has taught me that my life is my painting and that my source is always at hand, waiting to be unveiled.