Centered And Grounded

This is the fourth painting in this series to date (see previous entries starting with Blessings Beyond Our Energy Centers, continuing with Arboreal Ancestors and Tap Rooted) of self-portraits where I am sharing my mental understanding and somatic experiences as a self-discovery process and returning back to my favorite first painting subject: the human figure.

I created Centered And Grounded as an inquiry into the concept of crucifixion. Traditionally it means being nailed or bound to a cross for punishment, often to death.

I’m believe a key aspect of this definition has been left out until now. I assert that we can choose to crucify ourselves into more aliveness or less aliveness (more death) by what we choose to bind ourselves to (beliefs, values, other persons, places, things, activities, etc).

Centered And Grounded is about me choosing to bind myself into greater aliveness, including via meditating with this tree in my neighborhood. In this painting it’s depicted as my heart chakra overlapping hers (the tree), as well as both of ours overlapping the Earth’s crust (all shown in a pale green, inducing the grass). We are all connected both subtly and powerfully in the energetic and physical realms.

As with all the paintings in this series I’m visually depicting myself as myself and representative of all women / humans).

And in this case, as being both on the cross and being the cross (where the root system of this tree is a tap root structure, vs the fibrous one show in Tap Rooted; yes, the paintings still wanted to be called by the names they had declared for themselves originally, regardless of the conceptual and thus visual development in this 4th piece of the series).

As mentioned in my previous entries, this tree has been an important partner in my self-discovery process generally and specifically during the current COVID19 etc, events..

I’ve also been exploring my Roman Catholic upbringing (including what parts feel right, and what parts do not). This painting is one delightful way that answers to that inquiry have shown up!

In the interest of focusing on my painting, I have not yet written a blog article about Centered and Grounded, but will soon!

Hannah