Madhuri

After much valiant and serious facing of the big bad world of publishing, as pertains to my book-which-is-trying-out-its-big-strong-wings-but-is-yet-new, events evolved into such a place that it was relevant and indeed correct for me to cease my struggles, scrounging, and bullet-biting for a little while. I could hardly believe it…freedom, after a year of solid editing and then Googling and so on (except whilst actually on a train, plane, or in an automobile, but even then the wheels kept spinning and the scratchpads brimming.) A hiatus, at least. And so at long last I would be able to go into my studio and play with paper and scissors and glue and paint! Ever since we’d moved to this house and I’d finished the floor myself with layers and layers of almost-random paint and health-food glossy varnish, I’d had to pass the door to this light room and look longingly at it, but had no time to go in….

Very early the next morning I had a dream: I lay on my belly on the floor of a long large chamber painted white. On every wall huge bright paintings hung – some I’d painted, some not; one Chris had recently disinterred from storage, a beautiful desert-hills landscape I’d seen just briefly some time ago. I began to sink deliciously downwards, then rooose out of my body. I flew horizontally along the room. There was a moment when I was afraid, as I often am in the beginning when O.O.B.-ing; but I thought of Osho and asked him, please help me, and there was another moment of hesitation while I seemed to pass through my personality and his-as-I-perceived it (if he had one in any sort of way); then I was out of that and flying….I was brought into that most wonderful of spaces: being tugged and danced and played by something vast, while I am surrendered to it in trust: because it is so wonderful to let go, to allow myself to be taken over and turned and swooped about….as if my head is thrown back and I am being possessed by a lover…and I choose to behave as if the leader of the dance is a lover, though how can one know? But I’ve never been disappointed when I’ve let it all go and let the waltz begin…ah, ah. I looked down at my cupped hands, a space between them; and the space was fiilled with a glowing purple light. Other radiant colors showed here and there about my aura as I turned my head from side to side.

Soon I was back in my body and awake. And indeed I did go into my studio and get lost there, lost to time and purpose, revelling in the delicious play of color and paper and scissors…just for me, just for me. Nobody was going to have to want what I was doing. Nobody was going to have to pay me for it (though it would be nice if they did.) Just – ooooh, to fool around, to allow the things to come about as they wanted to, leading me on.

Like writing was before I started editing.

But maybe even better. Color is so much less demanding than print. So much less finicking. I am such a messy studio-player. Oh, surrounded by bits of paper every which way!

And relaxation consumed me then, that elusive holiday feeling, like reading a good book whilst reclining, in fact…and all flowed yummily, this is what I’d been missing, and it’s not that different than the delight of shopping either, all this colorful stuff founts from the same place maybe, and…I’m going back in my studio now!