Slowly gliding into Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is one of my favorite moments of the year.
It has presence. It has gravitas. It means business.
Fall in Seattle is a sacred time for me. This year I am thinking about old Seattle. 1980’s Seattle. The Seattle I fell in love with. The Dog House. The Last Exit. The Sit and Spin. Daniel Smith before they ruined it.
More important than those places is how it all felt. So full of promise and love and possibility. I miss that. That ready to get shit done and take on the world feeling.
It all seems so improbable today. I am not swamped with nostalgia. I no longer consider a King Sized Snickers Bar bought with change I dug out of the couch, a viable meal choice.
I do miss the magic. What I know now that I didn’t know then is that I am the maker of my own magic as you are the maker of your magic. Maybe old Seattle was magic because we were aware of our own then. We could sense it in ourselves and smell it in others. It was Primal.
As this year of years blips by and grinds on I have slowed down. My earlier schedules seem outrageous. The quiet laps at my feet and I must remember that the quiet is where the magic lives. Not in those places, or even those people of the time.
I can taste the magic again and I want more. Somehow it feels like I have forgotten the dance moves, yet I know they live inside me. And if I am quiet enough they emerge.
Magic is why I paint. Magic. That power of connection to the Universal.
I feel like a three prong plug clicking beautifully into a Universal socket when I paint. I feel the weight and the heft of the plug earning for the receptacle which makes it complete.
In that connection is where the magic lies. Painting is the portal for me. Painting IS the dance move. Creation IS the MAGIC.
Painting is the most beautiful microcosm to me. Whatever issue is really dug in, buried in there, shows up in the painting. That shit you can’t even admit to yourself but you KNOW keeps you pinned down like a butterfly under glass? Creation flushes it out and then you can choose to deal with it or not.
Getting in there and standing for freedom, happiness, for peace in the face of all the crap that tells me it is not mine to have. It really does feel like a prize fight. The purse is Quiet. More Creation. A coming together of Vision and Action.
The purse is really Connection to the Magic.