Hello Dear reader;
Starting tomorrow my work will be on display at The Weiss Gallery in Calgary. One aspect of my paintings that I haven't talked about here at all is my small landscapes. There will be represented there and because they are an ongoing love of mine I wish to introduce them to you. Generally they are small to medium sized and all so far are oil on board.The symbolic landscapes allow me to paint purely from the state of meditation. They are done in perfect stillness to evoke the expansive experience of silence.Paul Tuttle, teacher of the Course in Miracles, explains the function of silence:If any of you dare to become still and you experience the Silence, you discover something: That although the awareness that you are is empty of driving purpose, of willfulness, of the need to assert itself, awareness is still present, you haven’t disappeared.When the ego disappears, you, as conscious awareness, the presence of Mind that experiences Reality, is there. The ego that you thought was you, once it is absent, uncovers the actuality of you, the foreverness of you, the inviolability of you, the eternality of you, because you are still present. 
And in abiding in that place of Silence, conscious—in other words, attentive—there will always be the spontaneous influx of illumination, clarification, understanding. That which is nothing more than your right Mind begins to register with you when you’re not there making so much static, so much noise, that you can’t hear It. And you come back into your right Mind and you remember God and you remember who you Are, and you remember who your brothers and sisters Are.Paul TuttleNov.2 2008The paintings simply embody balance, peace and stillness using imagery symbolic of the human experience.Images of earth (the ground,grass and trees) embody the physical experience of lifeImages of air (sky)embody the mental experience of lifeImages of water (the ocean and mist) embody the emotional experience of lifeImages of fire (fire,sparks) embody the spiritual-feeling- experience of lifeImages of the stars,planets and auras embody non- human consciousness in life. The Sun embodies the Yang aspect of Divinity, the Moon is the Yin and the stars embody our awakened companions in non human form.Combinations of these elements represent particular energies of integration. Mist , a combination of water and air, expresses an integration of mental with emotional experience. The burning tree represents the point at which spirit is registered in the physical experience-the inner flame.A excerpt from a favorite prayer of mine inspires the harmony of these elements into human life:I give myself this day to the virtues of the starlit heavens, the brightness of the sun, the whiteness of the moon, the flashing of lightening, the restlessness of wind, the stability of earth, and the deepness of the sea. (I believe it is the words of St. Symeon- http://www.livingrosaries.org/symeon.htm)Thank you for your attention dear reader and may you enjoy the landscap of your experience today,Sincerely,Janine