Portal, oil on canvas by NW (1989)
The Wound is a Gateway If you allow it to be.
This is how I found my gateway. One day, about 9 years after my terrible thing happened, I gave up. I stopped trying to feel better. I stopped trying to go on with my life as if nothing had happened. I stopped trying to fix myself. I stopped pretending everything was all right.
I surrendered. I gave up. I took out my little white flag and started waving it. I said, take me away—I’m done here!
And they took me away. And that’s when everything changed. Now, we’re taught not to give up. We’re taught to fight. We’re supposed to learn how to defend ourselves. To win, not to lose. We’re taught to worry about what others will think, and not to lose face. Be strong, act strong. Fight, fight.
But surrender, if you really give yourself up to it, is a beautiful thing. It allows for an opening. For something new to enter in.
So, after my surrender, I felt this new opening. This new lightness. It came from my new honesty.
And then I had a dream, and in the dream I was shot and killed. And it was beautiful. Then I started to fall. And I fell down down down to the bottom of the sea. And when I landed on the sea floor a door opened under water. A door opened into this new place. It looked like more water, more sea. And then I woke up. And I knew I had to see more.I wanted to go back there. I painted myself going back there, to that place under water.
The paintings became the doorway. The paintings became my journey through, my journey in. To more SEE.
You don’t have to become a painter. Just be creative. It is a gift you were born with. Surrender yourself to it. Give up already, and welcome in the Divine.
Namaste ~~~~
