Building a monument to what you Love

Quality of attention, paired with our natural inborn ability to create determines the legacy we leave.

Spring Tree Blossoms, Lighting Rod, watercolor shown in progress.

We are heading into autumn in the northern hemisphere, so for my friends down under, spring is what you are about to experience. With you in mind—

Flowering trees always get my attention, and not just mine but the many who journey annually to be with them in springtime. Branches laden with flowers are like giant wands with many small vortices that gently remove winters lingering darkness. Though fleeting, trees at this stage leave a lasting impression and their branches act as lightning rods defusing the negativity in their environment. The staleness of previous months is sent into the ground for cleansing as fresh energy pushes up from the earth preparing us for a season of renewal.

Spring Tree Blossoms, Lighting Rod is accentuated in its vertical orientation, and the first time I can remember creating a narrowly elongated piece like this. With lots of blues in the mix, I felt the bright sunny sky against a profusion of delicate blossoms was of great interest.

My work has been changing over the past several years and this painting hasn’t called me to work on it in a while. When it does I’ll be curious to see what happens.

For this painting I’m using Fabriano soft-press paper which is no longer available. Such a shame, as it had been my favorite paper for over 35 years. Fabriano, the long standing company, left artists like me out in the cold replacing their soft-press paper with something my colleagues and I don’t much like. A controversial move on their part, they’ve been unavailable for comment.

Muse News, September notes

I live in Colorado, but I’m originally from NYC. Brooklyn, way before it was famous. I say this because, in my hometown, aspiration and ambition were a thing. But it was down to earth, very real, with exciting possibilities. High accomplishments among my artist friends ran deep, and a passion for life was undeniably present.

The the so-called finer things in life were always on tap and generally accessible to everyone, not just the elite. It all had less to do with money back then. It just took a willingness to reach beyond the usual limitations. To actually dare to. I think it’s still that way, but with many more walls to scale.

Having the courage to be oneself and genuinely self-informing are hallmarks of self-sovereign beings. This phenomenon has been rare throughout history but is now growing within all of us. It’s the call of our time. Living this way, we’re increasingly on track to build a monument, or even a legacy, to what we love. A byproduct of living in alignment with our true nature it is deeply connected with our ability to create. And I believe we are always creating.

The Lightning Rod

We usually think of a lightning rod as a long piece of metal fixed to a building that is grounded to earth. It protects a structure from damage as it intercepts bolts of electricity and directs those energies safely into the ground.

But there are other types of lightning rods, currents of electricity, and the definitions that go with them. For instance, in the Tibetan culture, an instrument called a phurba is used to break up, ground, and disperse negativity so no harm is done.

Spiritual technologies like this, and I’m sure many exist, have been used to deal with subtle energies and their unwanted effects for thousands of years. Ward off the evil eye, so to speak.

Nature is full of examples like this, and people often serve in this capacity too. That is, we diffuse negative energies by being who we are, which is not always an easy thing to do. Rare individuals, some that we know about, have inspired great religions. They had this ability, used it consciously, and left the gift of their legacy for us.

Our relationship with trees

I was thinking of trees today. I’m always amazed how a giant tree can grow from one small acorn. It’s mind blowing. In concert with its environment, the tree grows upright according to instructions within its small seed. It grows and thrives by it’s own nature, unless thwarted by intrusive elements. We are similar.

Tree beings are considered sacred by indigenous peoples and said to walk very slowly across the land. They are thought of as our wise relatives. All my relations is how they’re called out to in prayer. And undoubtedly they are calling out to us. We just need to listen and hear their song.

Spring Tree Blossoms, Lighting Rod is a painting for honoring the flowering trees of springtime. It’s about the burst of creativity that moves us out of darkness and into light. The journey of our lifetime.

—Leslie

Exquisite Paintings on the Nature of Flowers is a body of work based on a sophisticated visual analysis of Nature's frequencies = LOVE. My long-standing body of work, ongoing and now in phase two, began in the early 1990s and is the culmination of a lifetime quest—a sacred journey into the heart of Nature, beauty, and healing the myth of separation.

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