Surrender

In my mind I anticipated the UP of Michigan to be cooler than where I live in SE Michigan. What I’ve discovered is that it is not that much cooler. Yes, there is a lovely soft breeze off of Lake Superior that is cool. However it is also very warm in the sun and in this second floor apartment without air conditioning. Tokki, my sabbatical rabbit companion spends much of his day laying on the kitchen floor tiles in direct line of the breeze from the fan. Today Tokki and I sat on the floor together, I rubbing his face between his eyes, he licking my knee. We have surrendered ourselves to this living together in the heat. It’s really not bad though, since I am not huge fan of air conditioning and prefer to have opened windows. 

This morning I finally made it to the lakeshore for sun rise. I was about an hour too late for the actual sun over the horizon, but at 6:10 a.m. it was barely up. The light was gorgeous, the air cool and gentle, refreshing and simply glorious.

Following that vigorous morning walk I had coffee and began my morning reading in preparation for icon writing (painting). Today’s meditation focused on St. John of the Cross and his dark night of the soul. Unlike many popular analogies to depression, St. John was actually talking about the soul’s journey from light and understanding to a place beyond all human knowing and comprehension. This state of darkness is a necessary part of the spiritual journey in which the soul seeks to find God. 

This is an apt metaphor, entering into darkness, because today’s icon writing process applied dark paint to most of the icon. The dark paint obscures all the detail, except for the lines that remain from the engraving done on the first day with the needle point stylus. (Which I did not have, so I had to make do with lesser tools). 

Yesterday’s work on the icon focused on the halo. It looked like this at the start of today: 

The first steps this morning were to apply the background coats. That took all morning and the icon then looked like this:

While it sat drying I made lunch: PBJ on toasted sourdough with blueberries, blue corn chips, and iced tea. 

After lunch I painted the face and hands, let that dry between coats (3). Then I painted the hair and let that dry between coats (two). I painted the red under robe and then the blue over robe. This took all afternoon while I waited between coats for the paint to dry. In the meantime I did a core ab workout, knitted and listened to pod-casts (On Being), did some yoga and meditated. After the last coat of blue Tokki decided to go into his crate, so I locked the crate and took a walk to the lake. It looked like a storm was blowing in so I took a relatively short, albeit vigorous, walk. The lake looked like this:

I walked back to the apartment, finished one last coat, and made dinner: caprese salad with fresh tomato, basil from my garden, mozzarella, and a slice of sourdough toasted with butter. After dinner I had one small spot to finish on the icon, then I washed up the dishes and brushes. Here is how the icon looks now:

Lots of detailing to do, but I think I crossed through that darkness and am seeing something lovely unfolding. No doubt it’s a process of surrendering expectation and the need to know how, and just entering in and figuring it out.

I have lots of questions about brush and technique and paint, but I have enjoyed experimenting and figuring out what I like. 

Day 4, and it was good.  And I feel blessed.