Release is a painting I produced in late 2011 that I was inspired to paint after having a vivid dream. In the dream I was somewhere hot, the sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky and I remember walking along a street passing by what looked like a type of mall, located close to a beach…the shops were all constructed out of wood and painted white with an open arcade street through the middle of the mall with the sun beating down on a cobbled floor. As I passed through the shopping mall I found myself at the end of the arcade and atop a cliff next to a waterfall. Looking down, I saw a beach where people were relaxing, playing volleyball, sunbathing and generally enjoying each others company that was, until I arrived.
Why not you?
People then looked at me as if to wonder why I wasn’t enjoying myself like everybody else. As I looked away from peoples gaze I then noticed below my feet, I was standing in the waterfall that had 3 large dips until it eventually reached the sea. As I realized this my eyes followed the flow of the water to look out at the sea in contemplation and relaxation unaware of the gaze of others.
What does it mean?
It was such a clear dream, one of those that almost seemed real, it was almost like I knew I was dreaming that I felt I wanted to draw or paint it, it had such deep meaning for me on a personal level that maybe it could help others too.
Symbolic Meaning
I researched the symbolic meaning behind the imagery of the nightscape. Standing on top of the waterfall was about letting go of emotions, maybe emotions of the past as this was when I was in my healing stage. Letting go of hurts and pains of our past is important as negativity is believed to cause illness within our body. .
Common People
The people playing was representational of not having fun anymore and being aware that life had almost become too serious. We all get responsibilities, pains, regrets and sometimes let life become too heavy, our body sometimes needs to remind us that as humans we love to play and life shouldn’t be as difficult as sometime we choose to make it. Play, is a great healing tool that many adults forget to make time for as they get older so we should make every effort to allocate a space in our calendar to do this.
The people were looking at me in the dream as if to remind me not to take life so seriously and chill out!! Life is to be enjoyed not endured!
Flowing Waterfall below my feet
The water flowing back to the sea is representational of all my emotions flowing out of me back to their origin. Everything in life is connected and I believe we are even connected to one another on an emotional level. All our life experiences our linked together from where we choose to travel to, to what job we decide to take, it makes an impact on others. Collectively, as a species, we make the sea or the world as we want it and it is what we choose to hold on to that truly creates our world.
We can choose to hold on or let go
We must remember that we all born the same and will also end the same, that holding onto negative experiences doesn’t create a positive “now” experience, if anything it stops the flow and it certainly wont create a positive future. We should attempt to only allow positive loving feelings rule our hearts and allow the negativity of everything else flow back to the sea where it came from. Life is a journey, a bit like that of a water droplet travelling along the waterfall; letting go of bad experiences easier is important for us all to reach our full potential and a blissful existence whilst here on earth.
You may realize I have not painted or drawn the people on this painting… yet…that is not intentional, it is just the way the painting developed. I had a feeling in my heart not to do any more, so I followed the feeling and feel it is now a complete picture, maybe in the future I will return to it to add more detail…maybe I wont. Only time will tell.
In conclusion
The best thing we can do in life is follow our heart, our bliss, & everything else will just flow to us. Put negative rocks or blocks in the way and what we want to flow to us will be diverted like a water around stone and have to take a different route, maybe it’ll never reach its destination. Hope you have enjoyed reading and understanding about the concept behind “Release”.
