Well this week - Lion has shown up. I have seen a lion the last 3 days in a row. First as I was going thru magazines for my vision board I have been working on, I found a picture of a lion that called to me as I turned past it, and made me turn back and rip the page out of the magazine. One of my vision board sections has to do with being fearless and lion seemed to work for it. Yesterday my good friend was visiting and had to show me this picture and video her daughter sent her from the zoo - it was of a lion. and I made the remark to her that that was twice now that I have seen a lion in 24 hours maybe it has a message for me haha! Well this morning as I was going thru my facebook feed there it was....lion #3. It was in one of those funny vines and it was actually a dog with a wig on that looked like a lion. But I still took it as a sign - cuz it still looked like a lion from the side.
So what does a Lion mean - The lion spirit animal is generally associated with a representation of personal strength. If the lion appears powerful to you, its presence as a spirit guide can be interpreted as a positive representation of your self-confidence or personal power. As such, lions point to qualities of strength, courage, assertiveness.
There are many other meanings - it can be a warning that something wild or difficult to control might be happening, and it also can symbolize emotions like anger and fear. For me right now I can see a bit of all of these in myself, but overall I feel it is encouraging my personal power. Its telling me I'm stronger then I think.
So as I was reading about Lion I had the inclination that I needed to honor it with a painting today. So instead of doing the dozens of other things I planned to do today (haha) I did this instead -
16x20 acrylic on canvas
I wanted him to be bold,strong, powerful and fierce. As I was working on it, I would step back and look at it, or turn away and look around my studio. At one point about halfway thru my eyes fell upon the 2 paintings I did on Days 60 and 61 - 'some days feel like this'. And it suddenly struck me how similar all 3 paintings were. They were all 3 about emotions, a way of being/feeling. They all had the same power vibes coming from the center of the forehead representing their meaning - pain, determination, and beauty. I realized in that moment they all 3 belonged together as a series, and I had no idea. No idea that the first 2 were missing a third, and no idea the Lion would end up being the missing piece. I didn't plan it. It just came to be. And it makes total, powerful, sense.
Agony, Strength and Peace.
The full range of emotions are represented here. Some days you just feel like your world is falling apart. Like your head and body are splitting open from all the pain, sadness, weakness and depression. You want to give up and just melt away into nothingness. You are in AGONY. Then one day you wake up and you begin to fight your way back to life. You shove ego aside and you listen to your soul whispering, screaming, begging from the inside to find your way. You dig deep and find that power, that fierce determination to let the shitty stuff go and fight for the You you know you are. You find your STRENGTH! Eventually you will find that calm spot. You see the beauty in the world again and in yourself, maybe for the first time. You smile softly, you feel joy, abundance, gratitude. You close your eyes and realize you are Love. The brightness from the light inside of you illuminates everything. And you feel at PEACE.
My friend made the remark to me when I shared this revelation about these paintings with her today, that she wished she had that intuition to follow her heart. I told her that half the time I have no idea what I'm doing when I do this stuff, until I actually do it. And not just with painting but life in general lately. I just get a feeling sometimes, a whisper from my soul, that I should go a certain way, do a certain thing. Ego fights me the entire time, right alongside fear. Can I do this? Should I do that? What if this happens? What if someone doesn't like me or what I'm doing? Most of us let those self doubting thoughts and long held beliefs from ego run our lives. We are not happy because we are not doing what we know inside we should be doing. We live in a constant state of fear and trying to please other people instead of listening to our soul and doing what will please our self. Yes we do have to take others into consideration sometimes especially if we have families. But more often than not we deny ourselves things we like because of what other people may say or want us to do instead. I have lived most of my life this way - in a state of fear - fear of showing my true self because people may not like me. I have spent the last 2 years working on that and made some pretty big life altering changes in 2015. I was terrified of what people would say about them. But the bottom line is - I am not doing these things I am doing for them - I am doing them for me. And a good part of the time - I have no idea what I'm doing. I just know I am being pulled and guided in a certain direction. It can take me a while to actually let fear go and follow that direction, but my soul has never guided me the wrong way. There may be obstacles and hardships on that path, but they are all lessons I have needed to learn. Once I get through them, the relief in knowing I made the right decision takes over, and my path becomes clearer.
Letting go and being fearless, in all aspects of my life, is one of my top priorities I am working on this year. And I think Lion knew that, and that I needed his strength and symbolism for that journey. And thru painting him today, I made several other connections, I didn't know needed to be made. All I did was listen to the whisper and spark inside of me and follow its lead. I think that's what intuition is all about - a whisper, a knowing that you need to go in a certain direction. We all have it, we just need to be brave enough to listen and Hear it, and Act on it. That's the hardest part of all - taking the action. Especially if we don't know where it is leading. As my friend (and my little painting from weeks back) says - Trust Yourself. Trust the Universe. All you need to know is that first step you are being guided to take - take it, and the next ones will appear. Let the fear go and live the amazing life you are meant to live!
You are stronger then you think!
Update - So I totally forgot to mention that I did this as a Soul Art piece as well. When doing Soul Art you more or less infuse your self into the painting. To do that you set an intention, then trace a part, or all of your body onto the canvas or paper. In this piece I knew I was going to paint a Lion's head only, so I traced my head and shoulders by laying down with the canvas under my head and using a pastel pencil to outline around myself (it was a bit wonky since I couldn't see what I was doing so I adjusted it a bit afterwards). Next you write down all the things you are feeling or going thru to bring meaning into the work. Since Lion was roaring into my life, guiding me in my personal power, I took on his power and fueled my piece with strong powerful words. Once that was done I turned myself into the Lion thru painting. Here is what it looked like before I began painting.
Lion is here to help me.
Amazing Part for me here was, I saw the connection of the lion paining to the other two before I got to that part of your post. I was going. To suggest it before I saw you made the same connection. I love the meaning and all that has gone into this, and I recall you asking if I had read a certain post - and being way behind - I've wondered which one might be the one you referred to
ReplyDelete- I am pretty sure now that this is the one - it's deep, really deep - you've make some big strides with this -
I am so happy that you are taking the time to document the process and to examine your thoughts/feelings/motivations. You are doing the hard work, and it is worth it.