For the last few days I have been on the edge, of a series of cluster migraines.
Sometimes it’s a case of bang they are there, nothing to do but ride it out, at others it’s the gentle nagging that manifests in over sensitivity, a distortion of light, and a stepping just out of phase with reality. Here there is a vague tension and an inability to get what seems clear to me out into the world in any way that is concise let alone coherent. Even what I am writing today has taken three times longer and needed constant editing.
It can take some time with these to realise that something is going on. Funnily enough as much as the pain and the night vomiting are a down side, there are moments in the lead up and wind down, which I value.
Last night I interviewed Steve Taylor for a local radio programme (more on that when I am more with it). Listening back to it I found myself to be waffly and vague (one of my least great moments). I was also aware at the dinner and meeting I attended afterward of falling into that place where it is as if I have stepped out of phase with reality, I am aware of what is going on but it is as though it is being played out before me. Insights occur here and intuitions.
Something else odd happens in this place for me, it is a place of great inspiration. Here is where I am called to paint, not just icons (which require so much precision and form) but where my wilder paintings occur. This is where my fingers are used as much as my brush, where unearthly landscapes, pained portraits and images of Mary falling into the arms of shadowed angels appear on the canvas. This is where words fill my mouth to bursting; tumbling out in what rarely at the time makes sense but certainly feels right.
These paintings, these poems, will be the raw beginning to something new.
On the internet I see them called migraine auras. Hildegard of Bingen is the Patron Saint of these as she suffered both migraines and visions. On this day I see people such as Salvador Dali, and Georgia O'Keeffe also had these times and how they were a great source of inspiration for them. Not that I am as talented as them
With such Saints and mentors as these this is an interesting place to be… now I wonder how church will look today in such a space.
Nothing profound today simply a statement of where I am…
Sometimes it’s a case of bang they are there, nothing to do but ride it out, at others it’s the gentle nagging that manifests in over sensitivity, a distortion of light, and a stepping just out of phase with reality. Here there is a vague tension and an inability to get what seems clear to me out into the world in any way that is concise let alone coherent. Even what I am writing today has taken three times longer and needed constant editing.
It can take some time with these to realise that something is going on. Funnily enough as much as the pain and the night vomiting are a down side, there are moments in the lead up and wind down, which I value.
Last night I interviewed Steve Taylor for a local radio programme (more on that when I am more with it). Listening back to it I found myself to be waffly and vague (one of my least great moments). I was also aware at the dinner and meeting I attended afterward of falling into that place where it is as if I have stepped out of phase with reality, I am aware of what is going on but it is as though it is being played out before me. Insights occur here and intuitions.
Something else odd happens in this place for me, it is a place of great inspiration. Here is where I am called to paint, not just icons (which require so much precision and form) but where my wilder paintings occur. This is where my fingers are used as much as my brush, where unearthly landscapes, pained portraits and images of Mary falling into the arms of shadowed angels appear on the canvas. This is where words fill my mouth to bursting; tumbling out in what rarely at the time makes sense but certainly feels right.
These paintings, these poems, will be the raw beginning to something new.
On the internet I see them called migraine auras. Hildegard of Bingen is the Patron Saint of these as she suffered both migraines and visions. On this day I see people such as Salvador Dali, and Georgia O'Keeffe also had these times and how they were a great source of inspiration for them. Not that I am as talented as them
With such Saints and mentors as these this is an interesting place to be… now I wonder how church will look today in such a space.
Nothing profound today simply a statement of where I am…
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