Just Paint Over Yourself Already!

This morning when my 3-year-old son asked me to join him in painting, I did not expect it to be such a profound experience. As I turned on the "appropriate music" for such a task, my son had already begun filling his white canvas with white paint. I silently judged him. In fact, most of his white paint had be depleted and his sweet eyes begged, "mommy, more please." It began as a bonding experience: matching brush strokes, exchanging ideas, and additional requests for "more white please, mommy." He began with Impressionistic textured short strokes, proceeded to slap the canvas like Jackson Pollock in frivolity before returning to long strokes that seemingly erased the madness. I sat there watching the freedom he gave himself, relishing in the joy he had in trusting his impulses.

The canvas I stared at, on the other hand, had been in my closet for nearly 6 months; untouched, unfinished, and unpolished by my inner critics voice. 

Still not happy after 2nd cover

My son's invitation this morning permitted me the freedom to release my chains, to silence those judges, and be present with him. I began to drift away into the story of my painting. I saw the transformation of colors, the corrections I wanted to make, and the additions. I became acutely aware of how the brushes and I were inseparable. 

In the long strokes I deleted away the worries and cares of the past year. I understood that while I could not go back and scrape the paint off, I could always restart. I looked at my canvas and acknowledged that not once, but twice had I painted over it. Originally it was a "lollipop style tree" done at a Paint Nite with friends. The first "I don't like that" came with the mountains and then the second one came with the background (See it above).  It reminded me that I always have the liberty to be gentle with myself and try again. In the colors that were muddled or ill-matched, I found the courage to search my color wheel and create what I saw in my mind. I am not bound by anyone's opinions. It reminded me that my mind is a powerful tool. I am in control of myself, my words, and reactions. I have the ability to create that which I think and believe. With the texture of my canvas, I found the freedom to express. As an amateur painter, I frequently am caught up with the do's and do not's of painting. In silencing those "rules," it has become easier to accept my paintings and myself. This allowed me to discover that I am the master of my own destiny and that I must accept responsibility for the actions I take and the consequence that are accompanied with them. 

Paintings can teach us a multitude about the artist, their period of life, and frame of mind when we spend time with their work. My final lesson I wish to share is about stepping back. I am in a love/loathe relationship with painting because it reminds me to step away from the details of life and breathe. At times, I must literally stand up and look at my painting, yet I feel like I do not have the luxury of stopping. But that is what painting has taught me. I am on no one's time but my own. It's a great testament to patience. 

It has taught me that I cannot see the beauty of the entire forest if I only look at the dried up creek bed.

My painting and this week's Torah portion ties in beautifully with the Jewish goal of preparation during Elul. This week's portion Ki Tavo extols that each time we are a recipient of something - a gift, a special token from a grandparent, are aware of our health/our life, a blessing from our Rebbe, our intelligence, a chance to restart, an intervention from the Divine- we should react as if it were our first time stepping into eretz Israel. Every moment we have is sacred, is precious and in remembering this we become grateful. Gratefulness cultivates v'hayah, joy, which continuously opens us to repeated blessings. Celebrate with fruit of the new season and bring it to your sukkah at the start of Sukkot. Or perhaps, take it to the forest and leave it there so you can give life to another. 

Ask yourself, what is beyond the painted line? What lies within the forest waiting just for me? How can I graciously verbalize my gratefulness to the Divine in my life. 

© DNKG 2015 Unknown Pathways

20x16 Acrylic on Canvas

© DNKG 2015 Paint Yourself Already

L'ultima Bruciatura - The Final Burn

La poesia 2 de 3...

L’ultima Bruciatura

Ci sono momenti, in cui può solo rimanere quiescente

Sotto il manto delle tenebre che mette a tacere la boscaglia.

In altri, il bocciolo arriva troppo presto per sbocciare

Spuntando frettolosamente per il pellegrinaggio solitario nel gelo della notte.

La sua voce è in attesa, gorgoglia come un ruscello che scorre tra rocce calcaree.

Una placida energia vitale che pulsa constantemente.

Anelando, scongela il ghiaccio che le ferma le labbra

e rompe le catene della tempesta invernale, ora paladina della riforma.

2015 DNKG L’ultima Bruciatura

April Koehler Photography

Traduzione in Inglese

The Final Burn

There are times, that all she can do is lie dormant

‘neath the carpeted bleakness that silences the thicket.

And other times the bud come too early to bloom

Rising hastily for her lone sojourn across frozen night.

Her voice lies in wait gurgling like the brook under the deep shale;

 A placid life force, which beats steadily.

In her hunger, she thaws the ice engulfing her lips

Burning the shackles of her winter storm,

Now a champion of reform.

Branded Innocence: Their Living Poetry

Hold her as if unafraid

and bring your hands

unobstructed into sight.

Threads of cascading Auburn

upon freckled skin

Dare to touch, Dare to delight

paralyzed to give in

A fit perfected

sculpted by Highest hands,

she rests willingly.

Overwrought slender digits

find supple haven seeding

Passion flaring, Ardor churning

heart and soul, yearning

Under glistening blanket
encapsulated by whistling light
slipping into shadow.
Through piercing Mahogany
and the glister of rime,
he quivers electrified
as touching desires stir hurriedly

Consummate proportions
skin silken smooth
dominion over the curves.
Exchanging buoyant force
upon dewy fixations crowned
Heavy breathing, Barely breathing
An idolatry set ablaze

Lines of Lust
inhaled depravity
Take my breath away.
This beauteous illusion
upon broken mantles poised,
Don't speak it, no utterance...

I'm in love with you!

© 2015 DNKG Branded Innocence

Through the Cliffs

Haiku Happenings

Rain down upon me

oh, Wicked mistress of pain!

Cleanse me of my chain.

© 2015 DNKG Through the Cliffs

Light Play

Let creation set you free: Poetry

Silence

Cut down, pushed down, thrown down

a spastic reaction, a commandeering confection of a bully 

Crashing. 

Down.

What is silence.

To be torturted by it. Nay but nay. 

What is silence. 

The gift of tongue forcibly ripped, defiled from the frame, literally silenced. 

What is silence. 

Lover castigating your soul's breath, making it trivial as a reminder of your "place."

What is silence.

But of water squelching on the fires of passion, on the passion of devotion on the devotion of IT.

What is silence. 

A self made prison of barbed-wire and chain linked fence, where the tulips grow outside the unlocked gate.

What is silence.

Is it found in the twisted torment of a childhood bound by scars, lashings, and pleasurably guilted sex scents?

What is silence.

Is it the empty "home" with blood stains strewn across the idyllic curtains 

and 

fallen photos staring into the loathsome Nothingness upon its walls?

What is silence.

Is it the noose around the neck of the body whose burden is too much to bear? 

What is silence.

What is silence?

Is it madness? Is it peace? Is it revolution? A time of contemplation? 

What is silence?

It is tethered by invisible strings that flow from Genius, to fingers, onto the page.

It is the feeling of rage, hate, love, kindness, peace, swelling tearfulness, & desire to be alone - in a single moment?

What is silence?

Is it in the mindful spaces between the pauses and screams? 

Between the sirens, flashing lights, the tireless infant and the paranoid lover incessantly battering?

It is found in the quiet, panted inhalation of the willful submersion.

It is found upon the bitten brim, invisible beside the flesh eliminated
It is found in the shards of the forsaken heart anesthetized through decades.
It is found in her Mind, that despicable self-disdain, to allow such subjugation. 

When did the Uninvited silence, Silence me.

Photo: Ellen Haroutunian

© 2014 Silence - DNKG

Thunderous Echo upon Vacant Heavens

Echo and Echo...

it Echoes

You knew all this

before

You knew all this

as if

condescension 

somehow aids,

pacifies.

Heartache

stifles the fire

that burns and turns

and turns,

that viciously

and aggressively is

stepped upon, extinguished.

With an entrance, with a smell,

with a look, with a touch.

Push through with

Charlatan's smile.

The Phoenix

bathed in cinders

stranger to Rebirth.

Fire, from whence it drew life,

now suffocating, relentlessly

Choking.

A prisoner to its myth,

to the pages of its Creation.

All eyes watch.

All eyes cast Judgment.

All eyes turn away.

Gasping, now wingless,

Mighty Phoenix,

stifled by the clutches

of its own doing

Of the Echo and Echo

that Echoes

You knew all this

Before

You knew all this

But did you, in your innocence,

count on this?

© 2012 Philip Pryke

2014 © DNKG Thunderous Echo upon Vacant Heavens

Let Creation Set You Free: Cigarettes in the Night

In the late hours of
the evening
with screaming, crying,
and labored breathing
Hands of
lightning zinging,
the Mind
busily working,
yet drifting
still disassociating
along the trestles of my bed.

The sway and bounce,
bustling, and teeming
the radiance
of Life,
silently quelling.
Apis, a Monarch
reduced to worker
reduced to slave
eviserated to
gangly being,
a ghost
invisible
along the trestles of my bed.

Once upon a time
where feet once
dangled,
gilded and laud;
where shadows met contours
embracing their
stage;
a juncture of
movement and space.
A silken body draped
in satin
and candle lit spill,
enchanted
by the rhythm
of breath
along the trestles of my bed.

Within satin sheets
and dimly lit
walls bound
by universal
secrets,
unwritten or whispered.
Holding the mysteries,
betwixt and aligned
of rapturous
revival
and static, idle nights
shrouded
along the trestles of my bed.

Thrashed and wasted
spirit and heart
waiting, wanting
for a portent
to warm, to heal
to know all is not for naught.
In the broken
starlight,
with detached eyes
through disheveled hair,
the waft of cloves
and burning
cigarettes
clouded
along the trestles of my bed.

Waiting,
Ever
Waiting
along the trestle of my bed.

In the twilight hour
of the Sun's gentle
rising, the wind's light caress
finds defeated brow
in hand.
And, the susurrus of
sweet, balmy dew
echoed
a fire kindling,
for love and hope
that is
only found
along the trestles of my bed.


© 2014 DNKG Cigarettes in the Night

Why the caged bird sings: A personal poetry tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou

In a world torn between color,

lived and learned between the

black and white hues of 

Everyday. 

a Mother, a Trailblazer, a Poetess
born from the strife,

Who gave rise from the ashes.

Who gave birth from a watery grave.

Who gave voice to the other caged birds.

In a world still torn between color,

lived and learned between the

sophisticated hues of grays; 
between religion, politics, and social strata.

Everyday

a caged bird sings

a mighty song it sings of its own.

A song inspired by the original bird

who feared not; who sang and sung 

Until its lungs no longer could,

Until its breath, panting, matched its heart,

Until its heart sung to its content,
Until its light was borrowed by the Great Equalizer.

And what have we birds known of

atrocities of Time? 
So many, too young,
to know the Power of her rhyme. 

To what atrocities have we accounted for
of broken bodies

of lost loves

of fragmented hearts
of saddened homes.

Would we brave the burn of the tyrant, 
so courageously stare down the eyes 
that abhor without knowing why?

Would we, so valiantly? 
Just to sing our song,
a song of Release?

That caged bird lived her love,
so all others would know what living a life of love meant. 

That caged bird loved when love seemingly wasn't an option, 

 so all others would know love could heal all wounds.

That caged bird healed through the prose of her life, 
so all others would know how. 

Why does the caged bird sing? 
She sang for her. 
She sang for you. 
She sang for me. 
She sang for love. 
She sang for the tough life.
She sang for sanity in an insane world. 
She sang for colors like her.
She sang when being human wasn't humane.
She sang for freedom from oppression. 
From enslavement. 
For us, as Humankind.

She sang to survive. 

She sang to feel alive. 
She sang because it's the one thing they couldn't break. 
She sang because it's the only thing they couldn't take. 
She sang because her song had to be sung.

I understand why the caged bird sings
in my heart and in my soul
she sings and sings and sings
for that is what a caged bird must do
to breathe, to live, or to die for its
songs

I know why the caged bird sings.

DNKG  Why the caged bird sings: A personal poetry tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou ©

Threading a Life: A Woman's lens

Threading a Life

            The inner workings of a woman’s heart are complex. It is constantly evaluating, analyzing, and loving among the other innumerable tasks a woman places upon this muscle—a flexor of life force that never ceases to amaze. If one were able to delve down deep into this spiritual stronghold, one would find a beginning that is muted and surrounded by darkness. It is in this humble moment where I find myself reflecting on the archaic sagacity of Woman.

            A woman is like the beautiful lotus blossom that sits atop a glistening pond sharing its radiance, its glory, and gift with others. Few are aware of its dark and arduous beginnings and far less are aware of the fortitude needed to push through to survive a turbulent stage of awakening. Even more astonishing is the wisdom of each petal—unique in how and when it opens, unveiling its brilliance only when it feels ready.

            Each woman is an artist who weaves the tapestry of a lifetime guided by heart and nurtured by soul. The Jewish woman has brought herself through a bitter dawn, evolved into a pillar of strength for her community, and weaved her legacy in the Textile of Time. We can see the Jewish Woman’s tapestry come to life when we pause, breathe and reflect.

           The earliest woven threads come from Sarah, our first matriarch. Her unwavering belief in prayer, sage-like wisdom, and vision of change demonstrates that faith and patience are powerful tools in times of uncertainty. The complexity of our tapestry continues with Rachel, whose untimely death symbolizes the first selfless act of unconditional love a mother willingly gives for her children. The weaving shifts phenomenally with the entrance of the Rebitzen, Malkah of Belz. Her spiritual wisdom and courageous work as a prophetess became the steppingstones for modern women to turn quelled silence into passionate oration. And the threads continue through the loom, in current day Israel, with the twenty-five year struggle for religious pluralism with the “Women of the Wall.”

One question remains: how will you weave your threads into our collective Jewish tapestry?

DNKG. Threading a Life -Adapted from my article published in the Kehillah Magazine - May edition 2014 ©