A Heart to Meditate

Oil on canvas: 28” X 22”
“A Heart to Meditate”.
I also wanted to call it “Looking for the Symbolic Signs”. Here is the story behind this painting.
A few years ago I was on a tour of the Grand Canyon. While I was there I felt an unusual, powerful energy present. It was only a one day tour and afterwards I told my husband that I will return here to understand what is so special about this place. I wanted to always have this landscape in front of me and wanted to paint it. I found Richard Robinson on You Tube and send him a letter that said: “Dear Richard, I have an unexplainable desire to paint the Grand Canyon but I do not even know how to hold a brush. Please help me find where to start.” Richard advised me to start with the Atmospheric Perspective lesson. I purchased many of his wonderful lessons and have learned a great deal from Richard.
About three years ago I went to school to become a Holistic Nutritionist. There we had meditation practicum where I felt relaxed as never before. Since then, synchronistic signs about meditation began coming into my life from various sources. One time, my the plant manager called me into his office and said that he has nothing to say to me about my job performance and advised me to read about meditation. That day I purchased a book called “Meditation” and started reading. Out of the many kinds of mediation described in the book the spiritual kind resonated with me the most. Later on, I “found” a Saint Benedict prayer on my table. It was given to me in the St. Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania where I go once a year with my husband, an Oblate, to pray with monks. This prayer was on my table for over a year but I’ve never read it before. I read the prayer that day and it said: “A heart to meditate upon Thee”. Again meditation! Since that day I started my daily meditation with the prayer of St Benedict. Soon after, it was in my head all the time, for many hours a day -when I was driving, walking – all the time.
One day I said to my family that I will go back to the Grand Canyon to meditate. In April 2013 I was back there. One early morning I found a rock away from the lookout and started my meditation as usual with the St Benedict prayer:
O Gracious and Holy Father give us Wisdom to perceive Thee.
Diligence to seek Thee.
Patience to wait for Thee.
Eyes to behold Thee.
A heart to meditate upon Thee.
and a life to proclaim Thee:
Through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
The moment I said the last word I heard a loud noise. I opened my eyes and saw many birds in the air above my head. It looked like they were fighting. They flew up into the air and lead my eyes to the sky. Right at that moment I saw two airplanes approached each other on a 90 degree angle. I was shocked, it looked like they were about to collide. At that moment I was confident that I will be witnessing an accident. After a few seconds they met each other nose to nose in the air and kept flying. I was even more in shocked when I saw a cross from the smoke “painted” in the sky. I grabbed the camera to take a photo but it was out of focus. That’s when I said to myself: “I will put this moment down on canvas”.
I started painting many canvases but could not finish any. Colors were too bright, reference photos were wrong, I simply did not see the energy that I wanted to see. Now the painting is ready. When I look at it I see so many symbolic signs.
I see myself saying the St Benedict prayer, (which is written on the stone where I stand). I am talking to an imaginary Creator which is right in front of me in the large armchair with a white through. The Creator is looking at the rock shaped like a Church Bell and is listening to me ALWAYS. He shows me a symbolic sign - a cross in the sky. I see the face of Saint Benedict in the right hand corner. He is spreading his wings while looking at his prayer. He makes sure that nothing disturbs our conversation.