Finger Painting with the Flow

I had a dream that seemed to last all night. I was in a classroom and there was something being taught that was both unfamiliar and intriguing. I felt the intensity of my attention and the resonance within me that this was both important and true. Yet, when I moved from sleep to waking, the only thing I could remember was a comment made in the hallway outside the classroom, “This is how we touch form within formlessness.”

Who wouldn’t want to go back and find out more.

I had the chance in a shamanic drumming circle where there was someone else playing the drum beat for me. It allowed me to sink fully back into the unseen world where I asked if there was a way to return to the classroom of my dream. I was immediately taken to a huge hall of marble, with alcoves lining either side. It reminded me of the Hall of Kings from Tolkien or a grand cathedral from medieval times. I walked past scientific labs and rooms filled with telescopes; places where languages of many varieties were flowing over one another; and past botanical gardens.

In a short time, we arrived at a closed door which opened before us and I saw the long table, surrounded by eager learners that had featured in my dream. The teacher beckoned me in and I took up a position across from him. “You want to remember the class from your dream,” he said, looking into my eyes. “That is easy, we were finger painting in the air with vibration, to get a feel for the flow of Life.”

At that moment, a swirl of rich green color moved into the space between us, and one after another of the people around me began to reach their fingertips toward it. There was no sense that they were trying to make the color shift in hue or to move it in space. Instead, each one caressed it like you would a satin ribbon, letting it move and shift between their fingertips. Sometimes there were many hands touching it, and at other times all would draw back and allow one individual to reach out with an open hand to let their fingertips rest on its surface. In those moments, their hand moved as through they were conducting a silent symphony.

As I watched, several other color swirls also entered the space and were interlaced with the first. A vivid royal blue and a deep rich maroon joined the play. As sensing fingers encountered them they would remain for a moment unmoved and unchanged, continuing on their way as though nothing was happening. Then, a shift would occur and their color and shape would shift. This was often the signal for that person to remove their hands from the area.

The teacher reminded me that in the night I had heard a train whistle and saw a blue velvet light flowing around the hillsides and sweeping around my bedroom. It had been a beautiful experience of seeing the sound and knowing that this vibration was carried in midnight blue.

The colors you see here are not sound waves, but the currents in the flow of Life. What we are trying to learn is how to feel this flow and move with it. We are not creating this flow and it is not coming through us. Its source is The Source and we are reaching out with our core being, our soul, to experience its resonance within us. We use our fingertips to focus our attention. We learn this way because we can pick up both the physical sensation of Life’s flow and see when we are seeking to change it.

He then invited me to extend my hand and touch one of the swirling forms of color. My finger moved through neutral air until they connected with the original green swirl. It was warm and thick, and there was an almost rubbery resistance to the pressure of my finger. Then suddenly it swerved away from my hand.

You are touching it with your physical body and your sense of touch. These place a buffer of space between you and the flow. Your mind comes between you and it, and creates a sense of separation or a desire to control. Prepare yourself through song and see what your experience becomes when it is your own being of light that is reaching out.

I stepped back from the table, and turned my back to the others. I sang one of the songs I use to prepare for shamanic journey and moved into the awareness of the light of my inner being. I sensed my whole body filled and nourished by the Source of all Light. This always helps me remember all of who I am; that at my core I am light and spirit.

Feeling more like a star than a human being, I turned back toward the table and extending my hand into the space of dancing color. The color patches did not change their form or direction as my fingers encountered them. Instead, I felt my hand invited to float on the current of the flow of vibration. It made almost hula-like wave movements, lifted and carried by the thick finger paint-like current of life. I was not seeking to influence it, but was allowing it to carry my hand wherever it might go. One color would lift and then withdraw, only to have another move in from some other direction to carry my hand through this dance.

The teacher spoke gently, so as not to break my focus.

This is how we learn to sense the flow of Life. You will sense it on many levels and through many senses. It is color and music, rhythm and cadence, sunlight and shadow, sandpaper and silk, scent of flowers and taste of salt. Finger painting with it allows you to be playful and to notice when you are letting it move you and when you are trying to move it.

The return beat of the drum told me it was time to return to the tangible world. I thanked the teacher and all the others involved in this classroom. As I was stepping out the door, the teacher called after me, “You are not very strong with your sense of smell, but you might want to listen to what flavors you long for. It is just another way of experimenting.” I smiled and turned to walk back through this magnificent hall and back into the room in my home where I was journeying from.

(Part of this did come within the time of the shamanic journey with my drumming circle in February. The rest has been a gift from my helping spirits and guides from the unseen world as I typed this morning. I sense that there is more about the play of finger painting with vibration, in which our own energy/vibration dances with that of all creation. I will let you know how that unfolds.)