Desire
Desire
Original artwork and poetry from The Essence series by Richard G. Witham
I recognize contrasting elements in my life, accept them and allow them to be. Contrasting enables me to distinguish likes from dislikes and to create a preference, and understanding the contribution of yin and yang in manifesting my desire allows me to appreciate them equally.
Release
Release
Original artwork from The Essence series by Richard G. Witham
I learned while developing this drawing that releasing is actually a form of allowing. Perhaps I already knew this, but contemplating release as a motion of essence brought this idea to the forefront.
My original objective with Release was to demonstrate my inner desire to let go, or release my grasp on the be-ing I have been living. I suppose a good example would be letting go of the branch at river's edge and loosing my self to the currents. I then saw another aspect of release concerning the stress and pressures of what I have felt as confines to my present "Reality".
I love my job as an artist. It has enabled me to experience great fortunes over the past few months in the areas of joy, purpose and fulfillment, but it has yet to bring me monetary gain. So, as I contemplated release I saw that letting go of my concept of money - literally everything I know about it and its influence in my life here on earth - invited tremendous relief.
The feeling of ease was so joyful, in fact, that when I thought again about money it was basked in a positive light. At this point I knew that my releasing money as a pressure in my life I was actually allowing it to flow to me and through me in its natural state of infinite abundance.
I then began to look at other examples of letting loose as a form of allowing; letting go of my opinion in an argument lets me see new points of view, releasing my ideas about people allows qualities I had not previously permitted and shutting off the innate filters of my mind invites the flow of internal and external knowing. Most of all, this dawning knowledge helped me understand that removing my constraints was not a matter of squirming out of binds imposed by external forces but of simply letting go.
Allow
Fly
The world is filled with color as the leaves flutter and sway; some fly off into the distance following a secret destiny careered by currents that only leaves can understand, others bump against your skin and become tangled in your hair and clothing and some sweep lazily through the air in a zig-zagging pattern to the ground.
Stop now, and listen.
Close your eyes.
Feel the wind rush against your body.
See the currents running through your veins.
Hear the pulsing of your heart.
You are free.
My inner being does not dawn the burden of purpose or question existence.
Like leaves dancing on an autumn breeze, it flows along the currents of life enjoying physical reality with intrigue and admiration.
Fly illustrates allowing my inner being to reach out and experience life with its natural desire for sensual appreciation.
My life is often so blanketed in the endless sea of worldly ideas, opinions and beliefs that the inner being becomes buried beneath a cloak formed in layers over time like the bark of an ancient elm. Some layers have been created as a result of my own experience while others were assimilated from external influence.
Performing the motions of the essence creates a physical channel through which my true being can emerge.