Resist the urge to play music, to instead settle on silence, the only sound being the bristle of brush strokes on dollarstore canvas board (you buy paint supplies on a student budget, after all).  You hope one day to be able to afford Series 3 colours like aquamarine.  For now, you work with cobalt blue.

Histeria and blame have gone to church and I am free to melt into Atheist Sunday Silence. I sit with my colours, endless possibilities, to form nature with oil and solvents, to witness creation rather than hearing the same stories over and over again, plagiarized from the same book.  My own spirituality is given the freedom to take flight, to ooze like paint from a tube and dance along with brush strokes, leaving traces that unfold before my eyes.

Red paint smudges on my nose, referencing everyone’s favourite Christmas carole in the midst of April showers.

A visual image begins to take shape, accountable to no one’s taste but my own.  My secrets begin to layer, fat over lean.  My bare hands create figures that never even considered existence, until now.  Creation needs no forethought, just the willingness to relax into the moment and lend your body to the universe as a vessel through which consciousness can flow.

At first glance, the body appears sedentary, seated in quiet revery.  Upon further examination it becomes clear that every cell is engaged in a subtle dance, outlining nature with oily substance that extends from the left fingertips.  The lungs breathe in the scents of these toxins: this is the only time you suspect that the body and mind may not in fact share a connection.  How can these fumes, which symbolize freedom and expansion, be bad for the physical self when they are so healing for the soul?

The toxins provide the liver with practice, like drinking a latte made with titanium white, dairy free, getting your recommended daily intake of vitamin A (Art), allowing vitamin Creation to unload back into the universe. Like a well-loved library book, someone else will have it next.  Creativity is just borrowed, after all.

A quote from Rent’s “La Vie Boheme” comes to mind: “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.”  Make something out of nothing today.