I wish I could play music behind this blog entry so you could hear the phosphorescent sounds of "First Breath After Coma," by Explosions in the Sky, which is chiming quietly in the back of my mind.

Today I am excited. About having begun this blog and having begun the first painting, in quite a while, that feels like it comes from the magic place inside me. About having old friends come back into my life. About new housemates who have the energy to do things like reorganize all the tea in the kitchen and find lids to all the tupperware. (And ask me to sit and meditate with them in the late afternoon, when my brain likes to hijack me if I'm alone.) About cooking sweet potatoes for dinner and going down to NYC to see performances on Wednesday night. About the possibility of life continuing to be full and possible and unexpected. About fruition.

Here is a snapshot of the beginning of my painting. It's going to be a mandala. This is the center.

It's called Integration Part 4. If you want to see Integration Part 1, click here:

I painted the first one in October 2005, after I had just moved across the country and was crashing on Will's living room floor in Northampton, Mass. Something had erupted inside me that summer that made it clear I had to start integrating the old pieces of my life and history -- and I had no idea how to do that -- but one of the steps seemed to be moving back east. when I began integration Part 1, I felt like there were these halves of my life that wanted to merge -- maybe not halves, but very distinct sections. There was some part of me that was aware of peace, and gentleness, and grace -- and then there were all these explosions inside, and all the repressed parts of my awareness and desire that insisted, violently, on becoming known. That's what the first painting was about. A year and a half later, things feel very different. It feels like there is some kind of center, some kind of emerging harmony inside all the fractal chaos and colors, some kind of sacred circle. It doesn't feel so much like 2 (or more) sides competing against each other to share space.

So my plan with the current painting is to work out from the center in layers and create some kind of asymmetrical mandala... I'm not sure exactly where it will go. It's on a large piece of paper, though, so there is plenty of room to expand. I am very curious how it will unfold.