Divine Nurture

Divine Nurture by Lidia Kenig-Scher

I felt quite content when I started this painting. It was the day before my birthday. The yellow gold strokes easily flowed onto the white canvas and later, reds blended into yellow to create orange. A wide brush laden with teal blue brought the undulating shapes we now see on the bottom. I don’t remember if at day’s end I had scumbled magenta on the upper right.

The following day turned out to be quite difficult, yet soon yielded a marvelous gift.

You see, sometimes our inner guidance leads us into darkness. Our consciousness constantly mapping our path, sets the stage so that we can learn something valuable. Perhaps we are stuck and unaware that we are no longer moving in alignment with our purpose. Or maybe out of pure unconsciousness, we either cause harm, or we receive it. Perhaps we face a traumatic situation and realize that we had been there before and felt as powerless.

In a sudden flash of insight, we could begin to see these conundrums as a way to heal old pain and past karma.  We could decide to mentally step away and hear our high heart, our connection to Spirit, asking us to integrate the lessons. We may be guided to heal ourselves by using the reappeared trauma as the fertilizer to enrich the soil where new seeds of love and light can sprout.

Finding myself at the receiving end of volatile anger, my instinctive reaction was to fight or fly. But something amazing occurred to me on that day amidst loud verbal attacks; I clearly saw the raw pain in the one hurting me and my heart opened up.

I became very quiet and tapped into the vastness, the place of potential, divinity’s abode and the realm of supreme wisdom. In the surreal inner silence, I prayed for guidance and expressed regret and bewilderment, as I can’t say that I understood then my role in the conflict.

What I knew for sure is that I did not want to manipulate or be manipulated. While I did not identify a perpetrator or a victim, I knew that I was no longer available to be unkind or be the recipient of unkindness. At that moment I perceived a bright light emanating from my heart and noticed that the other person had left.

The heart mind had done a great job leading me out of harm, however, over the next few hours, my body experienced what I can safely call “aftershocks”, so I began to practice Tonglen.

The next morning, I went into the studio and continued painting. I refined the shapes in the blue area and added the soft white layer between the yellow and teal colors, thus creating a foreground. The magenta hue in the upper right now became the background, green sticks were painted on the teal surface and, in the process, I felt divinely nurtured.

In such state I agreed to meet with the other person and lo and behold, we both came away knowing that the situation provided us both with profound healing. We each had faith in our bond, but saw that in order to move forward, we not only had to be fully present; we had to trust in that bond as we are now. We had to let go of thoughts and emotions based on the past, on fear, guilt and shame and we had to forgive ourselves and each other for past unconscious beliefs and behaviors.

In the end we both realized that the past is now the compost that will help us build a more wholesome relationship. We had grown from the harrowing experience and released the accumulated toxicity by surrounding it with pure love and utter compassion. We both remarked that this was a marvelous gift!

That afternoon I completed the painting I call it, Divine Nurture.

It is my wish that those who are called to purchase the original or a print for a home or business, allow themselves and all who behold the art, to be divinely nurtured.

Follow this link to purchase Divine Nurture.

Additionally, I will include a copy of Tonglen meditation with the original or prints, and I will be glad to personally instruct the person who purchases the original in the practice of Tonglen.