Landscape With the Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Rembrandt van Rijn, 1647
I was drawn to the Rembrandt painting in the previous post, could not take my eyes off it in fact. And then I heard his voice.
Ann: Rembrandt?
Rembrandt van Rijn: Yes, Ann, I know it is strange to think that I might be contacting you from such a distance, from a culture and time that seems so different from your own. And yet much has come full circle. Much that we carried on our shoulders and in our hearts still burdens those of you who walk the planet now.
I struggled. I carried my understanding of who I was, the sacred spark within me, as a guide post and a burden. Knowing that I could never “fit in” with my family and townspeople, that what I knew had not been learned and could not be taught through words or treatises, I was set apart in ways almost too painful to bear.
And yet I knew I had a gift beyond measure, a gift I was sent to express, to reveal, to demonstrate in whatever way I could the divine spark that we all carry within us. In spite of our sorrows, our burdens and the many injustices that surround us, we are asked to shine the light on the Divine gift of creation accorded us by our Maker.
I honed my craft for this purpose and none other. Yes, I wanted to make a living, yes, I knew my gifts were of a level rarely granted to humans, and yes, I knew almost from the beginning what was required of me in spite of the ridicule and revulsion heaped upon me. I was to shine God’s light on the human soul. In circumstances mean or affluent, the light that I saw came from the same source, the divine spark that all of us are given whether we began creation in this dimension or another. Each and every one of us must decide whether or not to honour that gift, that heritage, that awesome and terrible burden.
The human body is not built for divine revelation. The human mind is not structured to take in the realities of our creation and evolution. Therefore we must transmit what we are given in ways beyond the physical, beyond the verbal, and beyond any political or societal framework. We must cleave to this light in all things.
My gift was the gift of sight. I strived to create on canvas, in drawings, and in music that which I could see with my third eye and hear with my heart and soul, and that was the light, the atmosphere both internal and external, which reveals the holy spark in each one of us.
If you feel so inclined, review my work with this in mind. The Return of the Prodigal Son** was my magnum opus conceived over many years of struggle and excruciating physical and emotional pain. It was executed in hardship and agony. It is meant to illustrate the divine love which is the life blood of every created being on the planet no matter whether or not such is recognized or accepted by us in whatever life we are living at a given times and place
I come to say that each of you has this voice within you. It may not have the insistent ring of the work of great musician, the instant revelation of the work the great painter, or the insight and understanding of a great seer or philosopher. Yet it is just as strong, just as important as any because it dwells within you. Recognize, reveal, and claim your holy origin before yourself, your peers, and your God. This is your one and only mission.
We are all offered the love of our Creator. It is that love that will take us safely through to our next iteration of God’s holy energy and which will see us through what we have undertaken on the earth at the present time.
Look for the light where it shines. In art, yes, music, poetry, words and song, but also in the outreached hands of the mother and father for the children of their heart, those children who may or may not be of their bodies or blood but who have true kinship through he word of God.
Divine light is wherever you look for it and most of all within your own heart. Everyone is an artist of the highest caliber when they access this light. Find yours and let it shine. In this way you will reclaim the earth and facilitate its ascension.
November 20, 2021
Image Credit: Photograph: Roy Hewson/Edinburgh Art Festival 2018
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
*Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 -1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history. Wikipedia.
His life was difficult to say the least. He was "overwhelmed by multiple catastrophes, [his] wife died, [one of his greatest paintings] the Night Watch, was ripped from the wall and placed in some indecorous location, his friends deserted him, and he was hounded into bankruptcy. In his final years no one would commission a painting from him; he was reduced to making self-portraits, which he did whenever he could cadge the necessary materials from his art-supply dealer. His only comforters were his san Titus and his mistress Hendrickje, both of whom died in heartrending circumstances. Prematurely aged at 63, he passed away in such obscurity that the burghers, observing his pathetic funeral, inquired, 'Who was he?" "The Legend and the Man," in The World of Rembrandt: 1606-1669 (Time-Life Library of Art), Walter Wallace, New York, 1968, pp. 17-25
**"Completed during the last years of Rembrandt's life, The Return of the Prodigal Son portrays a scene from the parable as recounted in Luke 15:11-32. According to the eminent art scholar Kenneth Clark it ranks among the greatest paintings ever."
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt, http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/return-of-the-prodigal-son.htm
his biography is sad beyond words. I had no idea.