Sunday, August 3

1:30 p.m.

 

Finished a painting of a field of cheerful sunflowers this morning. M. is at a swimming meet on the lake and then goes to Windgarth. I am gathering together my notes and the manuscript of the book on dreams; decided not to publish it, but rather will post it online. Diana is too busy to format Visits With Angels; it might not be ready for many months. Patience.
 

Received an e-mail from A.:
 

"Hi Laurie. It does make sense that our spiritual nature is our true nature. Maybe if we can see that in people it would change how we see our neighbor, even our enemies. Have a great Sunday. Talk to you later. " I wrote him back: "Hello dear A.. Very wise response. Yes, that is it ... the secret of the saints."
 

Tuesday, August 5
 

Went downstairs and brought up the manuscript to We Meet in Dreams, a black binder already filled with words. I am toying with the idea of starting over, i.e. rewriting the entire manuscript. That is always the problem - not the ideas, but how best to present them. Sometimes I imagine the entire book as a ball of Light in my hand, energy I could just hand to others - like a doughnut or pencil or piece of bread, or any other pleasant and useful object or thing. Instead I must unravel that ball of Light and spin it into words, words covering many pages of separate and distinct ideas and concepts, sentences, paragraphs ... Frankly I have never understood this, why it is this way. Perhaps it is my clairvoyance, where sometimes all the information comes in together, at once, in one single vision ...
 

JF drove me and almost thirty paintings to hang in a restaurant in town; in Ithaca many artists hang their work in restaurants. The paintings will be there for a month, and now it is easier to walk around downstairs. Before the gallery in Owego and this restaurant took my paintings, they were stacked everywhere. The Owego twenty come home in a few weeks; I had better find a place to show them ... Monica and Alexis are coming to visit on Saturday, I will give them one of the new meadow scenes. Monica bought my first painting, now almost a year ago ...
 

Friday, August 8
 

Peg is here painting her watercolours; I finished another meadow and am now taking a rest. Oleg the cat is watching her intently. Rain on and off has cooled the day down.
 

The aides came again this week; did the laundry, washed the dishes, brought me my lunch, swept the floors, watered the indoor plants. Their lives have now intersected with mine more consciously, and in a more permanent and personal way. Each visit brings new swatches and stories of their personal history and self, their strengths and weaknesses, the other people in their lives ... A separate and unique inner mosaic forming for each, of who they personally are. Which is very different from my clairvoyant perceptions of who they are, which are instantaneous and beyond the events in their lives, the people, the moods and sentences and behaviors ...
 

Clairvoyantly, I see only Light or the lack of Light in others - and the sort of Light they are carrying.
 

The aide who came this morning is wiry and strong; she approaches her tasks as though going into battle. Her willingness to help us and her wish to do the best possible job is very touching - and brings her much Light.
 

Peg is struggling with her paintings. I told her that the artists’ dissatisfaction with their work is really the yearning of the soul for the Divine, for God. The true artist is never satisfied with what has been created; the artist’s work will always fall short of the Beauty of the soul. And so the artist is compelled to try again, to create again. This, of course benefits the world - or Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, the great artists of earth would have given us only one painting in their lifetime. It is the same for any performer: as a pianist, I practice many hours each day only because I am not satisfied with what I have already done. In our pursuit of perfection, the artists of the world create endless works of art for others either to simply enjoy or be inspired by. And in those endless hours of creating, the artist comes closer to standing in his own soul ...
 

Saturday, August 9

2:30 a.m.
 

Today Windgarth was rented out, so M. and I took a drive in the country; if you drive five minutes or less in any direction from Ithaca, you are in the countryside. We took back roads and meandered, explored in whatever direction drew us. Came across some small, makeshift roadside stands selling blueberries, peaches, corn; bought some peaches. The thistle are in bloom, the corn has tassels; and the greens were very green as a result of all the rain. We wandered towards Newfield, on roads I had never met; I saw fields I have never seen, mountains and streams I never knew existed.
 

Have not written one new word on the interpretation of dreams. Although I did paint a new dark forest today. Now lightning, thunder followed by the sound of rain, a new and wonderful storm...