Meditative Visions (Pastel Art)

[IllusiveOwl]

Occasionally I will have an experience that I do not want to forget about while meditating and I will do my best to immortalize it in art so I dont forget them in the endless sea of experiences we live through.

I figured some of you may find them interesting or neat.

Post automatically merged: May 24, 2024

Some more, with the last being the most recent. I gave one away as a gift and only have a picture of it in the frame they placed it in.

Post automatically merged: May 30, 2024

 

[Yazata]

Try imgur?

 

[IllusiveOwl]

I originally started doing expressionist art as a practice of Jungian art therapy to help me deal with the emotional rigors of C-PTSD and express how I felt. These are all digital and in retrospect are just as meditative as the first few batches, so I'll share the less visceral and more esoteric ones. The first one in particular rings very true to my recent view, even though I really didn't understand it as I made it (I was high).

 

[Mars]

Are those like visual impressions you get during meditation?

How long do they last on average? Do they leave tracers?

 

[IllusiveOwl]

Are those like visual impressions you get during meditation?

How long do they last on average? Do they leave tracers?

It's sometimes a literal recreation of what I see, sometimes its a recreation of sensory experience - not physical but tangible energy that you feel just as vividly - sometimes it's an attempt to express an idea made in meditation, or a realization, for example:

Thats a rough attempt to show how innert and unaffected the self is while a beehive of activity dances around over it.

This matches the feeling of being unchained to any conditions or desires, of just being, completely free and full.

Usually these experiences build up over the course of thirty or forty minutes, sometimes the intense parts are only a minute, sometimes they last a lot longer. They're made with the intention of getting the important parts down so I don't forget, because the transcendental experiences fade in time, regardless of how sweet they are... every time I have an experience, I am permanently changed, subtly, just from the lessons learnt and the psychic muscles being exercised. I think that is what you meant by trace, right?

 

[Mars]

It's sometimes a literal recreation of what I see, sometimes its a recreation of sensory experience - not physical but tangible energy that you feel just as vividly - sometimes it's an attempt to express an idea made in meditation, or a realization, for example:

Thats a rough attempt to show how innert and unaffected the self is while a beehive of activity dances around over it.

This matches the feeling of being unchained to any conditions or desires, of just being, completely free and full.

Usually these experiences build up over the course of thirty or forty minutes, sometimes the intense parts are only a minute, sometimes they last a lot longer. They're made with the intention of getting the important parts down so I don't forget, because the transcendental experiences fade in time, regardless of how sweet they are... every time I have an experience, I am permanently changed, subtly, just from the lessons learnt and the psychic muscles being exercised. I think that is what you meant by trace, right?

Interesting! With trace I meant more like tracers in your vision, like how bright lights linger for a while. But what you described is interesting to read too!

So these images build up over 30 minutes? Like do they need this time to fade in or do they literally build themselves? Is this also accompanied by physical sensations? Like perhaps feeling as if you got hit or or permeated by something? Auditory experiences too?

 

[IllusiveOwl]

Interesting! With trace I meant more like tracers in your vision, like how bright lights linger for a while. But what you described is interesting to read too!

So these images build up over 30 minutes? Like do they need this time to fade in or do they literally build themselves? Is this also accompanied by physical sensations? Like perhaps feeling as if you got hit or or permeated by something? Auditory experiences too?

These experiences are usually "physical" and visual, but sometimes information comes too, like it's "seen" rather than thought, like another set of eyes. Usually there is around 15 minutes of stilling the mind, then some kind of revelation or breakthrough, which I then utilize to push my awareness further into unknown territory. The experiences range in intensity and duration, with the peak or epitome being what's painted.

I hate calling it energy because it sounds new-agey, but I have no idea what else to call the feeling, it's like physical but I know it isn't; it starts as a whirlpool of pressure in the head then envelops my whole body in warmth and pressure, and my whole awareness is focused on it, and whatever it experiences is all I experience, no thought. Sometimes it goes places and takes in the atmosphere, once it focused on a person though in unsure if they were real, I believe it may have been some kind of intensified active imagination, because it was entirely receptive, like you take in what your senses tell you, there is no creation involved so it's not my mind playing tricks. It was like suddenly being someone else and the context of everything happening is just known.

I have these non-physical sensations often when in the early stages of meditation, it feels like some kind of organ I intuitively am learning to use. I also had many "hallucinations" often before all this years ago, they were visual and vivid, I'm positive it was spiritual now and not just brain-noise from waking up in sleep mode.

Sorry for the ramble, I don't open up about this stuff often.

Post automatically merged: Jun 7, 2024

Also I've had a bit to drink tonight

Post automatically merged: Jun 7, 2024

This is also a recreation of my first and most vivid ultra-sensory experience. I was profoundly relaxed, went within myself, and it was like I was transparent, but this pillar of blue light formed. It was brief but it filled me with awe for days.

 

[Mars]

It was like suddenly being someone else and the context of everything happening is just known.

Like in a dream right? It happens immediately and you tend to lose the thoughts during ordinary waking state.

I have this long suspicion that dreams take place on the astral realm and it's just the soul getting out the body and at some point becoming dormant and things just start happening. And because you usually associate sleeping with resting and not being focused you are often confused when this happens, whereas during meditation you are quite focused and actively and conciously experience whatever happens.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

Like in a dream right? It happens immediately and you tend to lose the thoughts during ordinary waking state.

I have this long suspicion that dreams take place on the astral realm and it's just the soul getting out the body and at some point becoming dormant and things just start happening. And because you usually associate sleeping with resting and not being focused you are often confused when this happens, whereas during meditation you are quite focused and actively and conciously experience whatever happens.

It was a lot more sober and encompassing than my normal dream experience. I remember vividly that it was like suddenly my environment changed around me, like I was somewhere else suddenly, and my natural instinct to want to know where I was kicked in, filling me in on the context and situation as though I had lived it up until that point. The reason why I assume it was Active Imagination was because it was in a carriage, the character I assumed was kidnapped nobility surrounded by his captors as they rode off somewhere unknown and secluded.

I dont know what it was, I just know it was vivid, that I was awake, and everything was sensed, not created or generated.

Post automatically merged: Jun 10, 2024

I do not make much plans for how a piece turns out, I just have something and make it. Sometimes this makes things vague and hard to understand, but sometimes pieces link together in a very satisfying way.

The first piece I posted here:

The piece I made today before a job interview (that I rocked btw):

The egg symbolism is something that Carl Jung explored a lot in his Red Book, I believe it was the Soul he was so interested in creating. Each of us has an egg that we carry. Don't forget about it or sacrifice it to please your flesh-sack. You must sacrifice your body and ego in service to it.

 

[Aeternus]

I am glad you were admitted with success after the job interview .

The Egg symbol in my opinion goes further, back into the Pre-creational cosmology.

The egg is associated with the cosmic egg as well. It reminds as that we really have a mission that we need to carry and to not ignore it for the sake of material needs, like you said.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

A piece I made this morning after integrating my questing from last night shares the structure of a previous picture, like a lower note resonating with one on a different octave. Both are loosely self portraits. I thought the changes between the two were neat.

And for the record I'm not schizophrenic or mentally unbalanced, there is just a lot on my plate. You could justify this as "shadow work" too, probably

 

[nightly]

wht meditation did you use to get this? how long did you commit to it?

 

[stalkinghyena]

@IllusiveOwl some of your works remind me a little bit of the tone of the artworks of Away from the band Voivod. It seems to tap the same current.

 

[IllusiveOwl]

wht meditation did you use to get this? how long did you commit to it?

It's taken about a year and a half of hardcore practice to get to this point. With Meditation it isn't about length of commitment but intensity of commitment. Will you jump onto the fire and burn completely? Or just hold your hand over it and pull away when it hurts?

Reality is a lot different from our understanding of it. The more sure you are of how things are, the more you can count on your being ignorant, especially if you've never even questioned it.

The subconscious produces images and an understanding of reality much closer to truth than our limited senses and perspective can offer. Honest work and dedication tune out the noise of the speaking mind to let the typically invisible unconscious to express itself, to show us truths that it holds.

The experience of truth can be agonizing and terrifying, that is why it can be dangerous for the unprepared. Death is a violent transition that requires preparation. Swami Dhyan Giten said "Meditation is the art of learning to die consciously."


In short, you inhale and exhale, following the breath and regarding everything the mind says as useless drivel. What is watching the breath, you become, and in being that truth flows to you without being encrypted or corrupted.

Post automatically merged: Jun 25, 2024

@IllusiveOwl some of your works remind me a little bit of the tone of the artworks of Away from the band Voivod. It seems to tap the same current.

Thank you for saying so

When it comes to tone, only an elect few share the current I'm trying to express; a cursed club where most members just try to unexist through drug-abuse, madness, or suicide. It is through sheer will I exist and through sheer will that I work.

If it came to comparison, I would liken my aesthetic to Jimmy Screamerclauz.

 

[nightly]

It's taken about a year and a half of hardcore practice to get to this point. With Meditation it isn't about length of commitment but intensity of commitment. Will you jump onto the fire and burn completely? Or just hold your hand over it and pull away when it hurts?

Reality is a lot different from our understanding of it. The more sure you are of how things are, the more you can count on your being ignorant, especially if you've never even questioned it.

The subconscious produces images and an understanding of reality much closer to truth than our limited senses and perspective can offer. Honest work and dedication tune out the noise of the speaking mind to let the typically invisible unconscious to express itself, to show us truths that it holds.

The experience of truth can be agonizing and terrifying, that is why it can be dangerous for the unprepared. Death is a violent transition that requires preparation. Swami Dhyan Giten said "Meditation is the art of learning to die consciously."

In short, you inhale and exhale, following the breath and regarding everything the mind says as useless drivel. What is watching the breath, you become, and in being that truth flows to you without being encrypted or corrupted.

this is an interesting read, tho i hate how much i cant relate to it at this moment, hopefully that will change tho, at its core its just breathing and being able to not let your mind persuade you, not much tutorial is needed beside this?

how do you differentiate between the images your unconscious produces and the random thoughts your mind give you?

 

[IllusiveOwl]

not much tutorial is needed

This is a good way to put it. How much good is reading / listening to the words of hiking masters in the face of actually hiking? You'll never be prepared enough, you just need to be willing to take the plunge and do it, to let go of what little you have for the infinite adventure ahead.

how do you differentiate between the images your unconscious produces and the random thoughts your mind give you?

Thoughts are usually pretty useless. Assumptions, calculations, guesses, poor analysis. Truth is not expressed in words, you won't find any reality in the vapid vibrations in a person's vocal cords.

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2024

A kind of cosmology or something has risen from my subconscious. I have finished this set of 4 photos out of order and weeks apart from one another, with neither of the other photos on my mind; I didn't know it was a set of 3 until the final one was done and a set if 4 until half way through making this post.

I'm not schizophrenic I'm just arty and dramatic.

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2024

This cropping is less trashy

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2024

 

[Bluesoft]

Awsome job! Would be great if u explain next time what represent each one to you. thanks for sharing!

 

[IllusiveOwl]

Would be great if u explain next time what represent each one to you.

I'll quote David Lynch when he was asked to explain/elaborate on what his works meant:

"No."

The meaning/progression is very blatant, perhaps it will be a good exercise in your Nous faculty to try and come to your own conclusions. Words mean very little anyway.

Post automatically merged: Jul 3, 2024

The more you look around, the more you see.

Post automatically merged: Jul 3, 2024

Post automatically merged: Jul 3, 2024

Psychologically this one is a symbolic representation of a change in perspective. Now rather than identity being with the body, it's with the heart, which is more unbearable, because in our situation as tiny egoic people, the heart suffers; this reminds me of the suffering heart of Jesus (of course I don't claim to be an artist of that quality or a philosopher of any degree, this just is a similar personally felt experience, maybe I'm in the same vein.)

It also feels worth noting the cell is over the Anahata Chakra. For reference, this cell is also shown here in a photo made years ago that wasn't at all in my mind while making this:

The consistency of the subconscious' imagery is really stunning.

Post automatically merged: Jul 5, 2024

Had to pull out the tablet for this one, Pastels wouldn't have done the job.

Post automatically merged: Jul 7, 2024

Anyone care for an Orphic Aumlette? (Not my dad joke)

Post automatically merged: Jul 15, 2024

Continuation:

Post automatically merged: Jul 18, 2024

Here we go, final one with all of them together! Who expected it to resolve into a grail? I didn't cheers! Series finished