Walking into Paintings

Last week, I showed Moonlight how to walk into paintings.

It’s such a simple detachment once someone shows you how. When you’re inside you can reach out to anyone looking at the work. You can reach them and speak to them. They won’t hear you with their senses but they will get your message. You can do that because works of art create their own psychic space, no more or less real than any other space. Some paintings do it better than others. For excursions, I don’t think that I’d recommend The Scream. Not to Moon anyway.

You immerse yourself in the landscape, in the world of the painting, in its sounds, in its life.

Moonlight learned where I go when I crave peace. I took her hand. We opened a book and stepped into a Monet. Dressed in white cotton. We wore straw hats tied with silk scarves. We carried parasols with Oriental patterns on them. In high-button shoes. We stepped softly through an infinite Monet. We crossed a footbridge. We paused to languidly gaze at waterlilies. We watched the fishing boats go out at sunrise. The light played through radiant clouds on haystacks and sparkling cathedrals. How wonderfully it changed throughout the day. We floated on the clouds reflected in lily ponds. We were pink and blue reflections on ripples of water.

We laughed. Moonlight was radiant with joy. I showed her that the place she often saw in her visions was real. It was tactile. It was aural. We felt the breezes and we became breezes. We felt the dew. We became the sparkling droplets on dark green leaves. We felt the warmth of the sun. We became pure lights. We radiated warmth. We gave life to flowers. To the pond. To each other. All of it was real. We wore long dresses of white cotton. We were flowers of every possible color. We held hands. We carried parasols. We flew kites. We walked across the meadow. In white cotton. In high button shoes. With silk scarves. We danced. We laughed. I shared the secret of the Muses with Moonlight. With love.

Moon rearranged some stars but when we left, we tidied up

Last night we walked into Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Moon rearranged some stars but when we left, we tidied up. Everything was just as we found it.

Floating on music is another acquired skill. I wanted to show Moon how to float on Baroque music. On Enya’s music. On Sarah McLachlan’s music. On Loreena McKennitt’s music. Finally, I believe that some humans may be capable of Soul Ballooning. Back home Soul Ballooning is a team sport.

Let the viewer stroll around within the picture, to force him to forget himself and so to become a part of the picture. (Vassily Kandinsky)

When you start a painting, it is somewhat outside you. At the conclusion you seem to move inside the painting. (Fernando Botero)