Ric Kolibar’s email, with the painting, came with only a few words: “The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle.”
The simple and small pencil drawings that he had shown me after our live Called By Love intensive on the symbols of Revelation had been transformed into an exquisite oil painting, large and in glorious color. I felt the Awe of these symbols of mystery, found in Revelation 4:6-8, coming alive on the canvas.
“I am so thrilled to see your Gift of Genius in this”, I immediately responded. “You could even write a blog post for www.CalledByLoveInstitute.com with how it happened and use the picture with it.”
His knowing was pure and simple. “You can do whatever you like with the picture, I don’t think I could write a blog. My mind doesn’t really think that way. When I hear things I see pictures, not stories. Part of the reason I don’t attend some things that require writing and or journaling. My journals are full of drawing, inventions and ideas. Anyway, back to the picture, it is yours to do whatever you wish with it.”
I LOVE how it works! All we need to do is be ‘in the Stillness’ and the Whispers will come…in our own Unique Self ways. It comes differently for each of us. All of the ways are Right Ways, yearning for us to recognize them!
It comes, for me, in so many different ways. Symbols are a really important way, including numbers, colors, story-like parables, dreams and visions. Sometimes they ‘show up’ in the manifest world first, as if they have come to guide me, if I recognize them. Other times, they come in more ethereal unworldly ways. They are often fleeting and if I don’t record them somehow, they will be gone.
These revelations can come in moments I plan; yet it is often the unplanned that is clearly most compelling and significant. Such was the moment that happened with my artist friend. Ric and his beloved wife, Lisa, have many Gifts of Genius. They have been the technical genius behind the development of our new website.
And yet this moment, in this intensive on Revelation with its mysterious numbers and symbols, had brought forth something that neither Ric nor I could have planned. This is how it happens…Gifts of Genius revealing themselves as Surprise, if we are willing to see them, act, do our part, and bring them into manifestation.
I’m fascinated with the numbers 7 and 12, found over and over in Revelation. Charles Fillmore, the Co-founder of Unity, taught that the number 7 is the ‘number of completion’ on the human plane. The number 12 represents completion on the Spiritual plane. The intensive had lots of examples of 7’s and 12’s with symbols.
The book of Revelation, this book of Sacred Mystery that dances with colors and strange characters and symbols, is sometimes frightening for some, sometimes glorious. The four characters that Ric painted are found in somewhat different form in the book of Ezekiel in the vision of the heavenly chariot. It’s also found in Jewish rabbinical merkabah “chariot” literature. This is the strangeness… There is also the ‘strangeness’ of the “eyes all over, front and back” that suggests an unusual and all-knowing Awareness.
Interestingly, I’m also feeling a vague remembering of this image of thousands of eyes, as if ‘eyes’ are all over our Being, in some ancient Eastern poetry or scripture. These moments of ‘remembering’ just come sometimes, as if connecting past, present and future as One.
At various times, I’ve studied what scholars and teachers have said about it. It is clear, however, that this has not been the way that my Unique Self seems to choose to open into Its Mystery. This kind of study takes me into the ‘left brain’ and it scrambles in the rational mind. The Revelation that comes alive, for me, always seems to come through my ‘right brain’, filled with color, creativity and Knowing that comes from Beyond the rational mind. Maybe Ric and I are more alike than he realizes…
It will come, for me, profoundly in the Synergy of the experience of “When two or more are gathered…” in a Field of Opening to Revelation. Words simply come ‘to be scribed’ and shared, if we are willing, revealing different pieces of vaster expression. Ric’s willingness to share happened more privately, after the intensive completed, while others were preparing to leave… We feel our own hesitancies.
I’m remembering now the documentary film ‘Into Great Silence’. It came to American theaters in 2007. German filmmaker Philip Gröning actually wrote to the Carthusian order of Monks for permission to make a documentary about them in 1984. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years later, they were ready.
My response to ‘Into Great Silence’, when I saw it shortly after it opened, was simply Awe. There were not a lot of people in the theater and yet the space was full with the Great Silence. I’ve never forgotten it, even when the movie seemed to disappear.
The soundtrack for the movie has now been released in its entirety. It is a collection of chants, readings, prayers, and sounds of silence recorded by Philip Gröning during his six-month stay at the monastery. He says, “This ‘Office of the Night’ appeared to me to be the core of the Monks life and spirituality, the heartbeat of the Order for more than 1,000 years. I wanted to share my experience with an audience.”
I told Ric it could really be deep, and also fun, if he would like to work with me on the four symbols from Revelations, the characters in his painting. We could do it like dreamwork… He was interested, said he’d like to do that. We’ll see if it happens. These kinds of things are not to be pushed.
PRACTICE: BRINGING YOUR LIFE INTO THE CURRICULUM
Have you ever had ‘responses’ to Revelations???
Do you have ‘hidden talents’, what I call Gifts of Genius which come from imprints of the soul, that you don’t really talk about or let people see?
Are there hidden yearnings that you may not quite understand?
Have you ever been told by some authority figure, like a parent or a teacher, that this was not something that you could ever make money with, not a way to ‘support’ yourself?
Has this ‘attraction’ or yearning continued to be there…anyway?
How are you able to hear or experience the Impulses, the Whispers of your soul?
What practices have you explored, seriously or casually?
How have symbols been a part of your life? Do you have Sacred Symbols?
Do certain numbers or colors hold profound and significant meaning for you, attracting you in ways that guide you in bringing things into manifestation?
Has your relationship with these ethereal mysteries changed in the different stages of your life?
What is your ‘natural way’ to record what comes? Choose something that compels you and draw, paint, write, scribe or bring it into the manifest in your Unique Self way… Are you willing to share it? Or, will it remain in the Great Silence?
Have you ever pondered these things in your heart? Are you ready???
