Avoidance and Pain
“Sometimes our garbage makes the best fertilizer.”
I just want to express from the get go that this has been one of the most difficult paintings for me to bring into manifestation. I started off this journey with hopeful optimism which soon turned into pain, anguish and avoidance. I literally avoided my painting for weeks before returning to finish it.
I even manifested back pain (like there was something I needed to ‘get off my back’) which was a real poke in the ribs to complete this.
Let’s begin…
Firstly, the emotions that I wrote down (on the side of the boxed canvas) during the painting process were as follows:
- Discord, revolt, rebel
- Suppressed emotion
- Metal, cold, steel, cutting, taking lives
- Centers around the Void
- Paternal painbody
- Lost
- Relief to be voicing/heard
- Yin & Yang balance
Our Hopes and Expectations
It began with me spray painting the black hole in the center which represented a void. Emotions getting sucked into a black hole.
Then I painted little white orbs emerging which I think was indicative that there is and always was hope and a presence that was watching over us (or perhaps it was the light in us) through the whole distortion of life, morality and ethics of the war.
The War Effect
My maternal grandfather, Roy Chegwyn
The male painbody came out big time after that and I was aware that I was entering the murky dark waters of the emotional minefield of all our soul brothers (and sisters) who were forced to go to war.
They were both involved in WW2. My maternal Grandfather was a RAF pilot and was shot and killed in German territory — he was in his early 20’s. His body was never recovered and I don’t think his wife ever recovered either. This obviously impacted my mother and her sisters greatly.
My paternal grandfather, Harry Roe
My paternal grandfather was stationed in Egypt and, thankfully, made it back home in 1945 although he never spoke of his traumas. I never got to meet him as he died before I was born.
I think a lot of men shut down and never spoke of their ordeal when they got home. Can you imagine the pain and suffering this has caused? The ripple effect is felt in Pink Floyd’s music.
Bullets with Butterfly Wings
After the void showed up in the painting, I went ballistic with silver foil. After I had finished pasting this onto the picture I picked up my red spray can and viciously started gunning the canvas with bullet holes. I felt like I was being sucked into the overwhelming emotions of limitless killings — voluntary and involuntary.
It was a very dark place.
The muddy paint (which was done using a kind of clay/sand textured acrylic) represented being in the trenches. I even stuck ‘notes’ on the painting reciting the Ho’oponopono (a Hawaiin prayer for forgiveness and an amazing releasing affirmation for letting go of the past so you can move into the present). I even spontaneously wrote out one of these notes on toilet paper.
The Ho’oponopono goes something like this:
I am sorry, please forgive me, I love you, thank you.
I stepped back from the painting and even though it wasn’t physically there, I saw a massive yin and yang sign in that void. It was energetically present. This confused me. I thought this painting was going to be about the male painbody.
It was, however, morphing into something else…
The Pinnacle Rent of the Sexes
I began to go into another state, I could feel the feminine energies coming in through me. I picked up a pink oil pastel and started smudging it over the bullet wounds and blood. It was as if I was tempering the pain. The colour pink represents passivity, calming and softening.
It then struck me.
This is not only about the male painbody but it also involves the female painbody. The war was like the symbolic peak of the separation of divine masculine and feminine.
Men come back from war shut tight as a clam and the females make them a cup of tea and offer a biscuit.
Containers and Comforters United
Masculine energy is like a container. This energy offers physical support, service, protection, strength and a ‘safe’ place. Feminine energy is that feeling of home. This energy is giving, nurturing, caring and spiritually supportive.
Can you see how this was split apart during the war?
Men came back having had their minds, limbs, spirit and morals blown apart. It was not appropriate in that time for men to show weakness or, God forbid, emotion. So they contained themselves.
“Button your lip and don’t let the shield slip. Take a fresh grip on your bullet proof mask and if they try, to break down your disguise with their questions. You can hide, hide, hide behind paranoid eyes”
~ Paranoid Eyes, Pink Floyd
Women were in complete avoidance. They probably didn’t know how to handle the enormous magnitude of the war effects and the atrocities their men had witnessed and been a part of, so they swept in under the carpet. Women became the Stepford Wives, fudging the emotions and avoiding the topic at all costs.
Neither sexes were in their integrity. They were doing a dance in the void — the ultimate tango of avoidance.
“Hey you, out there on your own sitting naked by the phone would you touch me? Hey you, with your ear against the wall waiting for someone to call out would you touch me? Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone? Open your heart, I’m coming home.”
~ Hey You!, Pink Floyd
I felt a distinct animosity for women in Pink Floyd’s music. The feelings were that of women being superficial takers, opportunists and cold fish.
In the Classroom
There was also a part at the bottom of the painting that seemed to portray the education system. How we are moulded into little nuts and bolts to keep the cogs turning.
I was even compelled at one stage to leave my studio (almost in a trance like state) and go down the staircase. I thought I was going to get some newspaper but it turned out that I was collecting a sketch I had done about 2 years ago to demonstrate Platonic Solids to a friend.
The book I had drawn it in was lying on my dining room table. I opened it straight at this picture (the book is also the kind of hardcover we used at school with the red margins and blue lines) and ripped it out, marched back upstairs and pasted it to this section of the painting.
I also noticed that I had written one of my articles at the back of this piece of paper and it had relevant wording that I also ripped out and glued to the canvas. I even automatically made a tiny paper aeroplane and stuck it to the picture.
Could this be indicative of childhood fancies — making planes at school, fantasizing about being a pilot? Then stepping out into the real world and being disillusioned by being a traumatized ‘fighter-pilot’ slipping into the void.
Then the Seeds Started to Grow
The theme of this painting is very sad indeed. The tearing apart of the sexes, the war wounds, the fudging over of emotional debris by our parents and their parents but there is a distinct message of hope.
I stood back and looked at the painting. It needed green.
I couldn’t quite think of where and what to add that was green but the Universe knew. I ended up painting vines and leaves growing up out of the chaos. A symbol of hope and growth from bad experience.
Don’t Let Your Privates Deceive You
It was like all this war, disruption and chaos was leading us to heal the rift in ourselves. As you know, we are both yin and yang, masculine and feminine — no matter what your genitals tell you.
We are coming to a point in time where we are realizing this and balancing our energies. Embracing both in order to lead lives of fulfillment and acceptance of ourselves and each other — unity consciousness.
“We would meet again, some sunny day”~ Vera, Pink Floyd
Sometimes our garbage makes the best fertilizer.
Thank you, Pink Floyd, for the opportunity to unravel this important historical and emotional piece of art.
The Can of Worms is Closed!
This painting showed me the rift in the feminine and masculine energies — the breakdown of balance between yin and yang.
Then it moved to rectify the tear by bringing back the balance of both polarities. This artwork showed me that there is hope for us, that we can mend our broken hearts and bring divine balance back into the world through love, compassion and forgiveness.
“All alone or in two’s, the ones who really love you walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand and some gathered together in bands, the bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand.“
~ The Other Side of the Wall, Pink Floyd
‘Dancing in the Void’ Rock Art Painting no. 4 (Pink Floyd)
by Cherie Roe Dirksen
30″ x 30″ x 1.5″ — Acrylic and Mixed Media on Boxed Canvas
You can recap on ALL the articles in the Rock Art Series here:
Other articles you may find interesting:
Cherie Roe Dirksen 