The title Another Light arose in me in 2018 before I even started painting. I was participating in a Transformational Leadership Program at the Rockwood Institute in California. One of the prompts was to create a mission statement. It could be a project, a set of values, my work, or something else. The prompt also included picking a mantra for ourselves to keep us focused on our mission.

Prior to this leadership program, I had started a daily meditation practice while recovering from surgery. It was then that I started sensing a voice from within telling me to start painting again (something I hadn’t done for twenty years). So I used these internal directives to write my mission and the aspirations of this project.

When we finished writing our individual statements, we were invited to stand in front of the group and share what we came up with so our peers could help hold us accountable to seeing our work through. We had five minutes to present.

I presented last. And I was the only person who created a mission statement that wasn’t about the organization they worked for. Mine was about me—a mission statement that brought together my creativity, purpose, and Spirit. In those five minutes, I felt like I was being channeled, just like in meditation. Something else was moving me. My words came from some deeper place.

I removed a picture from the wall and hung it on an easel and sat down in front of it. The picture was facing the participants, and I was facing the picture, my back to the participants. I looked deeply at the picture for a few seconds and then turned around to the group and spoke.

“I remember when I was little, looking at pictures of people and wondering what they were thinking. Later as an art student, I fell in love with paintings, especially portraits. If they could talk, what might they say? What were they feeling? What have they been through? What is their relationship to the painter? How would they feel knowing that I was looking at their portrait now? Whenever I’m in front of a painting, there is something spiritual that happens. The longer I stand in front of it, the deeper the energy mixes with mine and it feels like a kind of conversation. There is something very alive going on that I can’t explain, but I feel it and it makes me feel good… whole… connected.”

I continued with such clarity.

“My mission is to create paintings of people. People I know, and people I don’t know yet. Big, beautiful paintings. Colorful paintings. The most beautiful paintings that I can paint. To honor them. I’ll paint them all in different lights (outdoor light, indoor light, summer light, etc.). But the paintings won’t just be about this type of light. I’ll invite the people in the paintings to speak. To share their own stories. Stories that convey another kind of light… an invisible light… a light that is inside each of us and connects us. A light that lights our way even in the darkest of times.”

I concluded with the mantra I created for myself so that I would always remember that inner light. Not only for this project, but for each person I meet. And for myself.

“Shine, baby, shine!”

Today, seven years later, this project is happening now, here, with you. It has twelve paintings of people (including myself) and I found ways for each of us to tell our own story, literally using the words of each person in the painting. But I could never have imagined how much life would spring from this Spirit journey. So much transformation and transcendence. So much that is hard to put into words. Perhaps the simplest and most profound way to say it is, this project has been an act of love in every aspect of its creation. I hope it blesses each of the people involved, and you as you experience each painting, each voice, each story. I know it has blessed me.

Additional notes about the use of the term, “Another Light”

As I continue to deepen my own study of the Dharma and mysticism, I’ve come across various other names and descriptions for the term “Another Light,” many of which have to do with death and rebirth and can be very frightening for a modern Western mind. But I actually find it comforting and hopeful that something magical can happen (is happening) even in the darkest of times.

Here are just a few examples.

• The Black Sun is a term used for this energy. It’s a symbolic representation of primal, hidden, or unconscious aspect of the divine, often associated with the concept of dissolution, darkness before dawn, and the potential for transformation with the self.

• The image of the halo, illuminated manuscripts, or miracles where some form of extraordinary light is present as a sign of transcendence that is part of many religious stories and mystical traditions.

• The image of waiting in a dark room long enough until the eyes adjust. This waiting for something else to occur is a common theme in discovering inner abilities and/or sense that we may not have known we had, or have ever used before.

• Bioluminescent organisms that live at the bottom of the ocean and create their own light through a chemical process, lighting even the darkest place on earth.

• Microscopic insects and animals, insects, protists, algae, bacteria, and fungi that are alive and at work in the earth even when the surface of the earth is dormant or fallow.

• The Trickster figure from mythology that jumps sides to rebalance order, tearing systems down in order to transition to new ways of being. While this isn’t specifically about light, it represents a hidden force that is at work to help transform the order or cause a jump-shift to new ways of being that weren’t even imaginable before.

• The writings and poems of the Irish poet David Whyte attempt to describe these invisible forces at work.

• Quotes like this one from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. —
“Only when it gets really dark can we see the stars.”