Electric Carnival

Electric Carnival’s fruition came after my first Reiki experience. Almost immediately I felt an electrifying energy, as I visualized flashing, sometimes radiating, colors around my chakra points. The sensations of synapses firing internally, like a pinball bouncing all around at a Carnival, made my senses overstimulated. Electric Carnival initially had a bright rainbow as the focus, quite literally representing the chakra color order. However, as I engaged with the brush and paint on paper, my mind kept going back to my experience on the table in the Reiki Studio. As I reflected, I realized that my chakra’s were not activating individually, but blurring into each other. The memories of the flashing colors during my session are reflected in the variation of color opacity and translucency throughout Electric Carnival. The thick, bold lines have returned, likely from a need to revisit underlying traumatic issues. This time, I embrace those dark lines instead of feeling ashamed. Natalie Merchant’s lyrics filled my studio during my painting, and I leave this note with her evocative line from Tigerlily’s Carnival , “hypnotized, mesmerized by what my eyes have found,” as I set the intention to explore healing myself using my internal energy field.