Avtaran

Avtaran
अवतरण
20" x 20" 
 
Acrylic & Gold Leaf on Canvas 
(completed on September 11, 2020)
 
 
Avtaran is descending, incarnating, materializing.

We have been working on a chakra meditation series in yoga, and this piece sits firmly in the vishuddha and ajna chakra, thus the turquoise and indigo.

The vishushuddha chakra, the throat chakra, literally means vish (poison) shuddha( pure).  The name stems from an ancient legend about Shiva swallowing poison and storing it in his throat.  It is the original of one of Shiva’s names, neelkantha, the blue-throated one.
 
 
Meditating on the gateway of the throat, our words, our communication, I began to think of negative self -talk.  The words we affirm to ourselves, the poison we let in. 
 
I began to think about the vishuddha, the idea of purifying the words we say to ourselves, the act of infusing them with the indigo of intuition, of belief, of self-love.


The green in the piece is the opening of the anahita, the heart chakra.  It stresses the necessity of keeping our hearts open, allowing us to show compassion for ourselves and others, perhaps the only way to tap into our collective intuition.
 
This piece is a journey towards compassion, the aspiration to incarnate love, light, and wisdom.