#surrealart — Public Fediverse posts

"Pink Vision" di Alessandra Carloni.

Oil and oil pastel on canvas.

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Psalm 39

God breathed in.
I was born.

God breathes out.
I will die.

Thus is the scope of my life.

August 16, 2015

Psalm 39

God breathed in.
I was born.

God breathes out.
I will die.

Thus is the scope of my life.

August 16, 2015

Psalm 39

God breathed in.
I was born.

God breathes out.
I will die.

Thus is the scope of my life.

August 16, 2015

Psalm 39

God breathed in.
I was born.

God breathes out.
I will die.

Thus is the scope of my life.

August 16, 2015

The Places in My Dreams

The world within, the world of my dreams, is similar to the one I walk through every day. But it is different.

The streets bend strangely. The rooms open where they should not. The people and places are often indifferent to me, and sometimes, they are even antagonistic.

They are not merely people and places. They are representations of emotions I have not yet worked through from the previous day. Sixteen waking hours are not enough to fully grasp all that I have experienced, endured, feared, desired, regretted, or misunderstood.

And so, in the night, these things come alive.

They take on faces. They become houses, roads, crowds, locked doors, ruined landscapes, familiar rooms made unfamiliar. They guide me through the shadow lands—not always kindly, but truthfully. They show me what I could not see while awake.

My dreams are not escapes from the day.

They are the day returning in another form, asking to be understood.

Some nights I find myself back in places I have never been, and yet they feel older than memory. A school that was never my school. A church with hallways that keep multiplying. A childhood home rearranged by grief. A city I know by instinct, though no map has ever held it.

In these places, I am often trying to get somewhere.

I am late. I am lost. I am looking for someone. I am trying to explain myself to people who will not listen. I am searching for a room, a door, a vehicle, a path, a way home. Sometimes I am carrying something fragile. Sometimes I have forgotten what I was supposed to carry. Sometimes I am responsible for a task I do not understand, surrounded by people who seem to know the rules but refuse to tell me.

This is the cruelty of the dream world: everyone else seems initiated.

They move through the strange landscape as if it is ordinary. They know which hallway leads out, which road is safe, which bus to board, which door not to open. I am the stranger in a world that somehow belongs to me. I am the dreamer, and yet I am not in control.

Perhaps this is why the places feel antagonistic. They do not hate me. They are simply unwilling to flatter me. They will not pretend I am finished with what I have not faced. They will not comfort me with easy explanations. They turn my emotions into architecture and ask me to walk through them.

Fear becomes a narrow bridge.

Regret becomes a house with too many locked rooms.

Anger becomes a storm on the edge of town.

Shame becomes a crowd that sees me before I am ready to be seen.

Grief becomes a road that always returns to the same place.

And longing—longing becomes a light in a window I can never quite reach.

I wake from these dreams with the feeling that I have traveled farther than my body could have gone. I have crossed cities, fields, stairways, basements, sanctuaries, ruins, and train stations. I have spoken with the dead and avoided the living. I have been judged by strangers and ignored by friends. I have wandered through the unfinished weather of my own soul.

Then morning comes, and the ordinary world returns.

The walls are where I left them. The floor is solid. The dog needs to go out. The coffee waits. The phone glows with its small demands. The day begins again, pretending to be separate from the night.

But I know better.

The dream has left its residue. A feeling follows me, sometimes faint, sometimes heavy. A hallway from the dream lingers inside the hallway of the house. A face from the night appears behind the face of someone I know. A mood clings to the morning like fog.

The shadow lands do not vanish when I wake.

They retreat.

They wait beneath the visible world, beneath errands and conversations, beneath sermons and chores, beneath the version of myself that knows how to answer when someone asks, “How are you?”

I say, “I’m fine.”

But somewhere beneath that answer, an entire city is still burning, or flooding, or rebuilding itself in the dark.

The Shapeshifter

“Let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No,’ no.” — Matthew 5:37

Last night, before sleep, I found myself thinking about the way I change.

Not always dramatically. Not always visibly. Sometimes it is a small shift in tone, a slight adjustment in posture, a revised sentence, a softened opinion, a joke added too quickly, a silence held too long. Sometimes I do not even know I have shifted until later, when I feel the ache of it.

I have called this being sensitive. I have called it empathy. And I think that is partly true.

There is a gift in being able to read a room. There is a gift in noticing the tremor beneath someone’s words, the disappointment beneath their politeness, the anger beneath their quietness, the plea beneath their criticism. Some people move through the world loudly, unaware of what their presence does to others. I do not usually have that problem. I notice. I absorb. I adjust.

This can be love.

It can be pastoral. It can be merciful. It can be wise. It can help me avoid needless harm. It can help me make room for others. It can help me speak peace into places where bluntness would only bruise.

But there is another side.

Sometimes I do not simply respond to what someone has actually said. I respond to what I believe they might be saying. I answer the accusation I imagine beneath their question. I apologize for the disappointment I think I see in their eyes. I defend myself against a criticism that has not yet fully arrived. I revise myself before I have even been asked to explain myself.

And then I disappear a little.

The shapeshifter survives, but the true self waits somewhere behind the curtain.

This is where the gift becomes a burden. Empathy becomes prediction. Sensitivity becomes self-protection. Peacekeeping becomes evasion. Instead of staying present, I become fluid. Instead of saying, “What did you mean?” I silently assume. Instead of saying, “That hurt,” I swallow it. Instead of responding honestly in the moment, I retreat, rehearse, reinterpret, and let the thing fester.

Then anger comes later.

Not always because the other person was cruel. Sometimes because I abandoned myself too quickly. Sometimes because I changed shape before I knew whether change was required. Sometimes because I mistook someone else’s reaction for a commandment.

There is a difference between being responsive and being ruled.

There is a difference between empathy and erasure.

There is a difference between humility and hiding.

Maybe the work is not to stop being sensitive. I do not want to become hard, oblivious, or careless. I do not want to lose the part of me that can feel the emotional weather in a room. That part of me has helped me pastor, create, love, listen, and make peace.

But perhaps I need to learn a slower form of shapeshifting.

A sacred pause.

Before I adapt, I can ask:

What did they actually say?
What am I imagining they meant?
What am I feeling in my body?
Am I trying to love them, or am I trying to escape discomfort?
Is this a moment for flexibility, or a moment for truthful rootedness?

The goal is not rigidity. Trees bend in the wind, but they do not become wind. Rivers change course, but they still remain water. Christ was deeply responsive to people, but he was not controlled by every expectation placed upon him. He listened, but he also withdrew. He answered, but he also stayed silent. He served, but he did not surrender his center.

Perhaps that is the invitation: not to stop changing, but to stop vanishing.

To remain kind without becoming formless.

To remain open without becoming absorbent of every accusation.

To remain peaceful without pretending I am not hurt.

A Possible Action Response

When I feel myself shifting too quickly, I will try to pause before I change shape. I will breathe, feel my feet, and ask myself: What was actually said? What am I adding? What do I need to ask before I assume?

Then, when possible, I can say:

“I may be reacting to what I think you mean, not what you actually said. Can you help me understand?”

Or:

“I want to respond honestly, but I need a moment so I don’t answer from fear or defensiveness.”

Or:

“That feels like criticism to me, and I want to stay open, but I also want to be clear about what you mean.”

These are not perfect words. They are practice words. They are small anchors. They help me stay present without hiding, defending, exploding, or disappearing.

I do not have to become whatever this moment seems to demand.

I can be loving and still be myself.
I can be sensitive and still be solid.
I can be peaceable without disappearing.

The shapeshifter does not need to be banished. He may have saved me many times. But maybe he does not need to run the whole house anymore.

Maybe he can become a servant of love rather than a servant of fear.

Maybe he can learn to change shape slowly, honestly, prayerfully.

Maybe he can finally rest.

Prayer

God of truth and tenderness,

Help me honor the gift of sensitivity without becoming captive to it.

Teach me to listen deeply without imagining more than has been spoken. Teach me to care for others without abandoning myself. Teach me to receive correction without collapsing, and to feel hurt without hiding it until it turns into anger.

Give me the grace of the sacred pause.

When I feel myself shifting too quickly, help me breathe. Help me return to my body, my heart, my center, and to you. Let my yes be yes. Let my no be no. Let my silence be honest, not evasive. Let my words be gentle, but true.

May the shapeshifter in me become healed and holy. May he no longer serve fear, shame, or resentment. May he become a servant of wisdom, compassion, and peace.

Keep me open.

Keep me rooted.

Keep me from disappearing.

Amen.

"The Star Jar"
Small-format watercolor surreal illustration with an anime-inspired aesthetic

#watercolor #artwork #animeinspired #surrealillustration #surrealism #surrealart #popsurrealism #mangaart #mangaaesthtic #animeinspired #illustration #animeillustration #painting #watercolrilllustration #Londonillustrator #illustratorforhire #editorialillustration #coverillustration #artprint #wallart #animeprint #animewallart #animesticker

Roadside Attraction

#Photography #ElliotLake
#Colour #Art #DigitalArt #ColourPhotography
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