A painter’s easel stands before me as I rest quietly in a dream-like state of sleep

Prompted to express my spiritual self with color and brush strokes of my choice

How shall I depict a lifetime of influences and that which churns inside of me?

I glance at the color palette and a clutch of brushes to begin painting the canvas

The undergird of my parents produces colors boldly linear like a house foundation

A “rock” of youthful experience to start life’s journey of spiritual self-realization

Brush strokes of myriad colors and character sweep upward from this early base

I am now my own person in transformation, God guiding me as I seek the divine

A paint-plop of colors, barely brushed out, show my early concrete-literal days

Later, fine-feathered brush strokes abstractly denote the metaphorically figurative

I paint, off in the distance, an indistinct robed figure, portraying the life of Jesus

Filled with God’s presence on Earth to bring created humans to divine awareness

The formative portrait seems to speak to me, calling me to be all that I can be

To live life fully, to love others lovingly, God helping me as my life moves on

I awaken as the dream is fading, the paint still wet, my portrait not yet completed

My wakeful life journey also not finished, paths of further spirit-growth awaiting