One Friday evening, I came home after a 5:30 yoga class and hurriedly set up my canvas and rolled out my painting supplies on the balcony. The fleeting sunlight illuminated for15 minutes before darkness descended and the mosquitoes feasted on me.
For this composition, a black hole loomed ominously in the upper left hand corner. I blended black paint with crimson for a fresh bruised-looking event horizon that lightened as it extended to the edges, meeting with the firmament of grayish blue. Mixing black with medium blue, I thinned out the pulpy blueberry result before adding it to the canvas with bold strokes. Before cleaning up, I smeared the remainder of black paint from my palette in a swirling motion on the canvas where the black hole resided.
The next morning, I dutifully set up on the balcony to paint, tilted the music stand, which doubled as my easel, and chills jolted through me. The Eye of God peeked through the black hole. Had I been a far more religious person, I would have fallen to my knees and wept at the miracle I’d literally co-created.
A few moments later, my educated rational mind took over. After all, this is the way that religious fanaticism begins. I chastised myself for reading too much into what may not even look like an eye to other people.
To test my hypothesis, I zoomed into that part of the canvas, took a picture and texted the shot to several people, asking them what they thought the image inside the black spot looked like. The two most popular answers were an eye and a vagina.
Now I was intrigued. Where I’d seen the Eye of God through a black hole, others had seen a vagina. The two had to be connected. One evoked deep contemplation of its existence, mysterious workings and power. And then there was God. Yet for me, both were undeniable, powerful and the source of new beginnings. My sense of humor would love a religious order dedicated to the pleasing of the vagina to bring one closer to God, but at the same time, women don’t fare too well as prostitutes for God. No matter what we say about the power and beauty of the vagina, very few would accept the enlightenment since the Madonna-whore brand has been promoted for centuries.
So how did I, an amateur painter with the subtlety of a scream, manage to paint a delicate suggestion of a peeping eye? Or even a crude suggestion of a vagina? This serendipitous act that sent my heart racing upon its discovery must be overanalyzed with all the powers that I, a Virgo raised by a Virgo, can muster.
After all, when an astrological virgin unintentionally paints a vagina that can also double as the Eye of God within a black hole, then the tricky questions of who or what created God, the universe, black holes and vaginas arise. All in creation is birthed. Is there a supernatural vagina that birthed everything? If so, what birthed that vagina? These are the questions of both a sleepy child and a rambling poet.
Which of course, I’m not going to answer.
For all the reverence that should be given to both God and vaginas, I cannot think of two more misunderstood, heavily regulated and profitable entities. Which two other things will men wage war for, die for and proudly plant a symbolic flag for conquering?
Now I wonder if their appearance in one of my paintings is a foreshadowing, a forewarning or merely a conversation piece. If one looks at the painting in regular light, one may not notice anything inside the black hole. The phenomenon itself is hidden until you’ve been told of its existence. Seek and ye shall find. In the right light, at the correct angle, you too will see a peeping eye, a vagina, a religious experience.
I don’t know about you, but I find that spooky.
