June 22, 2015 -
I have said that since I was hit by lightning, that I see in gray colors now in my mind.  Shades of gray.  Having gotten to the point of being a colorist just before getting hit by lightning, this has been difficult.  I have been drawing in graphite and in few colors because now, color actually hurts.

I have also realized something else.  After the lightning strike, there have been a couple of times when it appeared as if I had had a stroke.  The first time, about a year after the lightning, left me not being able to speak or form words in my mind.  It was as if my brain had simply stopped working.  I remember walking around the house, trying to say a word, trying to think.  I made it to the neighbor's house and she brought me to the hospital.  Before I was able to do that though, the only word I could get out was "cat".  My cat had passed away before this, and it was actually the first time in 33 years that I was without a pet.  But I said "cat". Meaning, that I came out with a word that had absolutely nothing to do with my situation at that moment.  "Did you have a stroke?" I ask myself, "cat" is the answer.

One of my videos listed on YouTube is about an abstract bead tapestry and working against your own thinking to keep your mind open to color and shapes.  I think that when I got hit by lightning, my perception of color went away to some extent, my language has completely changed (becoming simpler and non-expressive), and yet I am constantly aware of the vast time and thoughts that are part of our collective existence.  By that I mean everything.  I hear differently now, in all ways, and although psychic for most of my life, I am now, in it.  Not just a psychic, because I'm not psychic like I used to be, but I am in it, all the thoughts, all the colors, all of it.  I have been working on pieces called "Through The Tunnel" that describe my ten minutes of near-death experience.  And I am finding that my tunnel doesn't seem to have closed after the lightning event.  This can be overwhelming, but not really, because it's a true state of where I am.  Do I "see" the other side?  I'm not sure.  I do know I hear it all the time.

I drew an ACEO of Saint Michael in gray.  I believe I "see" and "hear" color in gray now.  There is a gray world out there, a brownish world of thoughts, and a black world.  Someone might call them dimensions, or they might be aspects of thinking or perception.  For me, they are separate from each other now.  I used to dream in color.  Now, not only do I not dream during sleep, I don't seem to reach REM sleep at all,  You could almost say I live in a walking, awake dream.

My latest "problem" has been deciding whether to draw my Saint Michael ACEOs in colors such as red, blue, etc., or gray.  I have seen him in gray.  I have seen him in gray.  The Saint Michael.  Because I have a degree in horticulture, and was a botanical illustrator for so long, I have recently been buying plants again, to draw, trying to get back to a "normal" of the past.  I seem to have stored some words or vocabulary in my ACEOS of Saint Michael- my own language maybe, as I sat and stippled his image for hours.  So, drawing ACEOs of him is next to breathing, and may be where my thinking will always be.  That takes care of a subject - and a language - and I am not sure yet why the question of color is still bothering me.  I always tried to work "from life", and as I said, I have seen him in gray.  If I draw his image as an ACEO in color, am I contributing to his existence at all? Adding color to his life or time? or taking away from it?

Being of a very knowledgeable religious background does not mean I believe everything I am told by a church.  I do believe the Bible is true, and Saint Michael is mentioned at least four times in the Old Testament, so yes I believe in Saint Michael.  If my mind is creating a "safe" image and color range because I got hit by lightning, I'm not sure I (it) would have chosen Saint Michael.  He spends his life battling the worst of the worst, and although I also believe he protects us, on some level we have to acknowledge the horror he sees in order to acknowledge him.

So, here I am.  Surrounded by new plants, green and yellow inks, all ready to draw geraniums and sinningias, orchids and trees.  Transcribing the gray colors I see into other colors. In an open tunnel of a near-death existence. Seeing, not only faces of other souls, but Saint Michael, walking in gray.  Did I mention that at least three times I have both purchased and then thrown away Saint Michael items?  Some that were expensive- his mountain as a statue, an Italian statue of him, books of Mont Saint Michel, medals, etc.  I keep trying to stick him back into a small part of my thinking, and the more I do it, over a month or two, there he is again, walking in gray.  And if my language is also tied up into the ACEO image I designed, well, how exactly am I supposed to get away from him?

Gray, as I see him, or in color, as others see him?