Tengoku (Heaven) Japanese Painting
Buy the Tengoku (Heaven) Print
I was watching a webcast video on Oprah.com called Finding your spiritual path. Elizabeth Lesser, author of The Seeker’s Guide and Broken Open, said something early on in the webcast that really caught my attention.
Elizabeth says that our soul is something that we come into life with and that it’s always with us. She adds, “[our soul is] shining in our hearts”.
She uses the metaphor of a lantern to represent our psyche and our body, and the light within the lantern to symbolize our soul. Elizabeth explains that our lantern can get covered by soot (layers of conditioning). Negative emotions, such as fear, mistrust and anger, put soot on our lantern. As a result, the light of our soul becomes dull.
Elizabeth says that being on a spiritual path is finding a way to clean the soot off our lanterns so that our soul can shine bright again.
Through this metaphor, a painting was born.
The Art
I began painting a crisp, blue sky and cherry blossom tree branches in full bloom. In my mind, this image reflects the beauty and the light in our soul. I painted two butterflies, one covered in soot and one completely clear of it. The butterfly in the middle of the painting has gone through a transformation and is fluttering free from the soot. It’s in paradise. The light is not dull anymore; its soul is shinning.
If you start to clean away the soot from your life, little by little, your soul will shine bright again. You can then begin to experience heaven on earth. For that reason, I named this painting Tengoku – the Japanese name for Heaven.
Here’s a video of me, Soniei, trying to explain the evolution of my art and the inspiration behind my contemporary paintings.
This video includes a brief explanation of how I left the 9-5 work world to live my dream as a full-time artist.
I also share a few pictures of my original paintings, including my Japanese calligraphy art and other Zen inspired paintings.
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