Yoga and Art (Yoku): Essence

Last night I joined the first session of Yoku (yoga and 'kunst', meaning art) of this season. I followed two workshops before the summer break (you can read about that over here and here) and the workshops made me so happy that I decided to continue them after summer.

clear water and a white canvas

When I got in I noticed that in stead of pieces of paper, canvases were laid out on the table. The real stuff! The thought crossed my mind that "now I cannot make any mistakes, my work has to be beautiful." But of course Yoku is not about that (there is no right and wrong, nor pretty and ugly) and after the yoga session that 'pressure' was completely gone.

paintbrushes

Last night's theme was Essence. Summer and summer holidays are a period of reflecting about we do and don't like in our lives, what is important and what we don't like to continue. Before we started the yoga session we closed our eyes and let the memories of our summer pass by in a little film and we gave it a word. The word didn't have to cover the whole summer experience, but it should cover the essence of what came out of that period. My word was CHANGE.

With our word in our minds we started the kundalini yoga session which was quite heavy and with lots of movements of the body. I am used to standing still in one position for quite a while, but kundalini yoga is something completely different. It stirs up the motion and energy which can be felt directly. I am not saying that one way is better than the other, I'm just saying it is different and I am happy to be able to experience both ways.

These two pictures show how I started and the almost end product. Somewhere during the talks and yoga an image came up of a field of grass with yellow flowers. I had a feeling of my bare feet walking through the grass and that is what I desired to put on the canvas. Does that come across to you, can you sense that barefoot-on-grass feeling in my painting? Can you smell the grass?

my finished painting

Above is how my painting looked like at the end of the session. I noticed that the flow of the yoga lasts for a certain amount of time and this time I ran out of 'gas' when we had to lay down our brushes. Perfect timing.

The photo above is taken from my spot and seeing my neighbor's work. Below are some pictures of my fellow participants. What strikes me again is that all our paintings are so different from one another, we all are unique in that sense.

a fellow participant at work

fellow participant showing her work

painting and palette

After painting we were asked to finish two sentences: "I wish... " and " I am going to do that by....". Well, I wish a lot of creativity in my life. And I am going to do that by following workshops like Yoku and Miksang contemplative photography. It is important to do more of what makes you happy. I have that quote on a small poster in front of my desk at home as a reminder.

paintings are left to dry

Note: darkness had already fallen in when we started painting and the light was difficult. So the colours of the paintings are not as they are in real life.