Many times I had impulse to draw a painting at so called “energy places”. But somehow I didn’t have the courage to face the connectedness to the past, future or something specific to the place itself such locations frequently offer. That day I decided I was as ready. As we were nearby, we decided to make a little vacation to a small city in the middle of the Sakar mountain – Malko Tarnovo. We weren’t prepared, but I went to the near by city of Bourgas (actually the only one with painting supplies) and bought two canvases and decent acrylics paints, as those dry quickly.
The first day we scouted the surroundings, but it was too late, so we left the painting exercise for the next day.
It is said that the Egyptian priestess (also often refered as a goddess) Bastet was buried in this area. There is even an improvised sanctuary at the presumable location, where people leave different objects, mostly cat figures (she was said to be strongly connected to cats).
The weather was unstable with the possibility of rain any moment, so I laid the canvas directly on the grass and quickly started. Luckily I found an unused construction spatula in the car, which was about to become my primary tool.
Wow, that was amazing. I was in the connection so easily. The spatula in my hand began to lead life on its own. I felt inter-contentedness to the surroundings with all my cells.
At one moment, I thought that from the forest behind me, a dog was coming. I was so concentrated that I didn’t bother to stop drawing, but only became worried that the dog will step all over the painting, effectively ruining my work. I felt a strong presence of it. I felt its breath on my neck and its heavy breathing filled my ears.
I was just yelling “The dog, careful with the dog”. My companion, who was taking photos of me painting, exactly at that time and was staying, say 2-3 meters from me, was looking around in dismay, gazing at the nearby forest, thinking that there was some animal that was coming to visit us. What was my biggest surprise – when I stopped paining and finally looked around, I realized that there was nothing around. I called the painting “Presence”.
Then I was ready for the next painting. I was advancing, but then a noisy tourist group came and filled the entire lawn with their excitement.
I became distracted, I could not connect back to the flow, so I had to erase the beautiful eye formation on the middle of the painting and started over.
When painting outside, one must be prepared to expect unexpected surprises. Well, it was not a loss at all – the result is the “Cell’s foundations”.
But that’s not all of it. My companion swore that he was hearing a foreign song, playing around for at least five minutes. I didn’t hear it, but I was too busy to notice anything anyways.
At first he thought it was coming from a nearby village, being the daily call for prayer to Muslims (Ezan) or some speakers from Turkish side of the border. Later, when we climbed the nearby hill and checked – we were at the middle of nowhere – no village, no speakers, nothing of the sort, just endless forests on both sides of the border, Next supposition was – since there was a christian monastery nearby, we concluded that this could have been some monk using the woods to rehearse or just have fun. But then he realized the words were not even remotely connected to any known tongue, nor they had the characteristics of the typical Muslim nor christian melodies, nearest comparison being early Gregorian or similar ancient chants. Also just around that time my companion was also taking videos, so we also listened to the recordings – there was no trace of that song, but also it is possible that the camera was not on at this exact time.
After all, with or without logical explanation, it turns out that each of us got a personal present from the place today. That is what I call magical experience.
Final looks of the paintings:
