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Original painting is 30″ x 40″, acrylic on canvas.

I painted this in summer 2022 to express the intensity of what I was experiencing inwardly in the form of healing and forgiveness. And I wanted it in a movie poster style.

Forgiveness isn’t some bland, sacrificial spiritual practice that leads to pearly white gates and gospel music: it is this. It is all of the emotions and energy rushing in and turning the world into a psychedelic playground of color, love, and adventure.

There are a lot of visual layers in this painting- it’s one of those you could look at and ask “how do you even start to paint this?” Well, you just do. I sketched the woman first, using myself as a model because obviously, I couldn’t find a model of a dancing woman with 8 arms outside of Tibetan Buddhism artwork, and that particular style doesn’t appeal to me.

There are multiple different branches of spiritual imagery in this painting. There is Buddhist imagery (the dancing Dakini and skulls), Catholic imagery (a crown of thorns and a bitten apple), and psychedelic imagery (the background and color scheme, and the mushrooms). The snake is specifically Kundalini energy. “Heal or Die” is a literal interpretation of the illusion of death- die and be reborn until you are willing to heal yourself.

Disclaimer: I am neither Buddhist nor Catholic, though particular parts of each of those were playing a big role in what I was going through.

And of course, the title Whole Lotta Love is a Led Zeppelin reference. Waking up is intense, and fun. That song nails it for me.

Before I painted this, a Buddhist friend of mine suggested that I am a Dakini. I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked it up. Oh yeah, I definitely am one of those.

The text is gold acrylic paint.