The Blackberry Knight
Acrylic painting on paper.
Dimensions : 50x65cm
This written description is dividing the painting in six squares to describe the artist's feelings about them. It should be read in that order :
A sea of stone, a calm blue home. The first upper left corner of the painting represents how I perceive civilization.
Being Briton-French, the Crosses, Hermines and Fleur de Lys are keys to express where I grew up and where I live. But it's not only a geographical hint to understand where the body lives, it's also about where the mind acquired its ideas, ideals and words to articulate the world around it.
This realm of ideas is depicted in the sky, as immaterial structures of thoughts growing from the civilization itself for it is a product of the mind of the people living there, in harmony with the tree's branches, in harmony with nature itself.
In the second lower left corner :
The fluffy and innocent sheep finds a path leading to the forest and away from his home, away from his comfort. There he will find the necessity to grow out of his soft woolly shell and into something more suited for adventure.
The little squire carries a shield with him representing the wisdom of his culture protecting him from some of the unknown. The lessons of the past, integrated by the civilization where he comes from and passed down from generations to the little knight to be, are the bulwark that culture can be when properly articulated.
The golden trail leads to a treasure and if the adventurous being is brave enough, he will be met by wealth.
In the third, lower middle section :
The Knight is wearing a full suit of armor just like his ancestors did. Amongst the deep roots of the forest, he shines his own human roots through his armor as a symbol of where he comes from.
Fully aware of how terrible he can be, having properly integrated his potential for destruction, he is projecting his own shadow into the obscurity of the forest as something to be respected and contended with.
The self-awareness of the Knight manifest itself into the sword as his fighting spirit, but also into the flowers for it is really when you are in tune with of how much of a monster you can be that you also become aware of the necessity of being a gentleman with good manners, politeness and a felt respect for others manifested in a soft beautiful flowery touch.
In the fourth lower right corner :
Anyone who has experienced a challengingly strong Mushroom trip has had intimations of a hellish time. This is what I tried to picture in paint as the thorny brambles, it's a symbol of how you can get lost in suffering, feeling trapped on all sides by more of it and not knowing how to escape it.
Carl Jung once wrote : “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”
I can only try to explain what this means to me by saying that the Mushroom trip's way of showing you the absolute preciousness of life is by throwing the self deep down into how terrible it feels to be alive.
The Buddhist's first truth is “Life is Suffering” and there is no argument I can have against it whatsoever when experiencing a hero dose of these sacred Fungi. But it's not a call to defeat and misery, it's a rallying cry to find meaning into everything that I do, to overcome what is holding me back and thrive towards what I can envision as the highest possible good, to aim towards paradise.
In this journey I have found love and meaning beyond my wildest dreams and I am so incredibly grateful for these sacred medicines.
In the fifth upper right corner :
In ancient times, humans used to refer to Psilocybin Mushrooms as the sons of thunder. Out of nowhere (the spores being hard to see in those days) these fruits of the forest would grow in less than a day after a rainy thunderstorm.
When consuming these Fungi properly, one would feel the thunder beating in his heart, raining fire upon one's weaknesses and consuming the mindless deadwood to leave more room for the new and reborn self.
Tapped into the raw essence of the divine experience, the roots of the modern religions may all have in common this single experience of spiritual death and rebirth.
In the sixth upper middle section :
The tree as a pillar of the forest and the Hero having gathered up his treasure, returning triumphantly towards his home to share the wealth of knowledge with his community.
The hero gained legs depicted by the fabulous horsey, meaning he increased his fluency and potency. He is no longer shackled to an approach step by step in the thorns, he rides and flies through the forest, his eyes shining bright from insight.
His sword is still vibrating from the previous experience where he communed as nature (trip), in nature (the forest), with nature personified into a all-in-one being(the tree).