The Awakening
This painting’s theme is ‘mind, body and soul’ and the cycle of life and death. This is meant to symbolize the cycle that a star goes through when it dies and becomes a nebula, where new star systems are born. As we are living things, I believe we are connected the Source or Divine through our mind, body and soul connection. Our mind and body are physical, as we can think if we don’t have a brain or aren’t living, and our soul is metaphysical as we don’t know what happens to it after we die and can even question whether we as humans have souls or even other living things.
The Awakening, Jackie Robinson, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 24”, 2020
The mind is represented by the ego, the person we know ourselves to be. The mind is our thoughts and consciousness, the reason we are sentient and emotional. The mind is attached to the body, since with our physical senses, we can confirm we exist and so does the reality around us.
The body is represented by the skeleton, our physical self. When we die, our body does not transcend death, as it is physical. However, it can still return to the Earth, and follow the cycle of life and death because we are organic matter. The mind being attached to the body is where we can not confirm what happens beyond our own life after death, and thus dies in a way as well but our consciousness can’t come with the body as is not physical but mental.
The soul is represented by the third eye opening, because it is what binds our intuition and internal connection to every thing that has ever lived. A part of the Source, the Divine, the all encompassing energy that creates and destroys, all matter even the matter we don’t understand. The eye opening while the mind’s eye is closed and the body’s is absent shows that once both those are “lost”, the soul’s energy remains still present, beyond the physical senses. I find it as a symbol of internal peace and grounding, knowing that beyond my existence, my essence is a part of something so much bigger than itself. Everything is nothing in the same.
The background is meant to be from the perspective of the inside of a nebula, looking outward. To me, the nebula represents this cycle of the mind, body, and soul going through rebirth as the physical self may die. The life cycle of a nebula consists of a star imploding on itself and in the process creates new star systems and the nebula is a gaseous cloud that acts as a nursery for them. All that energy is transferred into more energy, even if the star had to “die” in the process. When we are living, we exist in this life to do something with it, not for anything but our own perception as the universe continues on whether we live or die. And when we pass it was not all for naught as our soul can move on to whatever lies ahead as the inevitable happens to us when when we do die, and become dust again.