If I were an artist, here’s what I’d paint today

Just finished meditating, and manifested an inspiration for my next painting. Which won’t happen, so I’ll limit myself to 1000 words. Which is what one picture is worth. Except, of course, really bad pictures. I prefer to manifest with words, I suppose.

The Helix Nebula, 700 light years away, is located in the constellation Aquarius. Sometimes called “The Eye of God,” the nebula was discovered by Karl Ludwig Harding, probably before 1824. Harding looked into the abyss, and found the abyss looking back at him. Breathtaking?

So I’m free-floating along and see in the far distance ahead of me the eye of God. It’s slowly drifting closer, and the oblique thought wheedles in that I may be moving, it may be moving, or both, and that thought coexists with the comfort of knowing that meditation allows for random popups in a whack-a-mole mind such as mine—just let them in and move on, the teachers say; only disciplined masters like Donald Trump can truly empty their minds. Simultaneously and even more obliquely, I realize that there are at least three layers of me involved in the current exercise—one watching the approaching eye of God, one musing on our relative speed and location in space, and one considering instructions regarding the process of meditation. Four if you count the me that realizes the other three layers.

But that’s neither here nor there nor there nor there. As the eye approaches, I note that it, itself, is a painting on a sort of banner. Like the thin plastic banners proclaiming “Happy Birthday!” or “Welcome Home!” or “Bernie or Bust!” The eye of God, slowly drifting toward my face, until it’s squarely in my face, then wrapping around my head. Like a plastic bag on a windy day in a Walmart parking lot. Whap.

I worry only momentarily (a fifth level? the fourth level redirected?) that I cannot breathe, then realize I’m in space, where nobody can hear you scream. So I conclude the meditation. A little short of my ten-minute target—a common problem for those with spiritual ADD.

It’s possible this is more an animation than a painting. The painting would be simply of a guy in space with a plastic banner wrapped around his head, which fails to tell the whole, dramatic story. In the end, I float off with the major lesson: If the eye of God threatens to asphyxiate you, you ought to think about taking some sort of immediate action.

Only 420 words? Would you believe almost half a painting?