The Painting

Ever since Ariel visited the archway on the road, she had become completely different, like a woman possessed by a new spirit, and Massimo was grateful for it. He had intuited how precious that space she possessed after her mother died, freeing up more of her time, energy and activities that previously went to caring for her, leaving a large part of her ready and willing for a newness, was going to be for her, him and humanity at large.

He often viewed people as arable land, giving him a whole cycle to perceive and work with, looking for the correspondences to ensure their lives would not go wasted, but produce that which could feed a great number of those in need. Like the manure rich plowed and sown fields by the cottage, upon which cows, pigs, chickens, roosters, goats lived happily together, and farmhands worked tirelessly to keep everything going and growing, Ariel was having her new growth, after discovering in the archway her tree purpose.

At the critical juncture, Massimo truly hadn’t a clue, no prophetic vision at all as if it was yet decided by the spinning sisters of the stars which way she would break, but he was ready for all outcomes because that was just the way he was. He’d accept and suffer them all and find in the pain and torment a great blessing, each new challenging moment a step leading ever higher on a spiral staircase toward his ultimate worldly form, readying him for his entrance through death’s gateway out of here. Best to go as prepared as possible, and there were only a few ways to get all prepared for it.

However, Ariel’s results ended up not testing him at all but giving him great cause to celebrate and experience joy over her archway experience. She came away from it all molded and shaped the way he thought she could be in the end, once she discarded the mundane – consequences be damned. The world didn’t care a lick about the death gateway; it chewed everyone up like a landscaper’s wood chipper fallen tree limbs after a powerful storm well before their actual death, and it only cared about the next mass to do the same to it. If the wood chipper was coming for everyone, it stood to reason best to get out of the line and go and do other stuff. And that was what Ariel did, revealing her inner angel to him in the process: resplendent iridescent wings, golden illumination hovering within the flesh, mysterious bright piercing starlight eyes, those irises that were the sea waters swishing about, full of the epic tales of whole civilizations that have risen and fallen, heroes whose fortunes were tested to the extreme, the evolution of life, the song of all times.

She cut herself off from the Moholy empire once and for all. She officially informed her brothers and sisters, her aunts and uncles that she was excising herself from the entire homebuilding company and wished to have zero to do with it from that point forward. The severe and decisive cut left her family even more annoyed with her, but they respected the move by eliminating all the benefits that came along with being a member of the empire. Ariel was having a time of it like most children who come from means do when they rebel after finding nothing meritorious in their born-into situations and try out a humbler lifestyle; it’s an odd act, generationally repetitive, but a meritorious journey that, if done right, yields great benefits. Massimo was there to support her adjustments.  During passing spells that were the past’s reprisals, like a recovering patient may have sudden flare-ups of a disease looking to somehow regain its commanding position in the host, he carefully steered her from the devastation, the uncertainty, the doubts, the lack of support, to the true support, to spiritual exercises, to the underlining principle of all shapes and forms. Ariel formally left the Moholy island home, and moved in with Massimo in his cottage, which was about a third the size with 90 percent lesser quality furnishings. He knew she’d adjust, a person was resilient and has the ability to accept the most insufferable conditions that would seem intolerable at first, the same quality that kept the species from dying out. One might even say evolving, but Massimo wasn’t so sure much progress was being made, except there may be something afoot in all of this. Look at Ariel go.

She developed a brand-new language, dripping with the archway’s golden intelligence. It was as if a dam broke inside of her, and a torrent ensued. She strove to keep pace with it, like a swimmer in a strong current maneuver to reach dry land again, when it would feel like a blessing just for existing at all. Like one possessed, the activity was born from the experience, and the experience was like a bottomless vast well, from which she drew what she could, bucket after bucket in hopes of achieving what she felt was divinely inspired to achieve, like it was her mission, dispatched from the archway itself.

Massimo knew her symptoms quite well, but how she’d deal with it was all up to Ariel, because each individual was like a fingerprint, a bundle of uniquely occurring phenomenon never to come again, which drove home the point that everybody was a beautiful, wonderful thing that ought to achieve self-fulfillment and spectacularly explode in the fireworks of their own design wowing the spectators, the ooos and ahhhs of an entranced benefited collective.

Strange occurrences began to happen in and around Ariel since she made her irrevocable decision. Massimo knew she’d be tested. It always happened that way. No matter what was ventured, if it was worth anything, the counteracting force would come to greet it at its first appearance, carrying with it a most powerful punch. That which was worth doing was worth suffering for. That which was suffered for was worth doing. Anything easily done was worthless. The glory and the beauty, the merit and the salvation came from the tough struggle, like Jacob wrestling with his angel. These were simply well-documented facts. These were the hallmarks of the creative process, the creativity that led anyone to exponentially become themselves and emerge in the pattern of their own at the peak of the summit that seemed unreachable just a short while ago, but getting there revealed higher peaks, fortunately, for it gave motivation, inspiration, enthusiasm to pursue more of existence’s potential.

What appeared to be a random encounter turned into a perfect opportunity. The operator of a three-story gallery had confronted Ariel on the town streets one sunny spring afternoon day, everything just heaven upon earth.

“Hello, I’ve seen you around. My name is Helen Greenfield. I run the gallery down by the water. What brings you to the island?”

What followed was Ariel creating a studio for herself, at Greenfield’s insistence, on the gallery’s unused third story with small windows looking out to the east, west and south, where Ariel painted for the intelligence, the activity that Massimo knew would have to come following the archway experience if she broke the way he could only hope she’d break, but there was really no telling how people would take to it. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. If it were that easy or if everybody was doing it, the world would be a dramatically different place. The visions of those utopian artists would have come to be, dystopias be damned.

With Ariel immersed in her new activity, Massimo simply continued with his lifestyle, never once thinking he was abandoning her. In fact, as they made these efforts in their own private areas, it was as if when they met they were creating something that evolved them simultaneously and developed a deeper understanding between them, mystifying them, while convincing them, furthermore, they were on the march to the sun along the golden road to the Holy One.

Fortunately, Ariel had the space upstairs that was largely unused for years. She had to fling open the windows and dust the place over the course of days before getting to the work at hand. Once she got started, she was quick to make up for the lost time of not being engaged in the one single activity that was as if the only reason she was living in the first place and the only thing that made living a thing to do, leading her to wonder in confusion how she was never doing it before the way she was now. But, as Massimo said, there were seasons for everything, and it wasn’t a mistake, so much as proper timing, like when a runner holds back, readying themselves for that burst to bring them the crown of victory.

Massimo Segantini gave her her space, letting her preserve the bounds of her magic circle up there, where not a soul but her own had entered since she moved into it, logging the long hours that must be logged by an artist to get a start at producing anything of significance, an effort that had to come from some place that provided the otherworldly energy, motivation, enthusiasm, inspiration to exert all self on the work that otherwise wouldn’t be done, the labor like that of the farmhand all dirty, sweaty in the open fields from twilight to twilight, until the moment arrived when Massimo’s presence was summoned by the magic circle itself to gaze upon the wonders she as instrument produced.

As Ariel Moholy painted her canvases, as Massimo hit the grindstone in the cottage’s writing room, a large amount of time flowed by unnoticeably, until a change in the pattern gripped them, and it was as if they both had awoken from a trance on the other side of the great effort. Massimo was well aware of the trance state, welcomed it, because it allowed him to get out of his own way and just do, hours upon hours, days upon days; the seamless well-oiled operation was a desired condition, but one that had its phases. Nothing in the world could run at a constant when it came to these precious subject matters; there were rhythms, beats, ups and downs, sideways chop, zig-zags, and the like, but the key was just to keep going at it six ways to Sunday and take what could be got even when it wasn’t for the taking.

Ariel adopted the lifestyle right quick. Massimo knew precisely why. The archway, formed by the blessed trio of scrub oaks, two on the east side, one on the west side, stirred up in the right kind of passersby a great deal of energy that if not used would destroy the host. Ariel was working feverishly in order to keep herself among the living; the same energy wasn't non-committal by any means; it wished to translate itself and use a communicative charm to make the host mission-focused.

When Massimo awoke from the trance, moved through a new airspace to another phase with a different set of parameters – just ask the moon about cycles, ancient, eternal, long-suffering, loving Moon Goddess, or endlessly spinning Mother Earth who gives so much of herself for foundation and abundance, everything moving, everything cyclical, everything on a cosmic pathway – he was prompted to walk from the cottage all the way to town, a good three miles or so.

He was primed for it because he had woken at dawn and plowed through his morning habits at record speed; the rate was never known to him beforehand, but he accepted whatever it turned out being, and what determined when he finished was the completion of each and every habit. He himself sometimes attempted to sabotage a perceived speediness as if he were testing something, but even when he did, the pace kept on, despite him, and he had to laugh at how real it all was, and how he was thick in it, up to his ears, and thank God.

The habits accomplished earlier than usual left him with the opportunity to walk to town and walking there gave him the chance to examine the great treasures of Nature, each aspect of her a gateway to the golden perception that knew, just knew. His mood was solemn, distant as all of Nature spoke to him deeply, bringing him a tranquility. When he stepped foot on the town streets, he was amazed he had logged the three miles, feeling like he had traversed them in one giant step alone. Time was a strange thing like that.

Town was always different. One of the main factors in making it different was the time of year, which created a number of people by a mathematical formula it would seem. The month of February, for example, had the least people. In May, the numbers picked up, when multiple groups of people strolled the brick sidewalks. More establishments along the main street had opened up, adding to the one or two that stayed open mostly all year round. Massimo thought the new people was a near perfect way to gauge the world’s conditions at large. But it would be a mistake to let one interaction cloud the results; it took a collection of interactions, looks, observations to obtain any proper reading.

On his town walk, he observed multiple open searching faces, as to what they were searching for, that they did not precisely know, but when they came upon it, they thought they’d know. The search was built into the very atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, cells, comprising them, imprinted with a cosmic intelligence; the more they awoke it in themselves and the more they stopped interfering with the signal flow, the more their search would occur, great holy expeditions for it, and, too, the more they’d know what it was they were looking for, and, too, the more they’d find it. So good on them, godspeed all the floating by faces of the town.

As Massimo was making his way through town, absorbing the general mood, he thought whatever he found, the best thing was to leave it better than how it was through his own acts big and small, anything he could manage, muster, find within himself to be and do, as part of the practice, as part of the spiritual exercise; as long as he could hold to the principles, live them to a T, he’d be OK, for it was all a test, all a practice, all a discipline to execute all times, under all sorts of conditions.

There were a handful of people in town who acted like they wished to go unnoticed, ironically becoming more noticed because of it (as if that wasn’t the whole point anyway). There were others who were over the top looking for a person that would somehow fulfill their need, and they examined each one closely as if it was that person, never determining if it was so, leaving unsatiated, but still in that same mode. There was the whole workforce of town, operating in the retail shops, restaurants, coffee houses to serve; the countless interactions, the countless orders filled, the countless customer reactions across the wide spectrum. A person of service understands all too well the need for having a thick skin for the daggers often come out, the arrows are too often shot from the bows, the claws all too frequently reach out like beasts in the wild to destroy. They work for rates of pay per hour that’ll help them buy some basic necessities, as they contemplate a future when their lives would be different. As for now, the system is how it is set up, and the roles get filled up, as they have for decades upon decades, centuries upon centuries. The system creates the patterns, the roles operate on the pattern’s beat, the crematoriums fire up the furnaces, the graves get dug. But Ah! Massimo is spreading the word of the archway to one soul at a time. It speaks to a different systematic rhyme, counted off by song sticks; it cherishes each and every person, acknowledges their gifts and potential, blows a sweet aromatic breath upon their deep inner red coal covered in gray and white ashes to animate it in a greater intensity, in a way they can know it and feel it, and let its power start to exert itself in their everyday reality in order to place them on the road to victory, from out of the defeated state the world had positioned them in the way it does, which included developing a large number of conspirators to make a break out near impossible – but for the message of the archway!

An osprey’s piercing cry from its sky dance over all struck Massimo to his inner depths, and its resonance from its piercing bullseye spread outward, transforming him into a heightened suprasensory being, as if it were a stellar disciple looking to save him from a lowly form to ensure an achievement of the higher form of himself, which contains a much better quality of concatenation of thoughts, emotions and acts.

Higher and higher, Massimo got, walking down by the docks, and when he looked up he saw through the western window, the passageway into Ariel’s workshop, which emitted a sunlike radiance, a curious mystery, an invitation as if sent by one of the waterfowl from her to him, which he read and eagerly took her up on. He could make out through the window, in the darkness of the inside, beyond the light, an easel with the back of a canvas facing the window. It held a great deal of promise and sowed seeds within his inner fertile and fecund soils that started instantly to root and sprout and grow into a magnificent rich, colorful tapestry. The growths moved and spread at unique, inspiring angles, forming strange evocative patterns, corresponding to an outcropping of his inner life's operation, tying them to each other, and promising a reward of crystal clarity.

The door at the front of the gallery, above three large slabs of granite steps, was hooked open, allowing anyone to come and go upon to inspect the latest works of the local artists hanging on the walls. There was no one inspecting the works when Massimo walked in, and no one at the greeter’s table. The first floor was like a test. The works possessed little to no promise, and Massimo thought for all that work, time and energy they put into the trade somebody ought to wake them up to give them a fighting chance at least. There were a lot of opportunities. He amused himself thinking he just might take one artist at a time to the archway to see if they’d take to it like the woman upstairs. Quite possibly the world wasn’t ready for another Ariel-like artist. Change had to come gradually, and if the change feels like it happened overnight that was only due to the ease at which the momentum toward the alteration finally completed itself, requiring a final, but already prepared, acceptance. The chaos that would result from a change occurring overnight would be intolerable for most.

The air inside the first story was warm, still and dry. He walked from the open space room into a hallway, drew open a red door, and stepped up an inner stairwell, each step announcing his presence with a series of creaks. He had held off long enough to excuse the interruption of the genius at work, but really, it wasn’t up to him: he was summoned by it, after their trances that ate up days like terns’ dive for minnows on a bright summer Sunday morning. Massimo didn’t bother with the second floor, but when he came to the third floor, he paused on the landing and looked out a narrow window like a horizontal slit, affording a view of a lighthouse on a golden elbow of sands and beach grasses, where birds like oyster catchers and plovers were protected, where shellfish like crabs, slipper snails, scallops, clams thrived, where birds excelled on their healthy diets, where the waves gently caressed the sands of dry land, where seaweeds lovingly danced in the clear waters, where jellyfish floated past; and the gateway to the harbor, where the first recreational vessels of the season were either coming in or going out, whereas just days ago only shell fisher boats were seen there. The view changed him.

He pressed the thumb latch down, lifting the lever holding the untreated thick wooden door in place, freeing it, letting out a breath of air, which swirled around him, and teased him with the scent of Ariel and the tricks of her trade. He opened the door, and observed Ariel seated in an antique chair, facing a window opening out onto the east view he had seen from the landing, her body as if lifeless, in its embrace, her eyes closed. The canvas whose back he had observed through the window outside below was a marvelous sight to behold. He knew instantly she had broken through past traditions, burst asunder mere imitation, cliches, and developed a fresh new style fitting with the present moment leaning into the future, like it was a part of both times.

No one looking at it could ever know how it was the archway, except for Massimo, who had himself discovered in the archway all shapes and forms. In the simplicity, in the detail, there was the intelligence of the archway, explaining everything there was needed to know to live right and well. He thought it could, if it hadn’t already, spark a spiritual revolution. A post, like a slender tree trunk without branches stuck into the sands of the bay waters about  twelve inches from where the moist sands with colorful pebbles were, rich communicative minerals like gems full of potent emanating powers. Loosely tied with a slipknot to the wooden post was a hemp line affixed to the bow of a silver dinghy at an angle from being beached between the waters and the sands, patiently waiting for a boater to come, release the line, push it into the depths of water where it could float, and use its white motor to propel it out into the bay’s heavily concentrated substance, full of a presence hanging in the air, rendered visible by a subtle shading of colors bleeding from the bay waters, from the sun, sky, from the moisture in the air itself, rendering that space above the water a visible intelligent presence, before the layer of sandy dunes over which clumps of brown beach grass from a prior season was coming alive anew with fresh green shoots for the summer incoming. Beyond the dunes, a sky and clouds. He viewed the sky as God, the clouds as His angels, a seagull in flight as the spectator’s guardian angel, encouraging the entrant’s seat in the vessel.