Rachael Pullin, The Observer: Aspect and Structure, 2021–22. Graphite and watercolor on paper.
Rachael Pullin, Anagha, 2021–22. Graphite on paper.
“To dance and to flow. To allow the life within.”
Aspect (detail)
During this sitting, a kind of electric blue ocean came into my awareness—a vibrant, undulant energy pulsing behind a thin layer of ice. This power was not external to the sitter but was her innate energy.
Adjacent to this expansive flow was one small aspect of this energy held in a state of separation. This felt like the current state of the sitter’s conscious awareness held in isolation from the true flow.
Adjacency to our power is enough to propel our search until we make contact. We feel its resonance as a longing to return to it. It exerts a gravitational pull and emits guiding call upon our action.
Structure (detail)
The smaller liquid form in Aspect began to take on structure in a state of partial freeze. Petal-like shapes unfolded one by one around a glistening central life force creating a radial configuration. These concave arms formed a kind of sensate geometry.
It held the feeling of curiosity—a crystalline formation assumed to sense and receive. It moved in a slow rotational drift prompted by external forces. In states of freeze, there is a natural period of reflection, a kind of observation of the essential structure as a unique form in a relational atmosphere.
During this process, a pulse of energy (the animating awareness) exited the form and staged a kind of protective circumference around it. It felt like it was engaged in witnessing how its own material structure interacted with the energies of the surrounding environment.
The message that ice holds less energy than liquid also came through. As matter freezes, energy exits the molecules. As it warms, energy enters again allowing it to flow.
Similarly, our flow as conscious beings is made possible by allowing our own innate energy to enter our form, rather than observing as it is moved by another.
To dance and to flow.
To allow the life within.
Anagha
Sometimes the bluntness of our perceived reality can create a false divide between the magical ones and their true nature. Anagha is one of these magical humans.
To be attuned to this energy is to see and feel the world with great acuity. Creatives, like Anagha, are of this energetic imprint. They observe and create reality anew through the culturally sanctioned magic of art.
There is a weightiness to her witnessing. And her delivery of the strength of her observations is carefully measured.
Anagha is the kind of creative soul who was reading Sylvia Plath at 10 years old. Incredible. Such literary works became environs for her depth to take root amidst the experience of continual relocation, moving countries and states at many points throughout her life. The steady presence of the creative spirit offered a home that transcended this perpetual uprooting.
As she told her story, I saw flashes of a vast electric field, as depicted in the Aspect detail from The Observer diptych. It is difficult to put into words how this felt, but it held the essence of ancient perception, searing wit, and playful intelligence. And it wanted to speak.
Throughout this portrait experience, there was a call to feel into one’s own being…and for self-assertion. To shift from observing the energy that one admires in others to recognizing it as a reflection of one’s own energy. And to allow this intrinsic magic to flourish.