By Alexandra Velickovic

Over the summer I gifted myself a week of time to paint. I have been learning Byzantine iconography and was going to paint my second icon. This artist’s retreat was in Sacramento at a Greek Orthodox church, which was an inspiring atmosphere. I had set the intention to curb the active urge of my mind to appropriate my creativity and to allow the unknown, as much as possible, to yield my creation. This turned out to be a tall intention.

Our group of artists recited the Iconographer’s Prayer every morning before painting. I could sense the vibration of the room shifting as everyone prayed for the blessings of the Holy Spirit, the Angels and the Saints. I would also pray for the openness to receive the image and to be a doorway for the unknown.

I soon realized that my mind was trying to command the unknown to come forward and this made me laugh. Then over the course of my time there I started noticing all the ways my kindly accommodating mind was trying to ‘assist’ me while actually preventing everything that would not involve its participation. In my heart I could tell this was happening by the slightly hurried and charged manner with which it would feign something inimitable. My mind’s methodical interference began to tire me out.

Since the mind and this space of the unknown are entirely incompatible, there was no way to negotiate this infinite impasse. All I could really do was increase my commitment to being a doorway. God works through the unknown when we can allow that space. While painting every day perhaps there were fleeting nanoseconds of the intended space coming through. I noticed how there were moments when I felt a great stillness yet my brush was moving. There were moments when I noticed a fine line had been executed but I don’t recall painting it. The full spectrum of emotions would move through me and I stayed a blindsided spectator. Those distilled drops of a still state that is the opening to the unknown were arriving in their own time, catching my ardent mind thankfully off guard. To expect the unknown was to interfere and to avoid it was to remain besieged by resistance. Between the pushing and pulling there was a zero point I kept tapping into and yet I would continue to dance around it. There were many instances when I’d have to step away from my painting altogether and stroll around the lobby. At night I’d pray a lot about being steeped in God’s holiness. This was all a part of the process.

Allowing the unknown vexes my mind and that is all right. The mind is tasked with making sense of all that we come across and it supports us in relating to our recognizable reality. There are times, however, when our consciousness conducts us beyond the known range of the mind into the unknown. Being present to the unknown brings us into a position of being a doorway. My painting did not turn out as I ‘wanted’ it to but how I was able to allow it. May it serve as a doorway to the unknown for others.