DREAMING
I painted this around the time that I learned to play the Didgeridoo.
I had a series of dreams involving the didge. The most amazing and special of these dreams was the one when I was given a didge. It was passed to me from behind me, over my right shoulder. A short time after this dream I was at a really, really good friend, Garry's house who was from an indigenous tribe, the Pitjanjdara. I was in the backyard with some other friends. We were sitting around a fire as we often did but Garry was doing something in the house. He'd been in there a while and I started asking, "Where's Garry? What's he doing in there?". He eventuaully come out with his hands behind his back and such a big happy smile. He walked towards me but stopped half way. For a few seconds, he thought to himself, which kinda looked like he was listening to someone speak into his ear. Then Garry circled around the yard in order to approach me from behind my right shoulder...........................and gave me my first didgeridoo. He knew that I wanted one but I hadn't told him about the dream that I had. He had been in the house painting it. The paint was still wet but he couldn't wait to give it to me.
Anyway, back to the my "Dreaming" painting.
Well, I had to learn to play this thing now. Garry had spent most of his social security payment on the didge. his partner wasn't very happy with him because of it. I just had to play it.I tried and tried all day every day but just couldn't do the circular breathing. I would go to the beach every day and plead with the spirits to come and teach me .
After about a week, I had a dream about a young aboriginal boy who walked down to a lake's edge and was trying to play his didge. He was trying and trying and all of a sudden, he did it. He managed to circular breath,he called out with joy, "I did it. I did it", and went on to play a rythmic drone on it.
The next day, I gave the didge a go and after a few seconds of trying.............it just happened. It was incredible. My mouth and nose and lungs just started circular breathing almost automatically It felt so natural that from that moment I could never understand why it was so f*****g hard,
Oh yeh, my painting. The boy from my dream is standing there by the lake in the centre of the painting. There is also a lot of other visions from dreams I was having around that time.
Garry was a really special friend. We were like brothers.
Hope you like the painting
D
cool! sometimes I think trying to learn is harder than just doing...if that makes sense?
I had a similar experience learning to hula-hoop. For weeks I could not lift the hoop over my head, then one day it just clicked. Now I am learning all kids of fun things.