"Stay inside the lines!"

This is what my grade 1 teacher always yelled at us if we should happen to, God forbid, color outside the lines. She was one of those mean spirited people who, in this day and age, would probably be brought up on charges of child abuse. The ruler over the head if you should happen to drift off for a minute in class was standard fare. She would also not give permission to go to the washroom so there were many a child that ended up wetting their pants because they were forced to wait too long. Needless to say, I hope that there is a "special" place in the afterlife for people like her. She puts Professor Umbridge (that Nazi in pink in Harry Potter) to shame!

So when she would yell at me to "stay inside the lines" I would look at her innocently and say, "Oh, it's okay, actually, because I will be cutting out the shapes when I am done coloring." This would make her furious. My mother would try to explain to her that coloring inside the lines was not a prerequisite for life, let alone academia. The old battle axe would try to intimidate my mother into conforming, but my mother, in her infinite wisdom, would simply ask why it was such a life crisis for her to have me color inside the lines and to not let me cut the shapes out. I truly think that my mother was there to help teach this woman some flexibility. I was never so happy to be done with a grade than I was to be done with grade 1!

What my mother could see, and what this teacher could never see, was that what I was coloring was not the forms. I was coloring in the aura of the forms, as I would see them to be. As a child, and still now, I see the aura of things before I see the physical form. For most people this is apparently opposite to what they themselves experience. But my mother could see auras, so she knew what I was doing with the crayons. Even now in the art that I do, I show the aura colors and forms etc so that everything that I can possibly perceive is included. I think that coloring outside the lines makes for more creative minds. So feel free to do so yourself! Take a risk! Color outside the lines! Do whatever you want with that pencil crayon! As a matter of fact, just toss the coloring book aside and do it on a scrap piece of paper. It is very liberating. So be bold! Providence loves boldness!

Blessed Be

Trent

www.deerhornshamanic.com