Root Chakra Bullets Print

The Root Chakra titled Bullets with words from a student conversation The Root Chakra The Muladhara Chakra Bullets Oil on canvas, (24” X 24”) Muladhara means “root base”. I think of it as a tap root which seeks out the resources a plant needs to survive. Sometimes survival is seen as food, water, oxygen; but I have started to see many other attributes to survival. Life without love could be seen as not surviving. The painting reads: Bullets They’re all dead They all dead They stood on street corners Waiting for it Life surrenders to well-placed bullets Bullets leaping into my soul I run but not fast enough The poem is from student conversation one morning before my English class started. They sat in desks with book bags, notebooks, pens looking like students on the surface; but as they discussed the recent neighborhood activities I saw how drugs, gangs, welfare and racism exerted a control over them making it difficult for them to choose their own path. Their life experiences were like bullets shooting at me. I could never just teach them again. It began years of service to reach some end where more people could lead self-chosen lives. But now the realization gained from that service is like bullets making my soul holey because I know some people choose that way of life; I don’t know why, but they do. And I’m still running…but not fast enough.