TERESA: The night before the New Moon I dreamt of the Cimi hieroglyph as our lover's embrace : our bodies formed the curving line, the division line between the living and the dead. I saw the painting in white and black, like the colors in a weathered skull. We lay in a sweet finality, fulfilling the wish that all lovers have; that Death will never tear them apart, and that when they die, it be together. Words came to me that I had done a drawing around in my early twenties: begin, become, beget, be gone. I woke feeling comforted that a vision had come to me. I also kept in mind what had happened the last time I had entered the sacred tantric painting space with preconceptions not shared by my Beloved. I had had them torn from me by my very intention to co create. If Dwayne did not share my vision, then it was not OUR vision, and had to be terminated.

Therefore, remembering 6 Ahau, I surrendered when he applied a banner of rainbow colors to one side of the division line, which had been my beginning stroke of black on a white canvas. The black line actually delineated "his" side and "my" side. We respectfully stayed away from each other's work for quite some time, before we both declared the painting "NOT WORKING"!

We were painting separately, and the result was really ugly to both of us. After several attempts to make it more to our liking, we gave up and started over by painting a silver and gold layer over it all!

Dwayne started removing bits here and there, and revealed some exciting things. The rainbow colors shone through, but subtly, and we both got very excited when we saw the dancing figure in a stormy sky. What happened next was devastating to both of us... There was a textured area that I felt was not quite right for the Death Hag that I was seeing. I impatiently smoothed it out without consulting him. Dwayne had seen an African shaman figure and the textured spot was the generating place of this energy. The erasure had been playful in the moment, horseplay. But when the spot was gone Dwayne reeled at the shock of losing what he had been most excited about. He felt slighted at the audacity of my action. I had no idea of the importance of the bothersome detail, as I perceived it. According to our original rules of engagement, we were not supposed to erase or change anything unilaterally. Rather than express his outrage, he withdrew to the office and proceeded to work on our other "joint" creative project: music for the painting. This he stayed with, alone, until I finally cried out in pain.

We realized we were working impossibly alone, on two interdependent creations that were supposed to be "ours". It was so wrong that everything shattered, and I saw it all die before my eyes; the process, the project, the relationship-everything. I cried in grief with sobs that emerged from the deepest place within me. I truly experienced death and grief. We went to bed with this grief. It was like a funeral pyre...

Morning. Still mourning. I couldn't look at the painting. It made me fell sick to my stomach. In my mind, Dwayne had to start it. I was lost, and really didn't know how to start again. I didn't even want to. Then he started to read the hexagrams of the I Ching that are particularly important to this lunation. The council came to persevere. To have faith that the momentum of the good acts of the past would carry us through. That trust would alleviate the fear of failure. That being here in this moment would release us from the grief of the past. This council did not give me much hope, but it helped me cope with the loss I felt so sorely, so I tentatively took up the brush when my turn came. Then magically, things took shape. We were working together, as it should be. Once again, the process of painting became allegorical to the relationship. Love can only exist where there is release of attachment and surrender to the Divine. Ego must give way to the Beloved.

DWAYNE: An unexpected and very exciting dimension of musical co-creation that opened up for Terry and I during the last Moon cycle has continued to expand and develop. We use Macintosh computers and have embraced its innovative GarageBand music creation sotware as an artistic tool. GarageBand comes with hundreds of pre-recorded music loops and also facilitates the recording of music and sound at the user level. Since tentatively working with it at the last New Moon, we are now working with it in the same co-creative spirit with which we have been painting. We intend to create one song for each of our paintings as we proceed along The Lightning Path. This will include the creation of songs for each of the paintings we have done so far. Our music will eventually be made available through this website and through GarageBand.com . Stay tuned!