We all have our ‘dark side’ – the parts of us that we don’t particularly want to look at. We avert our eyes from these thoughts and memories, much like the Dark Merlin’s eyes avoid looking directly at us.
Moreover, a strange thing happens when you gaze for any length of time on either of the Merlins – when you focus on the bridge of the nose between his eyes, eventually the eyes seemingly turn and begin looking deeply and compassionately into your own!!
This reflects what happens when we make an effort to confront – and to own, these painful and unpleasant parts of ourselves: we begin to see ourselves directly and with new eyes.
The Merlin portrait came about under strange circumstances. Two years ago I did a distant-meditation (on the acquaintance of a dear friend), during which, I found myself observing a man in a dark cave with the light streaming in from the outside. Obviously garbed from a different era, the person possessed enormous power, a power to overcome and vanquish destructive negativity and evil; furthermore, his piercing, almost mocking eyes gave me the feeling that he gloried in this power!
The vision arrested my attention – then followed a strong compulsion - I simply HAD to draw it! I rushed to assemble charcoal and paper, and with the image sharply in mind set to work, but try as I might, the original face refused to be recorded – instead – a curiously humbled and almost tender being “declined to look at me” from the page!
I named him “Merlin,” after the legendary Wizard of Arthurian Times. Incidentally, history lists not one – but a lineage of several ‘Merlins.’ In the process of his art form evolution, I copied and colored him with pastels – the pastel version only recently being named “The Merlin of Light” – and that in response to a chance discovery.
I had begun to meditate on the original charcoal drawing as a way of confronting my own dark-side and although a good beginning, there still was a need to resolve and release. Then came an insight-flash! ”The colored Merlin, of course !”
It radiated such light and promise and made a perfect release and closure image – thus the “Merlin of Light” title.