how I pray is breathe
Breathscribe Series
light-reflective acrylic on textured canvas
I began painting prayers about fifteen years ago, in India. The idea just appeared out of nowhere while I was riding the rhythm of my breath:
“What if I painted the flow of my breath?”
A simple horizontal stroke was laid down, its length being determined by the amount of paint in the brush – or by the duration of the exhalation of my breath. On the inhalation I reloaded the brush. I was entranced by the patterns that emerged as I breathed my way across and down the surface.
Breathscribe Series
acrylic on textured canvas
The relationship between breath and spirit (inspiration), revealed itself, and slowly the paintings evolved in their own way. Color became significant. Prayers and glyphs were encoded and embedded into the preparation of the textured ground itself. And over the ground, the breath-strokes expressed the focused prayer, releasing it over and over again into the quantum field: spirit unto spirit.
I : breath : spirit
only
One
– miriam louisa simons
Images and text © copyright miriam louisa simons
Quote: “How I pray is breathe” from Thomas Merton
Breath by Breath
– Larry Rosenberg
the awakened eye 