Furnace of the Elixir (2018) 绘画 由 Charles Riley

This is an expressionistic artwork that reflects on Taoist ideas of purification. Purification is often referred to as a firing process in which the artificial mind is purified of learned conditioning or filtered awareness that can stand in the way of an open awareness of reality or balanced psychological state. However, the purification process cannot be taught as it depends on the individual realizing their own awareness or relationship to the total reality of their situation in the universe. Instead of preaching, symbols are used to suggest a way to open up intuitive awareness. Symbols involve such things as true lead (grounded in the reality that is not perceived in parts but what joins the parts and exists despite the parts), purified gold (the balancing of psychological states so that any obsession does not blind us to the greater reality), the north star (a steady focus on a calm balancing point), mountains (seeing obstacles as also a part of the process), the colors gold and purple, fire, water, solid and broken lines arranged in hexagrams, and so on. In this vein, I created symbols in an intuitive fashion to help in my process of open awareness and the processes of viewers.

Some more words to deepen the viewers reflection:

The engine of passion is purified on the Western Mountains.
Mountains are obstacles but also a means to reach light.
The light is turned round on the climb to attentive clarity.
With purified mind, the gold releases white essence.
Who may we find ourselves along the way to be?
Having plucked the root of the original instrument,
The tangled thread of purple cloak rises in silence
To entangle and weave the portrait of life backside-out.
The furnace of the elixir illuminates the reversed.
No matter thousands of years, a the star is steady
And shadows disperse to reveal the unnamed story.

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