Your Intuition is a Guide
A collector reflects on her commission and the week that brought it into being
A huge thanks to Dr. Sophia Johnson for sharing her thoughts on our week together in Germany. It was an honor and delight to share the time and space together. If you’d like to explore a similar process, you can send me a message or learn more on my website.
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I first contacted Chad about a large-scale painting after my fiancé and I moved into a new flat with lofted ceilings. The new flat followed a new job and a new life in a new country—Germany. All of these things represented a fresh start but also an uncertain future. A wildness and unknown that terrified and intrigued me.
It was in this mindset that the plan was formed for Chad to travel and come into our home to create not just a painting but a contemplative life, to join me for a few days on this journey and help create tools to navigate it through reflection and beauty.
From the very first moment I met Chad on the train platform in our little German city, his joy and wonder and curiosity were contagious. It was not just about getting from Point A to Point B but experiencing everything around him.
This helped me see everything through new eyes as well and find little joys in what had already become mundane life. His go-with-the-flow attitude while still clearly communicating his needs relieved me as a host and allowed me to step into a more reflective and constructive role of co-creating the space we both needed.
I was worried beforehand that our interactions would feel formal or forced—I was paying him and he was trained and experienced in spiritual direction. But an easiness quickly fell between us, like welcoming a long-lost friend, even though we had never been close. We had worked out a rough schedule ahead of time around my commitments and office hours which flowed naturally.
The first day Chad walked with me through my usual routine, and we talked through our common experiences. He listened and asked good questions but also shared from his own perspectives, both giving and receiving. There was an earnest sense that he wanted to enter in to my life, not to tell me what to do, but to reflect and learn alongside me.
In our initial meeting over Zoom, I talked about this dual vision that I was wrestling with: the enormity of the Future, the Unknown, Nature, Divine, Transcendence vs my own internal complexity, individuality, and place in the wider world. Chad had wisely pointed out the reflection between the two, my common pursuit to free both God and myself from the boxes and categories I had previously imposed.
It was this intersection of the external and internal, the personal and the Divine Other, that characterised our conversations and reflections, with the concept of “Synchronicity” that Chad introduced. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection,” but I understood it more as Providence or the interconnectedness of all things.
This concept was interwoven through casual conversation in walks and over dinner, through set-aside times of reflection, and in our conversations surrounding the piece Chad would paint. Something we thought through and built together throughout the trip.
Perhaps the most meaningful element of our time together was becoming re-enchanted with the world. We talked about Tarot and astrology and other such mystic practices that were strictly tabooed in our upbringings, not as forms of divination in the strictest sense, but as tools for inner reflection and intention-setting.
Chad worded it helpfully along the lines of “I’m not building my life around predictions of the future, but I am allowing it direct my attention, to allow for the possibility—what if this came true?”
Along with this went the very difficult lesson of re-learning to trust my intuition and instincts. We had already talked about going to Cologne for a day to see the cathedral or “Dom” and the modern art museum. But when Chad suggested that we shouldn’t plan anything but rather allow our intuition to guide us through, I admitted the idea made me anxious. But the day itself was filled with such ease.
We wandered lazily through the Dom and witnessed a procession of cardinals. We explored Museum Ludwig, sometimes together and sometimes alone. I shared in Chad’s joy when he discovered an installation that he loved. We followed the river and had frozen yogurt and sketched and had a bottle of German “Radler” (beer and lemonade) opened by a local with a bic lighter. I discovered one of my favourite clothing stores had opened a branch, which we serendipitously discovered.
The day was certainly not perfect. The train to and from was crowded and often loud. It took us longer than expected to find gifts for Chad’s family that were not cheap and touristy. My feet were quite sore by the time we headed home.
But Chad’s quiet companionship, never forcing conversation, never forcing an agenda, allowed me the freedom and security (especially as a young woman) to turn inward and trust all would be well. So simple a thing but unlike any day I’ve experienced.
Chad kept his progress with the painting hidden from me throughout, which only heightened the anticipation. I knew that whatever he created would be a perfect reflection of our time together and the vision I had for a contemplative life in our new home; I just trusted his instinct and the way that I had seen him talk through his previous pieces.
We did some watercolour painting together in our community garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon, a sort of extension of the practice in intuition. Chad told me about his own creative process and the active effort to not care about making mistakes—something that had been keeping me from picking up watercolours again after a long time. We talked about colours that spoke to me and challenged me, about images and art that captured my spiritual imagination.
But nothing compared to the moment Chad unveiled the painting. He caught a video of me squealing in delight and then standing in awed silence for a full minute.
Our time together was so much more than Chad producing a painting which now fills our large wall and features as the centre of our living space. In our “seeing session,” Chad walked me through his artistic process and how the shapes and colours interpreted his perspective of our discussion.
We “read” the painting together as a sort of Tarot card, or an abstract icon: for what it evoked in us and how it directed our attention. It was clear that the painting was not his thing that he gave into my possession, but a reflection of our experiences and discussions and a true gift. I saw myself and my own thoughts in the painting as much as I saw Chad. It was a still of our rich conversation, our measured vulnerability, our mournings and joys, uncertainties and hopes.
Chad asked if I had a name for it, and the phrase “All & Every” sprung to mind because it captured the unity of all things but also the individuality of every things. We recorded the conversation and I have it saved if I ever want to revisit it.
Nevertheless, “All & Every” continues to take on new meaning, with every new shade of light and different day. I genuinely cherish having such a piece in our home but even more so the orientation my time with Chad provided towards a more contemplative, intuitive, and wonder-filled lifestyle.
What a beautiful post. What a rich and unique offering.