"What You Ponder You Activate"

— 5 Months in the making - From the "All The World Is A Stage" Series

This is my more honest take on the Law of Attraction. Not the fluffy, New Age version where you just think happy thoughts and get happy things. This is the real version. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Because what you ponder — whether it’s beautiful or broken — you activate.

She sits at the edge of the stage itself. A woman in dark circus attire — a corset, red striped tights, heavy boots — holding both masks. Comedy in one hand, Tragedy in the other. She is not choosing one. She is holding both, because manifestation doesn’t edit. Whatever energy you give weight to, you send rippling out through time and space. And you can see it happening — the ripples of light and stardust pouring from the masks, warping reality around her.

To the left, tacked to the theatre wall like an old vaudeville poster, it reads: Magick Box Theatre Presents — "What You Ponder You Activate" — Showing Daily — Starring YOU. This is your show. You are not in the audience.

Around her feet, the full spectrum of what we ponder blooms into life. A skull with a heart in its eye — our fears, our grief — but from it grow impossible, beautiful flowers. Pin-cushion eyes, voodoo-like and surreal, sprout blossoms. Death feeding life. Thought feeding form.

A single blue lotus blooms beside her boot — enlightenment growing out of the muck. It’s all there at once, just like in our own minds.

This painting took me 5 months of layered oil work. I wanted her to feel real, not like a fantasy character — because this law applies to real bodies, in real life. So I posed for this myself, in my underwear, in this exact position, had a friend photograph me, and then painted the costume on top.

I wanted her grounded, human, vulnerable and powerful at the same time. She is me. She is you. From the “All The World Is A Stage” series, this work is a reminder that Shakespeare was right — and the New Agers were only half-right.

You are always on stage, you are always broadcasting, and the universe is always listening, even to the thoughts you wish it wouldn’t hear. Choose your mask wisely, but know you hold both.

For the collector: A large, incredibly detailed, deeply symbolic oil that reveals more every time you look. The textures of the corset, the glow of the masks, the galaxies swirling inside the ripples, the tiny pin-heads in the flowers — this is a painting to get lost in. It belongs in a creative studio, a living space, or anywhere you do your manifesting — as a beautiful, unflinching reminder of your own power.