White Birch Paralysis

My father raised me to be Niantiquut, a religion which in retrospect he seems to have cobbled together with elements of Wampanoag (local Native American) and Buddhist philosophies.  I took this stuff pretty seriously as a kid, so now even as an adult I find myself making certain decisions based on those teachings, despite having figured out it's not the ancient tradition he told me it was but rather something he pretty much just made up himself.

Over the past few weeks, based on the experiments I've been doing, I've come to suspect it might be beneficial to work primarily on wooden panels instead of canvas.  The most basic reason is that when laying down horizontally with the weight of all the paint I use, a canvas, especially a larger one, has a tendency to sag, which makes the paint do things I don't necessarily want it to do.  A wooden panel won't do that, so I think I'll have a greater level of control over the process.  The other reason why I'm thinking wood panels instead of, say, Masonite, is that the wooden panels at Artist and Craftsman Supply, my very favourite art store (which also happens to share a basement with my building, giving me the opportunity to pick through their sometimes very interesting trash), are mounted to a frame which makes for much more convenient hanging than Masonite, but which also affords me a higher profile, so the paint that drips around the edges can remain a visible and vibrant part of the piece.

So the other day, I bought a couple of wooden panels. One was 11" x 14", which is my sort of standard size lately, and the other is 24" x 36", which is larger than anything I've done in years, because it won't fit in my painting trough.  I bought one that size because I realized I can take my workbench (built by my father 30 or years ago) and build shallow walls around the edges, line the surface with plastic, and create a makeshift trough that will be able to handle the overflow from much larger pieces than my current rig.  And I want to do bigger work.

The smaller panel was pre-primed, so I gave it a little attention with some sandpaper and set it aside.  The original plan was to paint it right away, but I don't want to waste it, and I haven't really felt like painting since that model flaked on me last week. The other, larger panel I hung on the wall to a.) get it out of the way and to b.) shame me into actually converting my workbench into the larger trough I need to paint it.

So these panels have been here a couple of days now.  Just last night, I realized something.  The panels are both made entirely of white birch, which according to the teachings of Niantiquut is the most sacred of all trees.  I'm not sure whether or not some part of my brain made that connection while I was still in the store, before I actually made the purchase, but now that it has, I'm sort of paralyzed for yet another reason.  I was raised to thank the animal brother that died for my meal, and to thank the trees that died to make the paper in my books, and to never ever cause unnecessary death or pain (meaning, death or pain I can't explain satisfactorily to the spirit of the thing I've affected).  Confronted with this birch panel staring at me expectantly from the wall, I am forced to deal with the fact that should whatever I paint on it not be simply amazing, one of the most sacred trees in the world will have been harvested for naught.  I feel like if I fuck this up, I'll be committing a terrible atrocity.  I really need to get over this.  Or simply paint something amazing.  No pressure there, right?