Oil on canvas, 18″ x 14″

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

What power there is in the vision of the sky above the forest in the night
~ the strong determination of the trees reaching for the night sky
~ the vast night sky beckoning them on.

An escape route to immense silent darkness:
rapt in the black velvet of the night I can gaze out,
and explore forever the extremities of my soul.

Leaving the relentless demanding light behind,
in the boundless dark I can expand into
the vastness of solitary safe comfort and
find my own infinite self.

~~~~~~

Let’s bring an appreciation of the dark back into our experience of life.

Darkness has been vilified in our culture.
Along with the feminine, and Nature, darkness has been made less-than,
feared and disparaged in our Western culture for thousands of years.

High time to change that ~ to bring humanity back to wholeness.

~~~

I had been wanting to play with the symbolism of a nine-pointed star,
and this provided the perfect opportunity.
Looking up, there it was, beckoning me upwards
and through it to travel the night sky.
Three—the number of divinity—times three, gives us nine
~ the sacred number of eternity, and wholeness.

~~~~~~

The trees seen here are mostly Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa),
which reach heights of 100 feet and live up to 600 years;
and Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca),
reaching heights of 115 feet and living up to 400 years.