Through an invitation from Shiloh Sophia during the Imagine painting process, my painting turned, burnished into depth and color that touches fear with love and became a meditation that continues into this day, and this day, and this…

molting archetype
feathers falling
phoenix burning
words burned, burnished into the canvas as each mark, each golden speck creates space for whatever next is rising
I do not know how to let my house burn with as much faith as the phoenix has

Though the image comes, constantly, onto the canvas so, I think, somewhere I must know
know that the willingness to let go of absolutely everything
to lose it all
is my stepping off the shore into the middle of the current that leaps and frolics – alive and radiant beyond the constructs of my mind – the grief is real, leaves stretch marks on the canvas and I remember your face, your touch, your voice, your invitation to live in freedom.
I am already there
yet form takes over and straddles the night sky
beckoning me to dance with abandon
each star a mark in the sky teaching me to bend down low
to reach up high
and listen, listen. listen.
the night sky is breathing me, the night sky breathes me
and death already knows me intimately.