And now for something a little different!
I said that in February I’d start sharing some fiction writing and art. In case you missed it, here’s a link to the fiction.
Today, I’m sharing some of my art. This piece is called The River Within.
In winter-spring 2021, I took a really wonderful watercolor painting class with Wisconsin artist Helen Klebesadel and it inspired me to keep playing with mixed media watercolor paintings. I conceived the idea of doing a series of “portraits” (not of any specific person) in ink with watercolor washes. This is the first one (only two are actually done…my secret hope is that including art shares on this Substack will motivate me to do some more painting! ). It is watercolor with pen and ink.
I have many years of practice sharing my writing, but sharing art always feels more vulnerable for me. (Who am I kidding, sharing writing is super vulnerable too.) However, I long to incorporate visual art more thoroughly into my creative practice. It helps balance me out. Otherwise, I get tangled up in all my own words!
Having said that, the inspiration for this piece’s title came from a wild and woolly piece of writing I did in May 2020. I have been sitting on this writing for a while because I honestly don’t know what to do with it. It felt as if I were channeling something much larger than myself when I wrote it, but I cringe if I call work “channeled.” (I have experiences of deep skepticism when I read work that has been supposedly channeled from ancient dead people, for example, and contains glaring historical errors and/or anachronistic projections.)
All the same, here is an excerpt from this writing. (A note: I typed it by dictation, and oddly, Word capitalized certain words like River and Sky. It was unintentional, but I liked it, and it seems fitting.)
Water is changeable. Light is changeable. Water does nothing but change. It does not remain in the same place, in the same way, always a current is moving through it, and the reflection of clouds or sun or stars change its appearance. Yet its essence remains the same -- it is water. Your holy water, your sacred River, your inner spring, but water nonetheless. You know the other thing about water is its depth. Just like the Sky, there are layers you can't see, not at first glance. Some days when you come to the River and are very still, some days your net, which is your vision and your ears and your heart, will travel all the way to the bottom of the River and come up with something so rich in sediment, so deep and cold and clear, so full of the mystery of the depths, that you will wonder where it came from, and why today, and how “you” managed to do that. (A word -- you come to the River, but the River also comes to you. It is a mystical River. It has beingness and consciousness and agency, which all rivers have but it is unbound by physical laws that you perceive in the world. So of course it can reach out to you. That is what it is doing all the time, whispering to you. Beckoning you in.)
As always, thanks for reading! And if you’re enjoying these peeks into my fiction and art creations, please let me know. :)
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has pledged a subscription! I have been meaning to write you a personal note and still intend to do so. It means the world to have your vote of support.
P.P.S. To those who are awaiting the start of Lunations, I apologize for the delay! I had hoped to begin with the recent new moon, but I haven’t had quite enough of myself to go around. I hope to begin in March. (There….I said it….it’s a commitment!)