​Although I don’t sail, I love everything about sailing:  the wind captures my imagination; the graceful sails, the sound of the water is like listening to the planet catching its breath.  What I feel about sailing is captured in this painting called Persistence.  A race is in progress and even though the sailboat which is the focal point of the painting seems to be behind, the sailors remain diligent, determined to stay the course to the end.  Wind, water, sails and human persistence along with an obscured horizon give this work an ethereal feel – telling me that it is not just about the human maneuvering of a sail boat but the totality of the elements surrounding it.
Metaphorically, sailing speaks to my soul.  The unpredictability of wind and water demands captain and crew to merge with the elements as if they are one …. As indeed they are. Sometimes sailing is smooth, sometime troubled and sometimes stormy.  Experience teaches me that facing each of them, whatever they are is the soul’s only way of staying true to the course.
 
 

 
There is an energetic feeling that surrounds me when I become mindful.  It is like gears within shifting from one to another.  This shifting of gears metaphor creates an enchanting and magical existence.  I love fairy tales: the enchantment (lovely word), the magical components that fairy tales have. Beings of Light appearing in my mind's eye and speak to me using silent words. 
As a child, imagination was my best friend but as I matured, it got it dismissed as irrelevant. But now it is back: Images and awareness, invisible to the naked eye, are magical realities. I am enchanted - I live an enchanted life because this energetic feeling that surrounds me is also within me.  It is where life unfolds magically.  Every day is a miraculous event and I can choose to follow whatever I want.  Who, or what will I serve today - What I seek, seeks me.  What I serve, serves me.
Like most artists, I think metaphorically thus images are essential. It seems to me that imagination is a building block – an important corner stone for what one is about to create.  Welcome back Imagination...
 
 
 
 

As I child, I was fascinated with fairies, goblins and elves.  It never occurred to me that they didn’t exist. Snails provided icing for my mud pies while I slept and the next day the pies were magically transformed. Mushrooms and Toadstools housed the smallest of beings – too tiny to actually see but I knew they were there.  Water droplets, caught by the sun, provided me with a myriad of colors. It was here nature spirits wanted my attention.  As an adult, I don’t think I have changed these beliefs very much.  Nature spirits still dance with the sun on my lawn. Everything is alive with an innate life force motivated by a Divine Intelligence.  Attaching a name to something, defining it, and giving it only one meaning dismisses it.  Much is lost because of this. Imagination is squelched.  Shame really...
The Garden Nymph looks back at me with as much curiosity as the one who is doing the looking.  Camouflaged by its surroundings, this little character is not in the slightest bit interested in what I think or what anyone else thinks either – it lives with its own “is-ness”, it exists for its own sake.  We could learn a lot from such a being. 
Being sensitive to other realities is fodder for artists. I am glad it runs parallel to my existence.  Does it make me a better painter?  I hope so. I know it expands my viewpoint – of what I consider appropriate subject matter.  Like all esoteric paintings, they paint themselves and The Garden Nymph is one of those.

​“Nature Spirits”
 
Nature Spirits are my beloved Friends.  They are everywhere; in frosty snowflakes, raindrops resting on branches, in the center of a lupine leaf or wherever the imagination leads.  They are visible when the sun shines through a flower petal or on a dog’s cold wet snout.  Garden insects know them well and interact continually. Nature Spirits laugh in the wind, play in the surf and dance with apple blossoms.  With lightning speed they impart their magic asking nothing in return.  When one is conscious of One’s surroundings, their presence can be felt.  The wonder of the natural world is renewed.
This painting is my response to the wonder I feel for and from the natural world.  The figures (or are they branches?) are dancing to some mystical silent symphony heard with the inner-ears of the soul.
I remember as a child watching dandelions blowing their fairy dust into the wind. Mud pies, made in the afternoon, had shiny “icing” on top the next morning.  And do you remember how the tiniest of creatures were really fairies and elves rather than mere insects?  I wrote a poem that helps describe this even more:

Oh look who came in the night and covered the lawn with diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.
They waited for the Beloved to come – to awaken them.
The soul is enriched.
Then they leave the stage
United with the Love that created them
To come another day to bless the earth
 
Perceiving Nature Spirits takes practice.  Expanded dimensions open up to those who search for them.  St. Frances of Assisi knew this. We are told he preached to the birds. Tibetan monks won’t even kill insects. A pet rock becomes a talisman imbued with the energy of the one carrying it.
Creating images using paint and paper is not unlike the talisman’s rock. It, too, becomes infused with the mystical Presence of Nature’s spiritual domain.  A transformation has taken place. Paper and paint convey natures hidden secrets for all to see………….for all of those who want to.

​Crop circles fascinate me. Needing a logical explanation there are those who say footwork and boards are responsible. Equally fascinating is that balls of light have been photographed creating these geometric patterns. It seems our programmed perception needs accepted methods to believe. However, accepted methods are now questionable. With quantum physics shaking Classical, Newtonian beliefs, this paradigm has shifted.
Consciousness is everywhere including the empty space in our universe. Space is filled with probability waves and parallel universes. With Consciousness, Focused Intent and Imagery, we get Manifestation.  With this in mind, different dimensions seem reasonable.  Consideration is now given to intuition, imagery and dreams.  
One can speculate that crop circles seen by those who have the eyes to see appeared in the Collective Dream and entered our Reality because we are ready for it to do so. Perhaps we have entered unfamiliar dimensions and if we are to understand them reprogramming our mindsets is needed.  This does not negate logic and reason but it does mean expanding it.
 
I do so love a mystery………..