Seeing the Unseen

Three things to share today!

First I heeded my heart and took to the woods and brought in a new heart and with it a return to joy - Addie! Addie for Addison - the county I loved, for Adorable which she is, for Adeline who is all sweetness, and for Adding one more to our furry mix. 

Secondly,  I've just fallen for a new book that reflects my experience of a year of painting and being in the forest. By professor of biology David George Haskell, "The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature"  ( http://theforestunseen.com/ ) marries poetic descriptions to biological ruminations. Haskell spent a year visiting and observing a meter in diameter bit of forest in Tennessee - a personal living mandala.

"I sit next to the mandala on a flat slab of sandstone. My rules at the mandala are simple: visit often, watching a year circle past; be quiet, keep disturbance to a minimum; no killing, no removal of creatures, no digging in or crawling over the mandala." 

Feeling like someone has read my mind, I am wishing Haskell could see my work having written:

"...One translation of the Sanskrit mandala is "community,' so the monks and the students are engaged in the same work: contemplating a mandala and refining their minds. The parallel runs deeper than this congruence of language and symbolism. I believe that the forest's ecological stories are all present in a mandala-sized area. Indeed, the truth of the forest may be more clearly and vividly revealed by the contemplation of a small area than it could be by donning ten-league boots, covering a continent but uncovering little."

To which I would add that the truth of our own existence can be found in that small, living, reflective space.

Which brings me to THREE! Tonight from 6:00-9:00PM is an opening exhibition of my work!!!! Do come if you are around and about Vermont! The exhibition is at All Souls Interfaith Gathering in Shelburne, VT and runs through November 19 during daylight hours at All Souls (http://allsoulsinterfaith.org/ )

The work is all for sale and if you would like prints of this poster (11"x17") can be available at $25.00 a piece.
Hope to see you there!