Blue Prairie Sky

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot




When I saw these photos that a friend recently took I realized that I had found my way home.
I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

I started off as myself but lost course for a while, not in a bad way, in an exploratory way.
I was curious, I had to try things and see what worked and what didn't. Sometimes I fell,
sometimes I got stuck, sometimes I hurt myself or others but I usually managed to find
my way back to the path that wasn't all that obvious but at least I knew it was there if I
kept walking.

I have returned innocence to a prairie girl who grew up in the
Saskatchewan bush marveling at blue sky holes vibrating between
leaves of trembling aspens.
The sky wrapped around her like a blanket of emptiness
spilling her into an almost painful blue that verged on becoming purple.

She was taught about a sky god that rained blue beauty down
into her childhood world. A god that expressed anger in
thunder and wind and deep purple skies.
She learned to love thunder from her father
who taught her to smell storms and watch them pass
from the shelter of a doorway.

Now, in this moment, today,
my brush sweeps blue strokes
across the canvas and
there is no separation
anymore.
Sky, brush, blue, god are no longer words
separated by commas but have
become one undivided moment of clarity.
I let go into this lucidity
and am no longer a painter
but when painting I
become the blue prairie sky.