I just took my dog for a walk to ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams and let my arms dance to the tune which was beautiful to see in the shadow I cast on the path by our little creek. My heart is full. My soul nourished, and my spirit flying. That nature inspires poets, and poets inspire musicians to look back at nature and compose this. For musicians then to play and feel such heaven and share it with us. Wow! Oh Wow!

I thought I was about to paint a fairly large version of your silhouette from behind. Your head bent, you walk the desert in the company of three wolves that rise from their blood and follow you into a harsh moonlit landscape of dissonant colours under an unsettling sky. I wasn’t sure if you were part of the pack or prey. Yet, the moon, the wolf, and the broken man were to be distinctly different elements in this painting.

Turns out this is not what I am painting. Turns out you still have your back to your audience, but you are walking into the desert on your own. Your figure is tiny in a vast landscape; your shoulders are bent; the head lowered. The waning hump of the moon appears as if it is breaking apart in slow motion, and the star constellation of Ursa Minor (or Little Bear), out of place in this night sky, guides your way. There still is a hint of daylight, and shadows play along the landscape. This is possible, or so Google assures me. One of these shadows could be a cactus tree, but it could be the devil’s trident, or why not some sort of apparition of an emerging trinity? The seven stars of Ursa Minor appear as if on strings, and they draw you deep into the desert. The moonlit path lies abandoned; you follow internal constellations that are stronger than the tides. A red wolf, prominent on the right, is watching attentively but without malice. Will you get your suitcase? I am not sure. The colours are softer than I thought they would be, but this isn’t yet finished, so who knows what turn the spinning feather catches with the next breeze.

Maybe it’s not even a suitcase you are walking towards. Maybe it’s a boat in the desert—a boat that could take you to a Galleon ship so your family can connect in the sky—create your own place in which to be whole and from which to heal and come back down to frogs and people like me.

It is definitely the boat over the suitcase. Where you go, suitcases are of no use, and every step you take is hope against hope in movement. The worst has already happened; no need to sing carnage—you’ve got to look for a boat in your sky—Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism—Existentialism whatever the name. A small boat of faith—something that the gatekeepers of rigidity and dogma overlook—a boat that might be granted passage as it is too small for the human eye to see. Jealousy, pride, and greed are far away. We are beyond right and wrong, real and imagined...

Turns out I will place a piano under Ursa Minor—it’s a mighty boat—your piano.

Cordula