Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
I painted the galaxy across 4 5x5 gessoboards . Im hoping to add something to each square for a later picture. I always wanted to draw space but it's harder to do than I thought I'm hoping to do it again in the future.
“Claire!” Elle woke up with her daughter’s name on her lips. Startled, she sat up and looked around the living room with her heart still beating loudly in her chest. A dream, she realized dazedly.
Slowly, she crossed the way to the back door. With unseeing eyes she gazed out into the garden.
She remembered waking up in the hospital six years ago and seeing her husband sitting next to her. She remembered how he took her hand into his and looked at her with eyes full of despair. He told her that the doctor thought Claire might not survive. That she might die before she was even born, die before she had a chance to look into her mum’s eyes, feel a kiss on her forehead, clench her little fist around her dad’s finger, hear them speaking to her without a belly barrier between them… It was a silent, terrible death. It was the death of someone so precious, so innocent, so tiny…
Elle took a shuddering breath.
I stumbled across this old mill some years ago while walking in Drefach-Felindre. The area was once a hub of the wool industry, and now houses the National Wool Museum. I only managed to discover its name when I was doing a Google search as at the time of drawing, it was up for sale as an 11 bedroom property!
This painting was done for my sister. She loves dolphins, and she asked me when I
would paint a picture for her. When I considered doing this painting, I thought about
how I could design an illustration that would use the names of fish to teach her the
attributes of Jesus being the Son of God and Savior of the world.
The names of the fish who reveal something about Jesus’s attributes are labeled in red,
just as in a red-letter edition Bible, the words spoken by Jesus are printed in red.
The names of the fish whose labels are blue are different breeds of angelfish.
Three dolphins represent the trinity of God—the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
The silhouette of the three men on crosses represent the price Jesus paid on the cross
to buy man out of slavery of sin and deliver man from being cast into the eternal lake
of fire.
The black-and-white fish is called a sheep head. John the Baptist called Jesus the lamb
of God, who would take away the sins of the world.
The reddish-orange fish is called a flaming angel. John said that he baptized people
with water to call themselves back to God and to repent for their sins. He said that
Jesus would baptize with fire the person called the Holy Spirit. The gold-yellow fish
is called the shepherd angel. In the Bible, Jesus is referred to be the Good Shepherd
because He takes care of His followers as a sheep herder would take care His sheep. He
provides for their needs and protects them from danger.
The brown fish with the fanned-out fins is called a lionfish. The Bible call Jesus the
lion of Judea. Jesus first came to the Earth to deliver mankind from sin by offering His
life to pay for our sin. The second time He comes, He will come to set up His earthly
kingdom and rule over all the nations for a thousand years.
The small fish with a scarlet head is called a king demoiselle fish. Jesus will have all
authority to rule over all the nations given to Him from God the Father.
48 49
SALVATION
The large orange fish with the green fins is call a rainbow parrot. The rainbow represents a covenant between man and God. Just as God put a rainbow in the sky once
the great flood ended to remind man of God’s promise not to destroy the world by
flood again. So, do we have a covenant through the blood of Jesus that if man will
accept the terms to be delivered from sin, its eternal punishment, and turn from pursuing a rebellious life toward God, God will give them eternal life.
The sleek brown-and-white fish is called a schoolmaster. Jesus spent the last three years
of His life teaching about who God is, what heaven is like, what hell is like, what sin is,
and how it keeps man separated from God. What is God’s plan to redeem man from
sin? He taught how man should live to be pleasing in God’s sight.
(October 28, 2017)
I took inspiration from a group of artists who created a similar image but I decided to place my own spin on it by having henna like designs across the hands.
