Category Archives: brokeness

Appalachian Patchwork

Friday night I got to view some wonderfully meditative work by friend and former colleague Patricia Mink, Professor Emerita from ETSU’s Department of Art and Design. Her work can be seen at the Tipton Gallery this month.

Pat’s textile work is cutting edge in how she enhances old practice with new processes. She takes fibers and threads, fabric scraps, and tests with homegrown dyes, then layers in both hand and free-form machine stitching. She works up many of her ideas using the aid of advanced programs, huge color printers and looms. Her work has the sense of being both familiar, but also strikingly rich. Creativity can be defined as how anyone takes what is already given and then makes from the elements something brand new. This to me is the most exciting and dignifying work we can do! We start from where we are.

Pat’s givens, her own practice, roots deeply out from the rich Appalachian homespun craftwork that has emerged from these hills for generations. People here don’t bother knowing what “fine art” is, they just do what’s needed with their hands in extraordinary ways. Extraordinary ways.

This huge quilt is made from Pat’s long-term collection of samples, tests, studies and observations from old barns and country textures. It is a masterwork, a piece of extraordinary beauty as simply an aesthetic accomplishment. But this piece also is a powerful emblem to me of so much more. I stood and stared at it, looking closely and then standing back, taking comfort, and noting to myself that just by looking I was doing exactly that: taking comfort in the quilt.

Originally, I don’t come from these Southern highlands, yet it is a wonderful privilege to live among folks who respect their land and what it gives, who respect their families and where they came from, and the traditions from which they feel it is never necessary to apologize. There’s a freeing humility here. And when the givens get broken, the bits that remain, which came simply enough, can be pieced back together in ways more lovely than when they first were made.

We all are presently immersed here in the Southern Appalachians with sadness. The muck from over swelling rivers has settled, the huge masses of broken timbers are slowly being carted, helicopters are flying regularly up into the hills, mule teams and pick up trucks also, bridges are being crafted by volunteers, but the lives shattered will take more time. Here is just one drone view from 10 minutes where I live.

Please pray for the broken hearts. Mending has started for many. I heard this morning about a young woman who gave birth alone during the hurricane, and was on her last bottle for her baby. A woman, who somehow knew to bring baby things showed up just in time, and now momma and baby are safely in care with others.

Time and Treasure

Some things come home in your soul. Some things stick, like a stake in the ground that determines a trajectory towards the ultimate. Some of these things are surprising, difficult, even unasked for and therefore all the truer. How does any one of us even know what is really true? What will last that is significant? I have some musings today, which support why I made this piece some years ago on old brown paper using gesso, graphite and pastel. The making of this didn’t take me long, you can see the fast fat brush stroking. But the thinking that prompted this image has been lifelong.

There are universals we all wrestle with: like suffering, choices, the struggle in relationships, the reality of how things fall apart, and the passage of time. When I was young, I used to wonder why things fell apart so easily, it really bothered me. Then in a High School physics class I learned there was actually a thermodynamic law over natural things: the organic systems in our lives: micro and macro are all winding down to randomness. Strangely this gave some comfort knowing this was admitted in science. The thermodynamic law didn’t offer any solution — at that point maybe I didn’t even expect solution — I was just glad there was some reason for what I was observing.

Now I am decades older. I have come to value time for what it offers any one of us while we still have it. Like gravity, time holds us here and allows the opportunity to reflect on things that are bigger than our words or our boundaries. And there are many musers through time who have also recorded their ideas on what is lastingly true. What is over the hill from randomness? And how we can approach that with some integrity?

A 2nd century theologian named Irenaeus posited that objective truth could be known through the attestation or the witness of several distinguishers:

Real things, on the ground that we can see and test and touch (not just imagined nor manipulated) are markers. Real things are the basis for reasoning and how we can make decisions, rationally grounded.
Then there are things we cannot touch, shared transcendent concerns which are universal, beyond culture and subjectivities. All humans, no matter where living or when living feel fears and longings. These make our hearts beat faster and they can direct decisions too. But unseen things need careful evaluation. ‘What’s the cause, where is this going, what is sure, what can I do now…?’ If we’re alert, we know there’s more than just what is materiel and touchable, we just know little about how to resolve these bigger unseen concerns well.
And then there’s things that line up in time. Evidences that direct solidly from the seen to the unseen. One needs the courage or the urgent curiosity to follow the leads. This involves direct engagement with the world but also with the bigger questions that the world can evidence.

Irenaeus said that objective truth enfolds individual subjectivites through the witness of love in time and through time. He began where it all begins in John’s gospel chapter one.

Basically the Creator who made all matter’s systems entered within it all! He came into a certain period of time and pierced it. He took on flesh and in dying He died for all of us. For those who listened to the Hebrew prophets earlier, not all was clear, much was surprising, but then specifics precisely lined up. For those who look back in time to that event, and are alert, can see evidence which is historically incontrovertible in time, on the ground, though still so surprising. He pierced time and lived in time.

He was as fragile as a bird’s nest on purpose, so that He could offer with His own sacrifice of blood what we could never do. We know about flesh and blood and time and cruelty. We don’t know how to break out of it. He did. This was the ultimate intervention into and out of randomness. And what He did in abject love is everlastingly sufficient. This was the stake in our ground. It can be ours simply for the apprehending of it. This is where courage comes in and turns the tables. This is where the unseen things get answered.

This large gesture drawing hangs currently in the lobby at Medical Care in Elizabethton, TN.

escalations

Recently I emailed a friend about something on which I needed a follow up. We’d both gotten kind of rusty on the task at hand and she said in reply “it’s been a minute”. I laughed understanding her for it had been several months — not minutes. But we use this phrase and everybody gets it, for it feels like time is speeding up. Months are minutes, and minutes sometimes are packed with consequence. The word “moment” is another current word used. I see it in artist’s statements sometimes, it sounds trendy and alert to say “in this moment” as if what we’re sensing will soon rev right on by. Eras and epochs are out, they are no longer spoken of. Moments and minutes are in. Is your head spinning?

The piece I’m showing therefore is one which speaks to this idea of time’s slow-to-fast accelerations. Holding layers and a quick emergence of moment, there’s a lot hidden in the symbolism. This is a very small oil impression from a trip I took to Israel. In Caesarea by the sea we walked thru the impressive physical remains of a large Roman port. After the Romans disappeared, the Crusaders built their own stone structures. Their era is long gone as well. Alongside one of the paths under that Mediterranean sun was a small fig tree. It had fruit on it soon to emerge for the picking. It was alive. One part of a leaf caught the light and enchanted me midst the bramble of greens and browns. The stone path is suggested just slightly on the left. The energy of the moment was felt in the chaos of all that has been laid down and fought over on that very ground, including the choice of red behind the blooming bits. But my focus was on what is emerging. That’s what captivated me and still does. There is history here but there is also so much significant promise yet to be seen. It’s coming. It’s weighty. And it feels to me that we are in an escalating moment toward what the Hebrew prophets spoke so repeatedly of.

The fig tree was important in ancient Israel, not only for sweet sustenance, but also as a sign for when the nation itself would flourish or instead be in regression. There are two yearly harvests of figs with the later harvest being much richer. There is promise even in that reality. But in times of terror, the fruit withers and dies in the trauma. That has happened repeatedly in the past and it will happen again more consequentially in the future. But that future is not the promised end.

I had a rich conversation with one of my grandsons this past week. He’s on a campus where there is all the same clamor you’re hearing about. He was thoughtful about it, so I spoke of what the building take-overs were like when I was a student. How I was involved and what emerged as a result. There were boisterous chants then too, same rhythm different words. How robotic? Are we just in some kind of cyclical reiteration or are we heading somewhere? A French Philosopher observing human cycles said “the more things change the more they stay the same”. That’s similar to what Solomon said 3000 epoch’s earlier: ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ it’s all been seen before. There is some comfort in the wisdom there. But after my conversation with my grand I thought about the revving speed of the cycles. In 1969 no one was shouting death to the nation they were standing in from our campus; and no one was taking down the national flag and replacing it with something else. We’re witnessing immolation, litterally and figuratively. We are in a different moment now. In our time the protests were about ending a war or adding a certain studies programs to the curriculum. In this present iteration there is a more consequential binary being shouted: choosing life or choosing death.

What makes the news headlines however, is missing the real story (and that was true then too). For many are quietly observing, grappling with the import, and thinking for themselves. Others will just follow the crowd, for wide is that way and easier for them (in the moment).

But where I return my heart (often) is that the Grand Maker of light and figs and tastebuds supervises times and histories. He still allows the glimpse of sunlight on a leaf and the emergence of life for the hungry. He comforted the weary, saying with otherworldly authority “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” And when a soul can grasp the depth of that: His promise — it only takes a nanosecond.

palliative

The word came to me when I was working this week on some small pieces in my studio. I am familiar with the term “palliative” since conversing with a friend who is a hospice nurse. But I had not considered this term for me… until now.

Palliative: n. an action that is intended to alleviate a problem without addressing the underlying cause.

Is it for me alone that this kind of action is needed to be considered? I’m not a nurse nor good at it. Does the work with my hands and my heart using color and line offer something or anything which helps others who are mourning? Maybe that is true. I know these things help me:

Potent words of quiet comfort: from the Psalms, the Prophets or poetry.
The company of wise people I’ve learned I can trust
Meditative music
Glimmers of fleeting beauty
And lastly, sorrow and joy which can be held and considered at the same time (this for me is new)

These are things that effectively quiet my soul.

This is why I work. And then…here’s the wonder of it. Surprises come. The maker of beauty shows up.

This piece above was a quick little alcohol ink, 11×9. It took me maybe 15 minutes in the first pass. After it dried I knew it needed some adjusting so I added some color to strengthen the mid ground, and a quick steak of color into the bottom ground of the earth. The reticulation of the inks and then the drying revealed some of the working of roots under these trees, like a scope into the hidden places that support the whole. I didn’t plan this but it was a thrilling reality. I’m not taking it for granted. I’m receiving it with thanks. And I’m reminded how Habakkuk heard his own rejoinder from God: “Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days — You would not believe if you were told.” (Habakkuk 1:6) But then the God of Israel does tell him; they have a dialogue, and 2 chapters later the prophet quiets in a trembling rest. The workings that matter are His, all the rest just leads there.

“Veil” and looking through

Some things are too hard to see face to face.

This past week I’ve viewed numerous video clips trying to grasp the damage from the earthquakes in the Northeastern corner of the Mediterranean.

One clip haunts me still. With loud noises in the sudden collapse of a huge city structure, crowds start running and shouting, while one man just walks normally away, his back to the chaos as if a stoic. The man barely turns around to see. I’ve watched this several times. He does not visibly flinch. He is impassive, determinedly so, as if the reality across the street from him should not affect him. Surely he heard, smelled and felt the same thing upsetting those all around him?

What goes on in the mind and in the heart when hard things come down?

How would I respond? How would you? Is this why some people pay to go to horror movies so they can peer into the frightfully inexplicable? Is this one way to vicariously prepare from a safe seat? But that man in the middle of horror walked away as if nothing would deter his intention for the day… I don’t know anything about him truly from the seconds I viewed, but to me his manner was disturbing. His determination seemed a façade against reality.

We are peculiar creatures in trauma. And part of this I think is because we simply are not equipped to handle things which are way too big for mortals. We block or we freak. We all have self-protective tendencies, and we are living in increasing trauma. Some try to prepare, some dig in madly and some just try to walk away. Ok, people are different. But what if the issue at stake is a matter of critical importance? Would you know it? Would you want to know when what is happening around you is revealing matters of life or death? Do you have the courage now to investigate how in the world you might be able to face God safely, His face-to-your-face, no matter what?

This monotype is about that, about peering determinedly through the frightening chaos. It is simple but sure. This piece was done some years before the current global disruptions, but nevertheless anticipating them from my own already hard-won experience with personal trauma. This is a monotype (a painting on plexi which was then pulled through a press for a reverse transfer onto paper). It turned out! (You never know until you do it) and so I included this image in my Master of Fine Arts show. The disintegration in the foreground is what sets that back plane up. That’s important. In other words, the ripping apart in the front plane is why the back plane even becomes visible. The texture of the foreground was planned to look fragile, ethereal and even torn. I used inks which reticulated once I applied solvent on the plexi.

The background by contrast is a solid mass, stable, and to me a symbol of weighty timelessness. In a simple graphic I was aiming to suggest big things: about all that is temporally falling apart (the veil) and what is solidly available behind the immediate despair.

This all was hinted in my title. Veils cover things. Veils also protect things. They are put up in rooms or over faces to conceal for a time. They can be beautiful in an anticipatory sort of way, even alluring, for they suggest that something valuable is behind what cannot yet be seen. With a veil one has a sense that the wait might reveal something good, for what’s visible in front of any veil is only partial, preparatory. When the veil is finally removed, we get to see the substance which had been shielded. There is hope potentially here, but one must want to keep looking.

This is a biblical idea. For example, after his encounters with God, Moses hid his face in front of the people with a veil. His veil provoked them. But when Moses spoke directly again to God, it was face to face, the veil was no longer needed as a barrier between God and His friend. A veil had been prescribed by God as a protective cover between the Holy of Holies and the priests of both the exodus tabernacle and then later the temple in Jerusalem. Veils were necessary to shield what was temporal from what was Holy.

But here’s the kicker (if you stayed with the struggle and did not walk away) when Jesus died having taken into His heart the sins of the world, the veil in the temple was ripped open. The substance of His torn body became eternally significant. He always called Himself the door, the only door through. Now we understand what He meant. To look at Him is to look eye to eye into the very face of a willing, forgiving, available God who is far better than any cover which obscured Him.

In trauma, the ripping away of what we relied on or called “normal” is terrifying. But when that disintegration exposes something far greater to consider, would you really want to walk away? Any determined seeker is promised that he will find.

Binding Up the Fracture

“Broken” is a trendy word

Which gives us all a pass

To roll like Pollyanna

While blinding through morass!

Who wants to face the music though?

Who wants to buck the throng?

But no matter what your view of things…

We all know something’s wrong.

It’s bigger than we bargained for

It’s deeper than we know

We may whistle in the darkness

But despair is all the show.

There’s tension here with no way out

–play dumb and numb the pain

Or –work your way: ascetic death

No confidence of gain.

I’ll hint a third way pictured.

What if breakthrough gently came?

Though most are blind or working hard,

He still offers all the same (His remedy insane)

It took gargantuan sacrifice.

The work completely done.

The reach from out our system:

A perfect sinless Son.

The clean One came to right us.

No other god could do,

Before we knew our greatest need.

He entered: faithful, True.

To pass on this though it’s shrouded

Is to miss the greatest tie:

That God for man has made the Way.

The rescued testify.

This I wonder, how can any atheist or agnostic explain why human life has any value, even as they may want to hope so? And why is hope even a word, a human instinct, if it all does not matter? There’s tension here… but tension can surprise and birth beautiful things.

Ernest Becker, atheist and social-psychologist said “the plight of moderns is that they are sinners with no word for it” (The denial of Death, p.164)

The plight of God was to make a perfect way for sinners to be safe with Him. “The paradox of the cross is that it insists on highlighting our evil, in order to leave us with absolutely no doubt that whatever we have done, we can be forgiven.” (Becky Pippert, p.129 Stay Salt)

Image: monotype with muddy ink, 26×16″ by Mary Nees

Poem by Mary Nees

falling and rising

The display of color has been brilliant this year, now mostly all dimmed and down in my neck of the woods. Such vibrancy artists and photographers strive to capture.

How lovely this transition we see every year from light green buds, to broad leafy canopies, to the loss of photosynthesis in the aging cycle of a leaf — which yet gives us so much dying beauty! It seems like a slow mercy to me. Years ago, on a Fall hike I sat in wonder watching the gentle flutter of yellows and reds. Almost ad infinitum, these bits flickered through a tall stand of trees. The paper thin light catchers were like dressed up dancers, letting go from their support and one by one falling gracefully to earth. The float-fall was profoundly beautiful, oh… that a one-year old leaf could be a reflector of such fading glory.

We can observe and even take heart from these cycles in nature, it’s part of our natural background. Tides move in and out, and this is strangely comforting. Seasons flow around the calendar. Sound has a rhythm of waves, and history has repeating patterns. The nine month cycle of deciduous leaves gives those of us who live for decades an object lesson in common grace that we can ponder every single year.

For we all will fall, but unlike the simple leaf, there is potential for us also to rise. The Bible speaks of this: first a universal Fall early on in the book and then a singular Rise predicted by the prophets. The Rise is encountered early in the New Testament and then the same is promised for many at the end of history. This progression is echoed whether positively or negatively in the life of many a character in the pages of the book. Lives lived out show a trajectory from rising to falling or falling to rising. The results are evidenced in time.

Here’s one example, I went to an art show this past week on the University campus. Artists can be like watchmen on the wall, they often see farther, and look for clever ways to warn, to celebrate or to announce. Amongst the collection in this show were several obvious clarion calls that our progression as a nation is falling, and falling fast. I saw nothing there which gave me reason for hope. I walked out truly depressed.

2000 years ago, a prophet in the temple at Jerusalem approached a set of parents when they brought their child to the temple for his 8th day dedication. The couple were poor and likely indistinguishable in the hubub of a crowded temple court. But the old Jewish seer was alert for he had been promised that he would not die before seeing God’s salvation.

Luke records this story from an eyewitness, the mother of that child. Lifting the baby from her arms, the prophet suddenly announced a joyous declaration that salvation, the coming of the promised rising had come! But then, tenderly he turns to the baby’s mother and adds “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”

His falling and his rising would be the causation for the destinies of many to follow.

This child’s public presence in the world would bring all too soon a sorrowful piercing; a full participation in human dying, the falling that every soul must experience one by one. But then…but then the rising would commence.

whoops!

If you are one of the small number who came onto my blog yesterday afternoon, and if you listened to the video posted there, then you got a sneak preview! It probably hit you as weird.

I have un-published that video clip of me describing a 3D piece I made, paralleling it to an expectation I have. My reason? That clip is scheduled to post automatically once I am lifted out of here. I had the clip recorded as a testimony of my confident hope. But it is not for now since I am still here, and still working and still making plenty of mistakes.

Oh the quiet joy in time, and the slow opportunity to start in again!

I just got home from an 8-day Plein Air fest and counting travel to get up to Northern MN and back with my supportive husband (who just got back himself teaching on another continent) it was a haul. Needless to say, we’re a bit disoriented. Normally, I post on the 15^th of every month in which I am present, pushing the publication date of my video to a later time. I missed the timing this month, hence that may have been for you readers a bit of disorientation as well. As Mark Twain put it ”the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

But I will die. And so will you.

The real question is what will you find on the other side? I entreat you, with all I have in me now: don’t let that reality be a whoops. Jesus, the only one who anticipated well, who made not one whoops, who defeated death’s sting and prepared his followers as to how to be ready had much to say about the end and of His coming back. And for those who “love His appearing” there is great reason for joy. Even as our world is self-destructing, even more so as it is. “No one knows the day or the hour”, Jesus said. No one needs to get all wadded up in fear or blinded by all the lies which are multiplying (He said that too, same chapter). Your way out, the only safe way out is both simple and sure: Jesus. Learn Him.

Meanwhile, in this present mean while, my studio is crammed with projects and half starts, big ideas and small beginnings into them. This piece is a “whoops” right now. I started it on an October visit up at that lake, and tried to bring some resolution this trip, only making it worse with September color. I may trash this, you can see if you look closely how I’ve already tried to scrape into some of the garish green, or I may try to improve it if I effectively can within its context. I have time!

the pit and the way out

It’s a black and white thing. It’s either an individual reckoning or a deadly default. I made this monotype after reflecting on the thick heaviness over an excavation site we had toured many years earlier. This still haunts as a symbol of destination. The ancient city of Pergamum (and its repeated iterations throughout history) is where cultic practice left an entire proud city ruined. It is a warning for now; for I fear much of the world is heading in the same wrong direction.

Listen instead to the clear solitary cry of the Psalmist.

So, it’s about a choice of focus then, with an upward cry. We still have choice in time: the dark hole looming, or the only way out. It’s a black and white thing.

I will simply offer how a poet I recently heard took that same 5^th Psalm and put it into a personal sonnet:

Safe in the love of one who’ll never part,

Of one whose kindness is itself a shield,

Who understands the deep things of my heart

Better than I can ever do, I yield

Myself and my perplexities to him,

And in his house of mercy I am healed;

Healed of this world’s bloodthirstiness, its grim

Deceptions, all its weary wickedness,

The death-speak of its tyrants, as they hymn

The idols of excess, the emptiness

Of endless purchases, all washed away

Until my sight is cleansed. His righteousness

Makes my way plain, and leads me through the play

Of early morning light, to worship him

Whose mercy wakes me at the break of day.

(Malcolm Guite, “Psalm 5: V Verba Mea Auribus”)

the times require

(Not prose, but urgent poems -mine and His- with an image from my icons “Among the Lampstands”)

Among the lampstands walks a man with fire in His face

And seven starry messengers are held up by His grace.

He involves us in this vision. He gave us words to SEE:

The things that are, the things that were, the things still yet to be.

He walks among the lampstands. He wants my heart to know.

He’s not seated casually – so far from all below.

He once walked in a garden (one walks when not at rest)

He’s up and looking, searching. His heart is on the quest.

Genesis 3: 8, Revelation 1:20, and 2:1

These are piercing eyes that see the show of every deed I know.

And those undone and those dismissed which stained my vaunted soul.

He says “wake up” He softly calls. Then runs off from my door!

“There are things yet uncompleted! Take my blood-soaked cloak as cover

And run with me my love.”

“Don’t slumber now, ‘stead heed my promise and I will give you more.”
“Have you forgotten, you who stand there pondering the storm?”
“I’ve loved you long before. I have more for us together! Oh, turn and let’s explore.”

Song of Solomon 2:8-14, Revelation 22:2

His were first words ever spoken. His will be the last.

And though He knows we “now have sorrows” -Time will make this past.

He assures me with His middle words He sealed them sure and fast

And so my present tense is traveling, held by Jacob’s mast.

Genesis 28:12-13, John 16:22-27 and Revelation 1:5 and 8

“After these things I looked and behold…” There’s a linear time jump to future we’re told.

Quantum cycles repeated ‘til the story was old.

But then lifted out come we, no longer on hold.

I’m so caught by wonder, I drink from again.

“To Him who’s released me” My soul on the mend!

Revelation 1:5b and 4:1

There is a city coming. Beyond this hour of trials,

Established by the builder, who says “a little while”

A new name and an old name Gives the One traversing time.

And you who hold fast what you have. Will not be left behind.

Isaiah 26:20, Mark 6:31, John 16:16-22, Hebrews 11:8-10 and Revelation 3:12, and 6:11

Thickets Repeat

There’s something deeply set in the fabric of all material things, though every generation resists it. But it’s real, it’s frustrating, and we live with it every day. This was predicted in fact: that out of the broken ground we til, that thorns and thistles would accompany the healthy produce we each need for sustenance. More than that, this ground, which blooms both good and ill, will also receive us back. Like gravity: it’s a baked in thing and no workaround can cancel it. “All the days of your life” there will be a confounding coming up of thorns. And with both downward gravitation, as well as with upward tangles, we only hurt ourselves when we don’t navigate with some creative measure of humility about things that complicate our ambition. Elon Musk (ambitious himself) said: “I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.”

To bear in your mind something true is half the battle.

For me early on, a wake-up call about what I could transcend and what I could not, refitted my idealism. So, it stuns me when there is so much hubris being thrust forward as if all natural laws are changeable, and that this present generation is finally going to rule and reign into super humans. Proud pronouncements from posers of any stripe make me wince. For thickets repeat. They multiply even. C.S. Lewis called every single generation’s ahistorical cockiness as simply “chronological snobbery”.

The oil painting I am highlighting this month is not just about that downside. There’s more in the human story; and it is hinted, whispering through the chaos of any mounting morass. I sold this to some friends and they have this painting hanging in their living room where they can talk about the broader hope and even the peeks of beauty which are embedded in life on our ground, as symbolized here. One has to look however. Hungering to see something beyond your own mess is not a weakness of the wretched, but actually their first step through.

The texture and the scratching-in here is pervasive. It’s as if I am digging with a trowel. There’s lots of natural broken line, but colors got revealed along this way. It’s a quiet persistence, a determined expectation based on things which are truer than assumptions. We all live on roads where thistles are. We can curse them and stay stuck in them. We can deny them and get cornered by them. But the real subject of this painting is the light, dancing through the bits, and without that light we can’t see at all.

You can live on any ground where thickets are if you will just start studying that light.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape