A Dream In the Field of White Wonder

acrylic and collage on glass beads gel surface

An infinitude of white, of snow and ice as far as the eye can see.  A white ocean dazzling in the sunlight and I am alone with a strong desire to explore it and a timid voice that whispers Danger!  You’ll get lost!  It’s too big.

Small birds in trees near the shore calm my agitation momentarily.  Encouraged by their flight I soar low over the frozen ground.  But as I get out beyond the trees there is only the white ripples that look like the tops of clouds out to the horizon.  I stop and gaze and allow wonder to be my reward.  I know I can go no farther with no reference point for myself in this infinity.

I turn back to pick someone up at the hospital.  She is ready and waiting for discharge, and I tell her about the endless white ocean and that I want to show it to her.  She understands perfectly.  We are of one mind, knowing that the true medicine is this field of white wonder.

An impossible image to paint, this field of white wonder experienced in a dream earlier this month, an impossible blinding white. It is still with me in my imaginings of the tsunami in Japan, which was an infinite ocean of a more liquid kind.  I’ve kept this dream close to me this month and now wish to send it out, to all of us who need the healing of this field of white wonder.

Moments ago the rain storm grew so intense that I noticed an icy breath of fear clutching me.  Will my studio wash away in a landslide?  I watched the spouts of water on the hillside above for signs of possible diversions in my direction, possible weakening of the road structure above. Then I stopped to recall that sense of wonder. . .that it exists within the power and infinitude of snow and ice and of water. At such a time we flip back and forth between the awe and the awful. For me creating some art of any kind sends me back into the awe.