Sunday mornings here are so quiet - with no activity nor impending obligations. My mind is free to slouch off the mundane duties that occupy so much of every one's time, and just savor the moment. I can let the beauty outside my window woo me to thoughts of
Shangri La.
This morning there was an apricot dawn, that made dark dusty rose shadows on the land. It was such that I ached to paint it, yet wonder if anyone would believe it was nature's coloring and not my own imagination. The mountains in the distance had a soft blue grey that almost seems luminous beneath the totally clear sky. And as I watched the colors altered, slipping to paler versions that became infused with the blue that gradually dominated it all. The brightening of the sky revealed the greens within the black forms of pinon and
juniper. The wild horses slowly appeared on the mesa, as though they too were part of nature's dawning composition. Light pulled out patterns from the shadow on my stucco wall, and the birds began to find the shallow puddles from last night's rain.
What a miracle it is to be here, watching this transpire. There is a sense that I could walk to the mesa and run with the wild horses. I could dance my way to the mountain peaks and meet the most magical of creatures. And then, I think ....
just maybe...
I think I can reach between the mountain tip and the pale blue sky and raise a corner like a curtain on a
majestic stage, and just crawl between the two to the beyond!
I feel the need to write laughing poetry or paint joy on a canvas. I want to tease the last ray of moonlight into a dance or shake hands with the unicorn innocently hiding among the horses.
I am one with this place and time and all its potential. I want to cup the moment in my hands and share it with everyone! Like a child showing a captured firefly I would slowly part my fingers, reveal it, then watch it sparkle up and into the universe as it was meant to do.
I had the oddest experience that I think is a lesson in reaching the viewer. I had painted a King Charles sleeping on top of a Cocker Spaniel and sent it off to the gallery that shows my work in Ohio. I was told by the gallery owner it was noticed and commented on regularly. But it hung for six months without a sale, and I decided it was time to pull it in favor of a piece that might do better. 
