Little Bird Thoughts On the Water

“‘Come to the edge’, he said.
They said, ‘We are afraid’.
‘Come to the edge’, he said.
They came.
He pushed them…
And they flew.” - Guillaume Apollinaire

Neil Gaiman once did a short Sandman comic based on that quote. Just thought I’d mention that.

…and on a completely unrelated note: just now, as I was butchering the Toadies’ “Opossum Kingdom,” instead of singing “…behind the boathouse, I’ll show you my dark secret” I said “behind the goathouse.” That puts a whole different slant on the thing, doesn’t it?

Excuse my rambling tonight. I’m tired of sitting down night after night and staring at a blank screen. I thought maybe I could circle around and get my thoughts out this way. They remind me of a sparrow that flew into the house a while back. It fluttered against a closed upstairs window. Even after I opened the window and took out the screen, the bird fluttered against the glass at the top of the window. Eventually, after it had exhausted itself and its fear, it found its way out when it came down on the sill to rest. Here’s an opening, little birds. Fly. Fly and realize what you can really be.

(Here’s a combination: from the Toadies’ Rubbernecking to Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend. What’s with this early ‘90’s thing tonight?)

What comes to mind when you hear the word “water”? It’s been in a few of my dreams lately. In one dream, I was standing on the bank of a wide creek. The water was the color of the swimming holes I played in when I was a kid. It was almost exactly the same as a piece of light adventurine. There was an older man here too, named Mountain Ben. He said, “The water has to be deep enough to sustain the fish.” When I walked in, the water was thigh high. When one of those fish (which looked like a cross between a catfish and a large mouth bass) startled me by coming to the top of the water beside my leg, the water suddenly went down to ankle level. The fish were gone. My fear kept the water from being deep enough to sustain the fish.

Another dream comes to mind. It was a few years ago but it stuck with me. I was standing on the high bank of another creek, a shallow one, and I could see something moving beneath the water. Suddenly, a panther burst out of the water and just missed me before it fell back. It was made entirely of water.

Water, as a symbol, represents emotions. In my mind, it also represents spirituality and faith. It is situated in the West but it isn’t blue. It’s that adventurine green.

Speaking of adventurine, I’m working out an idea for another painting. I hope I’ve got the chops to do it justice (more fear talking?) I found an old copy of John Keel’s The MothMan Prophecies (interesting book) and in several of the sighting descriptions; a “bird man” was seen as having a green glow about him. That combined with some thoughts I’ve been having about the fluidity of ideas like “good” and “evil.” So the idea, if I can even describe it, is a dark, winged being. It faces out of the canvas (or board, I haven’t decided yet) and is “removing” its face like a mask. What’s behind the mask is nothing more than a blindingly bright white light.


Wow. I guess those little birds decided to fly after all, huh?



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