The Connection Between Soul and Landscape

The Connection Between Soul and Landscape

"The Connection Between Soul and Landscape" - oil on wood altar, 5 x 10 x 1.  Available here.

"It is one of the great perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape -- between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety." - MARY OLIVER

Here in the studio, I am contemplating the huge amount gratitude I feel for the silver lining of a pandemic.  Which is, if you're wondering, the push to find places unpopulated and beautiful, safe from all the things we carry around as human Petri dishes and inadvertently pass along to others.

Thanks to COVID 19 (in all of its many, multiplying forms), we hike.  And not just hike, but go to the places where others are unlikely to go.  Over the last two-plus years, this has replaced movie theaters, restaurants, shopping, concerts, plays and all the things that used to be entertainment. Something wondrous happened inside of me because of this - a deep, intimate connection with the wildness of "out there" (wherever it may be) and a feeling of calm, peaceful ease inside my head as our feet go up and down for mile after mile of wilderness.  Even when the rain falls hard upon us.  Even when the brambles leave legs lacerated and stinging.  Even when the way seems harder than we can do.

I try to bring this back into the regular world, where sometimes things feel too hard to handle, even though my butt is in a chair and the air conditioning is keeping me cool and nothing is pushing my heart and lungs to near bursting.  Sometimes this works.  But little reminders help.

We collect treasures - bone and stone and shell and feather, wood and moss and branch.  There are little altars everywhere - vignettes of the wilderness.  They are reminders of what matters, this connection between soul and landscape, as Oliver says, that we need.  And I do love the thought that it needs us.

---

About the art - oil paint on black gesso over wood.  A crescent moon holding our bare spirit, ready to receive treasures gathered along the way.

---

NUDGE-SHOVE is open through the end of August.  We hope you'll explore, linger and love the experimental art we've created, and the idea of PUSHING ourselves in response to the words of Sylvia Plath and world events.  Thanks for your support!

Artists!!!  Interested in participating in future collaborations?  Express your interest here.