The Heart is Your Altar

The Heart is Your Altar

The Heart is Your Altar - acrylic on cradled wood panel, 10 x 8 x 1.5.  Ready to hang.  Available here and at Artfinder.

The Heart is your altar.  It doesn't need anger or defense. 
SARAH BLONDIN

And so, in the midst of a whiteout of whimsy, there was an abstract-scape (or moodscape, as my friend calls these).

All the hikes - the cliffs, the mist, the dark forest, the towers of basalt and hills of stone rubble - form these shapes in my mind.   Sometimes they emerge in paint.  This one, painted with a palette knife and a paper towel, was inspired by vertical stone patterns in cliff faces in the Columbia Rover Gorge.  The patterns can be seen from across the river, miles away.  Monoliths of line.

As the days shorten and the skies become gray and wet, I become a bit introspective.  Poking at things, examining their edges and gently, tenderly deciding if those things (thoughts, feelings, beliefs) are treasures to cherish, wounds to heal or heavy stones to set down somewhere.  And so each one gets placed on the altar of my heart, to be covered in love and then released. 

I learned recently of CO2 recapture technology that injects carbon emissions into basalt rock, where it is safely held.  I wonder if I can leave all  the heavy stones found in my internal meanderings at the base of the basalt towers we climb on hikes?.  Hmmmmmm. It's against the rules of the wilderness to leave things behind...