Snake, Sand, Water, Wind

Acrylic paints, dirt, 2009

 Let me copy from my journal of June 2009 about this one.

Saturday I was home in extreme pain and despair instead of on my retreat
Sunday I kept drawing back
Finally made it to the shoe store
On my drive there, yet another panic rising
my throat squeezing
dry red sand

So I asked
     What do you have to say?
     How have I hurt you?
     How can I make amends?

And a screaming, truth-telling Amy-girl
stepped forward ranting and howling

I hadn't listened
   She knew he was dangerous
   She knew not to trust him
   And we pushed her into the closet
   And smiled & talked too much &
   picked our poison
   And she was pissed
  And rightly so

What can I do?
We've all suffered
all these years
these decades
Can we trade off?

Tell your truth to your family.
Put it on the table and don't take it off.

And quit asking, "
"What's the big deal about sin?  How bad is it anyway?"

And so on Monday
I sent the email
to the Eldridge side
of the family

Then went to see Tara
As she worked on
my chest I saw
red sand and a great
snake in my throat

water and wind came

Is there hope?
Can I be different?

And God spoke "deep time"
and the water & wind
swirled like a tornado going
down the drain

Everything changed

I came to fear betraying
myself more than
fearing others

Shift your timescale from the human to the geologic, though, and the story of these corrugated rockscapes isn't scant change but vast change, hundreds of millions of years of it. Geologists often speak of deep time, the great spans over which the subtlest forces can remake a landscape. The canyonlands are a textbook of deep time.

"Rock of Ages"

National Geographic

March 2007