36x36 Acrylic/ Glitter/ Art Resin. Ready to hang. 

When light and shadow align. 

“You’ve come a long way. You have an even longer way. You know that. Take care.” 

I had a writers' conference to attend this week but I was so panicked about having to pick out clothes and put on makeup that I stayed in bed and cried about it instead. My mentor isn't here anymore to call but I can still hear the exact pitch of her voice as she would tell me it was time to force myself to grow, again. That and to make a decision, and take the outcome with grace and responsibly like the power that I am. 

Sometimes it’s like every day is standing at the edge of the ocean that I died 100 times but woke up 101 times to get to. Standing and debating if I have it in me to walk through my irrational fear and into the break, one more time, present and aware. Often yes, often no. 

The internal battle of attempting to live up to my own imposed ideals rarely has a voice. Dark aligning light. A mind that’s a course in miracles but on the flip in an instant a book of storms. What if life is just balancing the two? The light and the shadow. Walking a constant line that only I create. 

Today there was a full solar eclipse, 4/8/2024. In all honesty, I didn’t care. Lately, it seems my enthusiasm and caring about things throughout my life have served as a mask to be liked and for the light I so desperately needed to get through to the other side of trauma, addiction, and loss. When do I get to un-train myself to act in ways that are only what is becoming, engaging and positive? Joy is hard right now. And that’s ok. Because it’s okay for the light and shadow to come together. Even if it feels unfamiliar. Listen, everything going great really never taught me much at all.

It’s perfect really, an event in the sky that I don’t have to find parking for. It is symbolically an opportunity to be with my shadow and honor the dark to the equal depth of the light. An opportunity for alignment and unity, cleansing, and inner reflection. An opportunity to imagine millions of people looking up at the sky, wondering what they might find, instead of how I normally imagine giant groups of strangers. 

This painting is a portrait of shadow meeting light and the value of darkness as they intersect. It shows us who we’ll never be, who we miss the most, and what they say to us anyway, still. 

There is a radiance to the wisdom of shadow storms; this painting is a portrait of that truth.