This is a painting about joy. About uplift.
About climbing out of a chaos, and finding clarity, finding your way.
And then — and THEN! listening for your better angels, and spreading your wings.
Remember Walking Into the Storm with Arms Open Wide?
This is climbing out of that storm.
The storm of the world is a riot, a cacophony, a tangle of activity
How do we make sense of it? How do we focus? How do we find our way with so many distractions.
I don’t know the answers to those questions.
But I speak a lot about pausing, about taking a deep breath.
And when the world and responsibilities press, and all seems confused and deafening, I find those deep breaths always reveal a passageway — a ladder.
And with each deep breath — each step on the ladder — the larger your wings grow.
And then — and THEN! at some point as you’re climbing out, you look back, and see how, despite the darkness and thunder of that messy tangle of a storm, you see how in certain light those shadows — those dark clouds — now have an iridescence, a glimmering of myriad colors.
When you were in the storm, you couldn’t see color. You only saw darkness, you only heard noise.
But now can look back and see those colors, and with each deep breath those storm hues dissolve
into you as you stretch
and rise
and expand
into open sky.
There will be more storms, of course.
But there will also be more ladders.
More color, more song,
More currents filled with deep-breathed wings
Their Voices Reach Me & I Ascend
by Dawn Chandler
mixed media on panel ~ 16″ x 12″
This painting is available here
Thanks so much for reading my blog and appreciating my art.
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Also, I invite you to discover more of my stories, insights and art via my Inside the Studio Notes — and of course here on my website, www.taosdawn.com. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.
Blessings ~
Dawn Chandler
All photos & paintings throughout this blog are by Dawn Chandler unless otherwise noted.
