The Owls Celebrated Her Return Home

I’m so honored that “The Owls Celebrated Her Return Home” was accepted into the new Artemis Journal!

I can’t wait to see the other offerings of art and poetry. It always feels so special to hold an Artemis Journal in my hands!

This piece started out with an old photograph as in almost all my paintings. I wanted to give her a new story. In this one, I imagined that she has just returned from a journey back through a magical fairy ring portal.

In researching the lore of mushroom rings, I read that sometimes when one travels through they lose an eye and this is how the eye patch in the painting came to be. (Also, I had not all that long before returned home to Virginia after being away in Tennessee for a few years and felt much changed by some of the experiences there, especially the cabin time.) I feel this also helps her see more clearly and deeply with her inner eye.

My father had just passed away as I was working on this and the owl carrying the rosemary sprig is in remembrance of him. He taught me a lot about the woods and he loved owls. I only have one video on my phone of him and in it he is drawing an owl and telling me about one that lived near his home. The rosemary could also represent peace and healing.

The owls carry messages from the unseen. The middle owl brings illumination. The owls will light the way and guide her. All will be ok.

And the owl with the red thread. (This has to do with something that happened during my cancer journey years ago and something I keep saying I will write about.) Here it represents hope.

She has returned to little fires in the landscape. Things have changed since she was away. I think the fires made in into the painting because the fires out west were happening at the time and also just so many upsetting things every time I checked the news.

If I ever do create a tarot/oracle deck, I think that she will be my hermit card, carrying a guitar instead of a staff, song becoming a prayer and invocation. And the halo behind her turning her into a radiant candle- “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let in shine” kinda vibes- instead of carrying a lantern.

24x36 acrylic on wood panel

Thank you to stopping by. xoxo