traveler

traveler  72" x 24"  oil/canvas

 *****

following is an excerpt of the email that eye recently received from nose:

dear eye,

....and after spending 3 years meditating in complete silence, i abruptly left. just woke up early one morning, packed my bag, departed my cell, silently walked out the front gates. no-one stopped me, no-one even saw me. there was, however, one incident that happened, one moment that impacted me, that transformed me, leaving me a shell of my former self. it was enigmatic and it occurred outside of the ashram, in fact, it arrived the instant i left the community.  after i closed the front gate a bird i'd never before seen or heard glided down from a tree and landed at my feet directly on the path in front of me. it wasn't antagonistic or confrontational but still startled me a little, birds and animals have an ability to strike a primal fear in me and this strange bird did just that. i thought possibly it was going to attack me, peck my eyes out, but it just stood there looking at me sideways. dumbly, i said my first words in 3 years: "what do you want"? and this is the part i want to tell you and which i'll never forget: in one swooped wing flap the bird levitated upwards and landed on my head. i could feel it's weight relax down into me and then i heard in my mind: "what's down is up, what's up is down, the earth, the sky, the holy crown".  i was simultaneously euphoric, frightened, awakened, a condition of being that has since come and gone on it's own accord in the years following...

inscrutably yours,

nose

*****