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Swimming with the moon
Swimming with the moon

Hello Friends!

This summer I went to the beach. It took two days of driving to get there and I only had three days to hang out , but it was totally worth it. I went to Higgin's Beach in Maine where I used to live and I reconnected to the leap and roll of breaking waves, sunlight and moonlight like a path to someplace if you could only walk on water, the complexities of light when the tide comes in cross current scattered over certain sandbars, the strange things that wash up on shore, the grey fog holding incipient golden heat, the weight and grace of water pulled by the moon, sliding over submerged rocks....

Well, here's a link to a live webcam, so you can see for yourself. http://www.higginsbeachmaine.com/higgins-beach-cam.cfm

In dreams the ocean usually symbolizes coming to the end of what you know to something that is wilder and more beautiful (and possibly more dangerous) than a human brain can encompass.

I paint with the ocean in mind often. But here is the painting that came out of my trip this summer. In pixel form it may not be clear that it is 5 separate panels, each one about 5 feet tall and 8 inches wide with neutral wall space in between. I made the painting in fragments because that is more like the experience of swimming, immersed, tossed about, and catching glimpses of the larger thing.

Which is pretty much the experience of being immersed in any powerful mystery.

Cheers,
Jess Beyler