Sacred Hills

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Materials: India ink and watercolor on 100% cotton hot press illustration board

Size: 5" x 5"

​"There is a greater life than that we feel [. . .]; but no man will arrive at the peace of it by struggling with the roots of his nature to understand them, for those roots go down and out, out and down infinitely into the infinite." (George MacDonald, There and Back, Ch. 41)
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I painted this on Halloween in Connecticut, during a power outage that lasted for several days. A wind storm felled trees on the power lines up and down the street; there were sticks and branches everywhere. I spent the chilly days outdoors by a campfire, tidying up the yard and making firewood.
Roots and branches in an alien landscape! I was thinking of trees I had seen during a recent visit to Plant City, FL. In an out-of-the-way corner of a nature reserve I found a place called "Sacred Hills." That part of Florida was once a coral reef, so there are no large rocks or natural hills. However, these trees were growing on large mounds which were probably the remnants of a phosphate mine. The sandy earth had weathered away over time, leaving exposed volumes of twisted roots. It's amazing how much of a tree we never get to see! I've often thought people were like that--like entire galaxies of thoughts and experiences with histories going back deeper than even they know.