Blossom

I believe in karma, although not in any linear way.

Karma is like a blossom emerging from winter's dark limb. It was a long time coming. During the winter, magic was occurring deep in the Earth, the place where the roots of the plant beings become entangled with our own lives. Plans for that bloom were set in motion generations ago. A flower was dreamed by someone's great-great-great-great-grandmother on a moonless winter night. The dream was handed down. Every generation dreamed.

And then, in my garden, on a morning in spring, a blossom comes forth. It is there because in the past someone cared enough to dream.

In July of 2006 a woman stood outside the gallery window smoking a cigarette, gazing intently at my "Deep Sleeper."

I stuck my head out the door to say hi. "This is just beautiful," she said. "Let me finish this terrible habit, and then I'll come in for a closer look."

The woman was from New Orleans. Lauren was in the throes of renovating her post-Katrina home. She purchased Deep Sleeper, telling me, "This will give me something nice to look at while we rebuild." A friend of hers, Amy, came in the next day. Amy bought another of my paintings, one called GridLuck. Amy had not only lost her home but her entire neighborhood. And yet both Lauren and Amy said they were "the lucky ones." "We can rebuild," they said.

Since that time, Lauren has thrilled me by purchasing two more paintings. One of those purchases came at a time when the gallery was frightfully slow. That painting sale was just what my spirits needed. Perfect timing.

And now, I receive a letter from Lauren. It seems that in the course of several years of going on medical missions in Antigua, Guatemala, she has befriended a family who has undertaken to raise enough money to build a school in the village of Ciudad Vieja. In Ciudad Vieja 70% of the population cannot read or write. Lauren is holding a silent auction in New Orleans for the Vieja School project. She has asked me to contribute a painting.

The roots of the dream in Antigua have become entangled with her own dreams for the future. And now with mine.

What I've come up with is Blossom. Here's hoping a bidder will see it as I do--a harbinger of hope, a belief that our dreams touch each other. An awareness that Someone in the heart of winter took the time to dream for us.