The sea whispers the inhale and exhale of life We are of salt and foam, wind and current, And we carry messages of wisdom from afar.
“Daybreak” ~ Thirteen horses race the dawn
For a moment, imagine you are standing at a cliff at dawn, beholding mercurial waves breaking on some distant shore. The horses tumble and race in the surf, only to rise again in each succeeding wave. The world is a vast place of ancient knowing, and we are its students. We so rarely have the opportunity to breathe in its wonders, to become still in the midst of its stillness. Yet the salt and water of the sea flows in our blood. The elements of the earth are fused in our bones. We can remember if we choose, and hearken to the places that call to us in our souls.
Close-up detail of some horses in Daybreak
The inspiration for “Daybreak” came from a photographic card published by the Sierra Club which I saw pinned to the wall of a friend of mine . who was a windsurfer. When I told him I saw horses in the waves, he blithely said, “Oh yeah, surfers call that type of wave “mares heads”. He didn’t realize how profound his comment was to me, for I had painted several other paintings from the shapes of horses I saw in waves, and his comment was confirmation that this phenomenon was apparently something other people also unconsciously perceived. I later discovered that in Greek Mythology the horse was created by the sea god Poseidon.
When I contacted the photographer for permission to paint it, he told me the location of the beach is on the island of Kauai, a view from Ke’e Beach looking down the Na Pali Coast. Other people see their own interpretations of the Oregon Coast and other places.