I am feeling slow and reflective today.
My words, written, feel like a whisper.
Languid, physically, from exhaustion, but inspired, spiritually and emotionally, from connection to other wild-hearted humans, and the very work I do. I have been participating in the Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference with John Muir Laws, and it has been such a balm.
This morning I listened to a poem, spoken on the other side of the world, about peaches. But it was really about sunshine and shade and leaves and trees and the very molecular joy that we get when our atoms caress those of another’s sweetness raised on this same Earth. Under this same golden orb, the same silver moonbeams, the same tears from stratocumulus holding the breath of trees. Eternally connected, but reintroduced anew.
My own eyes lined with silver hearing those beautiful words. A tear-drop slipped over a sleep-puffy cheek-dune, a tiny river carving a celebration of deep joy, of awe, on my skin.
Yesterday I listened to the emotional story of a wild being trapped in a world no longer made for him, rocky, brush dotted mountain sides remoulded of concrete and asphalt and neon lights for the ease of human consumption. I had read of him before, this cougar so coldly ‘named’ P-22, though he was so much more than a number. I shed heartbroken tears at his recent passing, angry for him, for the way he was caged, and the way we have caged ourselves by excluding these precious beings and that wild world we are meant to be a part of.
We do this at our own cost.
Hearing his story again, and understanding how his very existence has strengthened a movement to not only protect and honour his kind and the environment that support their wellbeing, but to highlight that access to nature is a social justice issue, was so compelling.
It strengthens my own resolve to keep going, to continue to sing the song of the wild in my own way, to find and share meaning and connection through art and imagination, to ground deeply in the little suburban wild pockets around me.
I pause to watch the red-wattle bird snatch insects from the murraya bush at my window.
There is wild all around us.
We need to make space in our hearts and minds to see and experience more.
We need to make space for awe.
I have been wrapped tightly in a cocoon of paint and brush and tiny strokes of pigment carving out peony and white breasted sea eagle for the last two days.
Long, long hours at the easel, but last night, close to midnight, the last dabs of the first layer complete.
Now to let her rest, to sit with the composition and decide where and how the glazes come.
This has been a week of big creating. It doesn’t always happen this way. But finally, at this moment anyway, I have an assuredness of what I need to bring to light. They are ideas I have held in my heart for some time, but not felt able to successfully translate into art. Or not the art I have in my own mind, which is highly detailed in its vision, and probably of a skill level much more advanced than mine. I find this so frustrating, I am yet to learn to quietly let it come - I am impatient, each piece feels like it must come now, it is already late, I am running out of time. There is an urgency - is it mine? That character flaw (or learned behaviour) of needing to be productive, to be perfect, to be doing. Or the always searching for ways to bring you a gift, like a toddler bringing you all her toys, to share how deeply in love I am with the wild? See what I made you? Do you see how this is us? Or is it the painting itself, sick of waiting patiently for me to hurry up and learn how best to manifest her? Maybe both. There is definitely an urgency around wanting to honour these beings before they are all gone, before we do so much more damage that we cannot take back.
I am impatient, each piece feels like it must come now, it is already late, I am running out of time. There is an urgency - is it mine?
Even this week, three compositions made, three outlines transferred, and two underpaintings completed before I realised they were all…wrong. The opposite of a pause, a deep breath, they looked scrunchy. I tried too hard, I didn’t listen enough. I painted over them with a layer of raw umber to start again (a heart raw with frustration too). Back to my sketchbook and hours of reference seeking and new compositions and begin anew. It is the way, as they say.
And it means I am now looking at a strong and powerful white breasted sea eagle, regal in the way these beautiful creatures are, commanding respect and wonder and yes, awe. She is almost monochrome in her greys and whites and softest yellow-pink scaly leg, standing amongst peonies of an alizarin vibrance that almost have an audible song as well as a visual one. Another two are coming, an egret and a barn owl (of course), and it feels scary but right.
Each morning I watch Lady, an adult sea eagle (only 100km away, as she flies straight) delicately tear tiny strips of food to feed to her young, with such tenderness and care. I have watched her and Dad care for two tiny but fierce beings each year for the last 3 seasons.
Every day, awe.
Every day, powerful talons stepping gingerly over fluffy balls that grow like wildfire. Every day, a beak made for murder rending tiny morsels offered with patience and attention. Wide, wild wings spread over them at night. Soft leaves brough daily to pad their stick built bed, high up an ironbark. Bright eyes, already fierce, orienting themselves in this new environment, learning how to be eagle.
I shake my head with wonder, I can scarcely believe the beauty of it all.
This painting is for Lady and Dad, for SE31 and SE32 and for all the sea eagles I do not get to see, to be in awe of.
Would that I could fly beside them, just once, great wings unfurled and held aloft by the breath of green below, seeing vast distances with the clarity of an imagined superhero’s special powers. She is my superhero. She is who I want a poster (or painting) of over my bed. She is who I want to be when I grow up.
For now I look at the painting I finished the first layer of late last night. I let her rest, so that I know how best to move forward next.
Sitting back in my chair, I close my eyes, I roll my shoulders, because that is how the shapeshifting starts for me, and I silently unfurl my eagle wings and fly.
Tell me, wild one, who is your wild superhero?
Natalie your words are so, so beautiful. They’re like strands of silver being spun into stories. Mesmerising. I love your connection to the wild & its creatures, feels like we’re being invited into sacred places with you. 🤍
Love how you stir up so much within us! 💚