Sword Fern Furl

16”x20”

Being present to my mother’s last breath opened my heart to the truth of impermanence.  To love nature is not just to admire the easy beauty, but to embrace death. We are so afraid of endings, yet loss swells the heart, and invites us to live more fully from love. We can expand our aesthetic of beauty to include the poetry of decay. Today, I search nature’s beauty not just for its vivid colors, but for its many beautiful browns. Running the redwood canyons of Big Sur, my eyes leap from the green exuberance of a sword fern to the cascading mane of its refurling fronds below… Curling back to their center, each frond sings with unique and potent grace. Furl celebrates this turning inwards and invites us to open our eyes to the beauty that always accompanies loss.