February 4, 2011

I thought some might want to get a sense of the park and shore of Lake Ontario that is just 3 blocks from my apartment.



This video was taken two days ago by Nick Lin, a friend and personal assistant.

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes. They are fresh water inland seas, and some say they do have tides, though the rise and fall are nearly imperceptable. Well, not really, at least not to me!

I was born and have lived most of my life within five miles of this sweet sea. I have been able to see the waters from three of the homes I have lived in. I have written into my will that my ashes are to be sunk beneath its waters.

As I prepare to journey again to Savannah it is the sea and the pelicans that I imagine as my destination. I am deeply called, not to be in or on, but to abide by great waters and to watch the sea birds.

I learned several months ago that there are fresh water pelicans, and that occasionally they will rest while migrating at Point Pelee in Lake Eire, the next Great Lake to the east. It would be wonderful if they would sojourn on the rocks that jut into the waters just 3 blocks away.

Pelicans and hummingbirds, and butterflies among other species, and clowns, and the circus stand in the human psyche for the Epiphany - that eternally timeless moment of NOW when we in our physical beingness experience the we of our spiritual beingness and know that we are all connected and one forever. Pelicans are clownlike. When they fish they dive bomb in a spiral, to disappear beneath the water to reemerge facing opposite way around to the direction they went in. In the human psyche spirals stand for the eternal rejuvenation of life.

In Savannah I will paint the abomination of the Mimico prison. With the pelicans leading me and refreshed by the salty tide, at rest in the seat of deep slavery, I will find my true relationship with this deeply rooted structure of exclusion.

Today the ROM offered me a contract to exhibit my paintings and tell my story. My feet are set and the journey begins!