HORIZONS

Who says the horizon has to be straight? I painted the horizon here as a straight line in this piece, but I could have shown the curve of the earth and been just as correct.

I remember sitting, mystified, in my car in 1989, the first game of the World Series about to begin, as I watched the horizon in front of me roll up and down like waves. Earthquake, and then fire shortly after left 1989 in tatters.

Who says Vincent Van Gogh didn't see the world as he painted it -- all curved and swirling. As Big Elk said, "We seek circles. Everything is done in a circle."

See the star up there? It is a circle too.

I spend most of my life looking closely at details, which helps make me a better artist and writer. But sometimes, my mind is spinning around from one idea to another and I need to look at far horizons to show me the grandness and the emptiness of the universe.

I'm thinking in circles, but I'm painting what I saw of the horizon at the beach one day. Standing in a place where I can see long distances, I can find that sense of openness that helps to clear my head and allows quietness to come in.

I'm writing of the narrow detailed places and the grand views. Yet, the middle places are the places we mostly live in, aren't they? They are the harder places: between two people, between human being and nature. Even there, in the middle, we can find circles: from childhood back to childhood, holding hands and circling round each other, hugging a tree, hugging each other, hugging, again, is a circle.

I hope sometime this week you can take the time to gaze at a far horizon and open up your being to its grandness. And give someone a hug too.