Once upon a summer moon, a doe stepped through the green shadows of the forest, her soft spotted fawn trailing behind in the safe room of her shadow. When they crossed the road, I was there, my breath quick with astonishment
My astonishment was born from synchronicity. I had only just begun creating this image of a fawn nestled in the trilliums, his mother returning to the place she’d left him, dreaming in the earth-light of woodland blossoms.
Deepening the synchronicity was the meaning of the image itself, given to me first as a photograph that a friend had taken: a tender fawn amongst trilliums. That friend had just lost her adult son, and I was carrying her in my heart. They were the reason I was creating this image.
That sweet and delicate doe crossed my path with her little spotted shadow several more times over the coming days.
I had nearl finished the scene with the doe and fawn when I realized there needed to be a third thing. Raven stepped in, a dark fairy bearing her gift. I finished the piece, and put it on a shelf.
Weeks later, my community lost a tender youth to suicide. In grief I took the pastel down and showed it to a friend. “It seems charming, you know, until you understand that the flowers are monkshood, aconite, poison. Then you realize that something is happening here, something you can’t understand, something that might not mean anything or might cost the doe and fawn everything.”
My friend told me she was learning homeopathy. That aconite is used for fear, and shock. It is helpful for people who are frantic after hearing bad news or after an accident. Who need to be calmed by the presence of others.
I put the pastel back on the shelf and we cried some more.
A longer post exploring grief can be found on my blog,
