The Oise Valley FWN 147 1882 72 cm x 91
In out of the way places of the heart
where your thoughts never think to wander
this beginning has been quietly forming
waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire
feeling the emptiness grow inside you
noticing how you willed yourself on
still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
and the grey promises that sameness whispered
heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when, your courage kindled,
and out you stepped onto new ground,
your eyes young again with energy and dream
a path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not clear
you can trust the promise of this opening;
unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
that is one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure
hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
soon you will be home in a new rhythm
for your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Clouds, farm-buildings, grasses, saplings and
all are formed by a new rhythm of
short adjacent animated vertical brushstrokes
that provide for us
a warm and enriching fidelity
that is at once so tactile and true
yet so fresh and unpretentious
each and
every
single
vertical
colour of oil-paint
applied stroke in
a new rhythm
a symbolic gesture
fulfilling several purposes of
space receding
patterns proceeding
shapes describing of
earth’s spirit thriving
wow
Be a bud sitting quietly in the foliage
Be a smile, one part of wondrous existence
Stand here
There is no need to depart
let your soul sense the world that awaits you
stand up for what you stand on
When a few years later, Pissarro and Gauguin met Paul Signac, and he described to them his idea for the future of his artistic expression, they remembered the paintings that together they had painted with Cezanne. They rushed Signac off to Pere Tanguy’s art shop in Montmartre to show him this painting of The ‘Oise Valley’ by Cezanne. Signac was dumb-founded. He persuaded his recently widowed mother to buy it for him, and he began to let his soul sense what awaits
(poems by John O’Donogue, Joseph J. Rishel, Thich Nhat Hanh adapted by MB)
Pissarro Les Carrieres du chou 1882
Gauguin Chou quarries 1882
Paul Signac Notre Dame de la Garde 1905/6