Listen to the poem
Flying Free
Beloved wife, love of my life
Magnificent, brilliant, glorious light
How grateful I am, to have been the man
who kissed the hand
Of a lovely lady in a foreign land.
Those not so chance encounters
Laughing, walking, talking for hours
The light of your smile overpowered
Everything and anything that wasn’t you.
Your resistance, my persistence
For love, has an insistence all its own.
My lovely nounou, my heart always knew
That in this life it had to be you
We might have parted ways that fateful day
But destiny will have its way.
And plant one's heart where it must stay.
Your honeyed sweet receiving lips
The man in me could not resist, could not dismiss
A kiss like this, it was my bliss.
And so we journeyed to and fro
From France and back to Mexico
Until the stars aligned, and played their hand
And drew their line within the sand
Earthly belongings lost their value
I sold, I packed, I moved to you
Your laughter, I chased after evermore
No remorse. Guided by source
For love has a force all its own.
Femme bien-aimee, L’amour de ma vie
The depth of your beauty never lost on me
The diamond in my pocket burning a hole
The whispering yearning of the bird in my soul
“Veux tu devenir mon épouse”
Will you be my wife?
Endlessly shower your light on my life?
“I have to think about it” is all you said
And so I waited with bated breath
How you always made me work for it
How it always was so profoundly worth it.
“Yes” you said, and so we were wed
And the bird in my soul was fed.
The daughters that you gave to me
All three, the most exquisite
deepest parts of me
The beauty of our family, means the world to me, our legacy
You, wife and mother
Compassion presence, strength like no other
Me, husband and father
Unshakeable unbreakable guardian and protector
I would do it all over, again and again
Drink the potion of raw emotion
For love, has a devotion all it’s own
Je t’aime mon amour, celui qui j’adore
Your heart is my heart forevermore.
For years I thought I lived the dream
A gorgeous wife, the perfect life with little strife
I occupied my time with passionate pursuits
Unconscious of the glaring truths
That I was sleeping while you were weeping
For I’d been keeping
The bird in my soul in a cage
Empty and lost so long ago, I didn’t know
The pressing need for souls to grow
How it really was, I now can see
You were the one working hard for me
To pull me forth and help me find
All that was “me” hidden inside
You never gave up on me
But showed to me, my destiny
The man that I was meant to be
Thank you for being courageous,
Tenacious, always without complaisance
For love, has a patience all its own
My darling one, I come undone
At the sight of your smile bright as the sun
Once upon a time you walked this earth
As a girl like you would, being misunderstood
Proclivity for empathy, affinity, sensitivity
All seen as weaknesses, delicate fragility
But yesteryears girl is a wise woman now
Courageous questing has shown you how
To merge with nature, let it teach you and beseech you
Medicine woman, wondrous human
Truth teller, fierce dweller in the beauty of now
Your soul has a knowing of where it is going
Please know that I know, that you cannot defy to go
But choose only to listen
Intuition, recognition, revealing your mission
And as we peer through the telescope of time
My greatest wish is to walk by your side
I’m always yours, you're always mine.
No more will I burden you with having to pull me
Of my own volition I will walk next to thee
With dignity to infinity
For love has a divinity all it’s own
Take my hand, come with me
And let the birds in our souls fly free
Flying Free Poem & Painting Reveal
The Story of Flying Free
(from Eddy to Alessandra)
I met Eddy at a meditation retreat in Marco Island Florida. The very first night of the retreat I saw him through the crowd, his silver hair shining and a big smile on his face. There were probably 1800 people in that room and yet I had a sense that I was supposed to meet him. As all things meant to happen, we did met several days later at lunch when I sat at the same table. At one point Eddy leaned over and kissed his beautiful wife, Alessandra, and in that moment his love for her was palpable. I immediately had the desire to do one of my projects for these two strangers across the table. A few months later we started on what would end up being a birthday gift from him to her.
During our discovery conversation, I learned about their lives together. They met while he was visiting Mexico from Belgium on business with a friend. One night they went out to a disco and there in the crowd was this beautiful woman. The moment he saw her he was instantly smitten. He went and introduced himself and unlike anything he had done before, he kissed her hand. Like I said… he was smitten! She was not interested. He did not give up. His friend somehow knew Alessandra's sister and so dinner parties were planned and meetings happened. Though she kept insisting she was not interested they still found themselves spending time and having long conversations together. Finally, it was time for him to go back to Belgium. She walked him to his gate at the airport where they had their first kiss. He never boarded that plane.
The details of their beautiful story of love, marriage and family, both of their growth as people, her commitment to being a healer, and his desires for their future all got laid down stanza by stanza. It even included a painful time in their relationship that caused Eddy to wake up and transform his life in a way that opened him beyond anything he ever knew. The theme of the birds and their souls unfolding emerged out of nowhere. But it felt so right I went with it, and it shaped the rest of the poem and the painting.
As I painted the painting, as usual, whatever I thought I was going to paint never came to fruition. It is the surprise of what gets created that is one of my favorite parts of being an artist. It is a dance between planning and letting go. A tightrope walk between the diligence of working hard technically and surrendering and allowing something magical to come from beyond my thinking mind. The only thing I knew had to be in the painting were two birds. I chose whooping cranes because they mate for life and represent devotion.
The painting was done, or so I thought. I sat with it for a bit and then at the last minute decided to add some red to the horizon. When I revealed it to Eddy it was that red that struck him immediately as what Alessandra would most love.
The project hangs in their home in California and it is my hope that it will bring them continuous joy and forever be a symbol of his love and devotion to her.