This elemental painting was inspired by an experience the artist had that felt like a moment frozen in time. As she sat on the coast of Cambria, California, she observed the steely blue stone edifice and noticed how stark-white lines seemed to move throughout the rocks like a system of meridians. Within these intersecting abstractions, the artist perceived the energetic world manifested onto the material plane.

In the center of the canvas beneath the blackness is a blue rock with dark markings, representing the heart. The upper right section of the canvas portrays a visual metaphor of a large bird taking flight. This vision gave the artist an acute sense of the earth’s vitality, and of humanity’s great responsibility to protect, respect and listen.

This experience fused a connection for the artist between the knowledge of the many First Nation cultures that she has met around the world. She refers specifically to how ancient cultures emphasize the need to respect the energy meridians of the earth in the same way that we do our own bodies; serving as another example of the balance between our inner microcosm and the outer macrocosm. For the people of the First Nations, these places of intersecting energy fields are sacred sites reserved for worship—never to be built upon.