It was 7 months into the pandemic and I had been wildly isolated (imagine a silent meditation that lasted 200 days). Thankfully I was also being protected by a very caring circle of chosen family. Sterling had started coming back around and being present again for the last couple of months. There were so many changes happening around our place, and I think he was excited about it all. He’d taken up space one day at sunset while I was sitting on the newly built deck for the greenhouse. He had some thoughts on the gardens. Not this year’s gardens or next year’s gardens, but the gardens in 10 years. I asked him to draw me a map and he laughed.

That fall and winter we fell back in love in a very present way. I hadn’t even considered this type of love with him an option anymore, much less the concept of making plans for the future together. Being widowed at such a young age curses you with an emotional intelligence you’re not meant to have for another 40 years. Coupled with new life experiences, you’re forced to grow alongside the pain instead of growing independently of it. The emotional equivalent of pressing the gas and the brakes at the same time.

I made this particular piece the day after a hike on Sterling’s birthday. Every November 8th that I’m home in Tennessee, we go for a hike for his birthday. The season of Scorpio. It’s always when the fall foliage is at it’s most brilliant, and there’s not a bug or snake to be found. I packed us a picnic and a bottle of wine and then set out on the trails behind the cabin that lead to the ridgetop. It was warm and cloudy which called for one of the last “tits out” days of the year.

I unpacked and spread out under the canopy of reds and yellows. I was hiking around and taking in this absolutely decadent treat. At some point had closed my eyes, and I was talking to him in my head. Asking questions about a myriad of things. Everything from plant hardiness in our microclimate to if our emotions are connected to our bodies or our consciousness. Do you get to take your memories with you?

Then I felt the warm beam of light hit my face. It was hot and intense and welcomed on this overcast day, so I kept my eyes closed and bathed in it. Then it shifted and I felt the light hitting deeper... before it became a tidal wave of answers and emotions. I didn’t move because I was afraid it would end. I tried to stay open and receptive like a satellite. It lasted so long that I finally opened my eyes, and I traced the beam of light through the leaves and to the source. I could physically see these ideas and thoughts riding the light down, pulsating all around it like inter-dimensional hitchhikers. I looked around and it totally was overcast for miles in either direction. Nothing was sunlit except for my damn head, so I rode it out until it was done. He’s been present and vocal in the past but this was something I hadn’t experienced. This felt like, a transfer or a download using the wavelengths around the light?

Fucking hell.