"Stream" - A Time To Fly

"Stream" Original Painting on Rice Paper by Roberta Ann Busard

A Time To Fly

I have begun to paint again.

But what is that? What does that mean?

I never really stopped or did I? Did I pause?

I had a dream once, where I was in this great cave with a great opening with a bottomless abyss below and the infinite heavens above.

 There were streams of birds flying upwards and through in groups. I meant to leap, to join with them. Their flight called me from my very core.

But there was also space between these flocks of birds or angels. Timing was everything. And trust.

If I missed my leap, I would fall.

And hesitating, waiting for my timing to be perfect, I did not leap. And after what began as many flocks following many flocks with only short gaps in between, the flocks came fewer and farther apart, now with great gaps in between the coming of these winged creatures and no guarantees that they would even ever come again.

And I found myself alone in that cave. Alone and waiting.

My faith was tested. Would they ever come again? Would I fail to leap and lose them forever and never join in that great upward flight as one with them and their great energy and the pattern they moved upon? Would I fall endlessly into the abyss if I missed my leap?

They did not come again for a very long time. It was a time of aloneness, of mourning for them, of despair and desolation.

But, finally, they came again. I realized  the more I waited, the longer the gaps in between. One has their chances to leap or not.

Timing, leaping happens.

"Stream," one of three paintings in that series, came from that dream and its realizations some many years ago.

I find there are times when you miss your chance to leap and so you wait. There are times when being still is painful and times when it provides you with -or even requires you to find- the peace you need to center in your self.

And from there, there is falling and the fear of falling. And there is the possibility of flying, of soaring too.

Perhaps now, again, it is time to fly.

-Roberta Ann Busard

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