This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness Excerpt Chapter #46 Off The Mountain Of Silence Flows A River Of Words
When my mother came to live with me as an adult, I asked her, “What was your greatest worry about me when I was a child?”
She answered without hesitation, “That you would find a sanctuary on a mountaintop, and we would never see you again.” Instead, I try to create sanctuary and invite the trustworthy in. I have always craved solitude while pondering what makes people happy. In my contemplative time, I am always thinking about others. I believe my best contribution is the creativity that comes from caring about everyone—all life forms and the environment in my solitude. Art is my way to reconcile these two potentially opposing impulses. I do my work alone in preparation to give it to the world. While apart from others, I think, draw, and write, pondering what makes people happy.
Years of prose in front of me, I wonder if I would have survived without these pages as my sacred witness. Pages and pages of healing words. So many things I needed to say but did not dare speak them out loud. Some of these truths so desperately needed to be expressed but were too dangerous to be shared. These sacred witness pages, keepers of my secrets, saving me from the quiet, keeping my heart from going silent.
Clare Cooley
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