perilous calm (2026)

170 × 120 cm

flashe, graphite, frankincense, holy water and crystal pigments on canvas

During a recent health scare that drove me to the hospital emergency department, although i felt genuinely afraid for my life, the medical staff had a hard time taking me seriously because my heart rate was in stealth mode; I was in a state of perilous calm. I have come to understand that this is the result of being raised in the waters of insidious, acute fear. Fear so normalized, I did not understand that there was any other way to be.

I painted the words "to love only freely without conditions" over the words perilous calm (written in graphite), because this is how it feels to love unconditionally, to me. When we choose to feel the original flame, the love that we are created from and for, in ourselves and in everyone else, we dance a razor thin line of presence in the unknown; it feels thrillingly perilous.

To love only freely, without conditions is also the most expansive experience of love; to love the way the one great beloved (God, Allah, The Universe) loves.

When we choose to love only freely, without conditions, we leave ourselves vulnerable to betrayal and lethal forms of heartbreak.

AND, that heartbreak cracks and breaks, tenderizes and expands our capacity for love exponentially – when we remember to call in the courage to allow it. On the bottom right of this painting I see a woman, stepping onto the crest of a wave, bowed in prayer, asking for this courage.

process photos below