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Solstice Souls
September 2020
Acrylic on Canvas
60” x 48”
Completed
Medium
Dimensions
To Iver Taylor Marsh from Gaga
Before you were born but after you were named, I painted you a canvas.
I had a sense of you and loved you already. My longing and anticipation for you made me giddy. And I hoped you’d love me, too - and that we’d share this space of lifetime we’d have together. Me adoring you, soaking up every chance to hold you, soothe you, watch you learn to recognize me, run to me - and to know you owned my heart.
I was sixty years old the day you were born. My life’s breath is like the winter solstice. The winter solstice is when the sun is lowest in the sky, the shortest day of the year. It arrives (ushers, rjm) in the winter when leaves have fallen and cold air keeps lots of activities hunkered down. My time to live this life is at a shortened season phase. Most of my mortal breaths have been enjoyed.
And at this winter solstice of my life is coming a burst of newness and promise, a little soul named Iver Taylor Marsh. I love you, my Bubbie. You don’t walk to come into my house. You run, arms a wavin’, calling out fiercely, “Ga-ga! Gaga!” You find me wherever I am and squeeze me. You trust me. You choose me. When otherwise, you might clobber and wrestle Papa - to me you offer soft eyes and a gentle pat on the face.
I keep a train set, multiple balls, and carved wooden animals for you to play with. Anything at my house is your toy. Special though, are the old bouncy horses that are the ones your dad and uncle Josh rode around the world. They graze in our formal living room, waiting for your every visit.
You are an eager, passionate child with all the blazing brightness of a summer day. You are the summer solstice - the longest, sunniest day of the year! Your phase is full trees, flowers, animals all awake and feasting on the land. Yours is the long and bright future ahead. The summer solstice that invites celebration and hope.
So you, teeming with life and great promise, have been born at the winter solstice of my life. Solstice Souls is the painting I did for you, Little Mister. Our souls collide and claim each other. The heavens recognize the sort of cosmic power in our sharing a brief time of immense bonding. Polar extremes cling to the other. Our souls know it’s beautiful to have this sliver of life together.
I love you my grandson. Now and forever. We are Solstice Souls...
Upside Down Solstice Souls
I gifted Solstice Souls to my son and daughter-in-law before Iver was born. Alyssa, my beautiful daughter-in-law thought it resonated more when turned 180 degrees. As if her expectant son, the summer solstice, could also represent a sunrise emerging from and above his “Gaga”. Even today, as a three year old, Solstice Souls hangs upside down above Iver’s bed.