Crossing Guards - artful thoughts from Radical Wellness

This week from my online course RADICAL WELLNESS we had to give some time to thinking about a childhood hurt or issue and how it became used for good when you became an adult.

CROSSING GUARD 10x7 ink on watercolor paper

My childhood was lonely and isolated. Most of the time my only sister and I couldn't play together for fear that we would fight and get too loud. We were not allowed to have friends over or have birthday parties until we were well into high school.
 
 At 6 I was told I was too old for my menagerie of stuffed things and off they went into the trash. To this day I don't know what the motivation was for discarding the pleasures of childhood but that was the rule.

 My best childhood stuffed animal was Quincy- a pink, big headed buttoned eyed dog. He protected me from all things that went bump in the night and was the leader of the fluffy animal pack. He was the object that felt and understood my pain, he dried my tears and held all my secrets. He helped me cross the bridge between childhood to girlhood.

My art imagery contains symbols of childhood and a "guardian" of sorts that helped me through. Quincy was it. He guarded my Crossing until I could understand that there was One who was the True Guardian. And so the poem and artwork...

                                         The Crossing Guard
      There is a journey that begins by crossing the empty desert of solitude.
      The dry air of Silence burns the lungs as the wasteland of loneliness scorches the soul.
      Yet there is hope in this journey and reward to be claimed,
        for here the streams of imagination flow
      Watering the secret garden of childhood- where fantasies and daydreams flourish.
      Here loneliness becomes a sanctuary- a place of renewal and strength.

I am grateful for this lesson of childhood for it has left me with little fear of Silence or Loneliness. They are the companions that lead to His Sanctuary.