My immediate past has centred on grief, lament and loss; personally and societal.

Increasingly my creative energy was absorbed by the imminent passing of my mother and a terminally ill childhood friend. As I emerged from the anguish of their passing, I focused more positively on the aspects of life: theirs and ours. To celebrate beauty and praise.

Researching the life of St. Francis of Assisi became inspirational. He went through the lowest of lows:  “The miserable emptiness of his life suddenly appeared before him; he was terrified at his solitude, Memories of his past assailed him with intolerable bitterness ...In such hours of moral anguish we seek refuge either in love or faith. By a holy violence he was to arrive at last at a pure and virile faith ...”[1]

In that pure faith he found beauty: “When he found an abundance of flowers, he preached to them and invited them to praise the Lord as though they were endowed with reason. In the same way he exhorted with the sincerest purity cornfields and vineyards, stones and forest and all the beautiful things of the fields, fountains of water,... earth and fire, air and wind, to love God and serve him willingly. Finally, he called all creatures brother ... he discerned the hidden things of nature with his sensitive heart, as one who had already escaped into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God.”[2]

[1] Paul Sabatier, The Road to Assisi, p.10

[2] Thomas of Celano, St Francis of Assissi, p.72-73