What a beautiful image and such a nice mouth full of words to go with it.... A joy to see and read..

Incredibly well done carol!!

How beautiful is this image, amazing. xx

Outstanding work. God bless.

Lovely work.

Very sweet and romantic !!

Very beautiful image and romantic verse. Truly outstanding work. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Carol, this lovely work of art is truly inspirational. The detailing in you're work is always second to none and the themes are so well thought out.

Magical

very 'uplifting!" Beautiful color scheme!!!

A wonderful tribute!

When I return to RR, I often wait till near the end of my 2 or 3 day commenting sessions to comment on your work, because I want to have "all the space I need," to do it. Tonight, I'm only halfway through my comments this time around; but when I looked at this upload another time, I realized I never commented on it, ever. I truly thought I had. I wrote something about it to you, but it wasn't "in full"; and I"m sorry I didn't say more until now, because I had a lot of feelings about it since it went up. So I'll try to find the words tonight---halfway through my short return to RR---because it's beautiful, poignant, and deep to anyone who's lost someone dear, even though your relationship with LJ was very special indeed... Your poem touches a deep reality, that when two souls meet and know they have a soulmate connection, they transform each other and the world around them. They just do. Many times in meditation, I sensed that, when we tapped something deep inside ourselves, our physical forms stayed the same, but we take on whole other forms inside of us: We'd become like birds, when our souls were flying; like the sun, when we shined; like dark clouds, when we were occluded inside, etc. Some Native Americans explain "shape shifting" that way: That it isn't so much actually "becoming" a fox---it's taking on deep fox-like characteristics in their souls. At that level, at the innermost level, they become a fox---which, to some, is as deep as the physical fox. I fully understand how meeting and then sharing your life with your soulmate can transform you and LJ...that, while you lived your lives in the forms that everyone else saw, your inner persons became those flying animals made of light and radiant hues; and the moon and world transformed as well. It "harmonized" with you. At the inner level, that's just absolute. The author, Elie Wiesel, said something like this: "There are realities inside of us that are more real than the realities outside of us..." He was raised a Jewish mystic, and was taken to Auschwitz as a boy, where he lost most of his family and community; and he simply learned that the outer world is but one world, and the inner can be---if one taps it deeply---as great as the outer. So your vision of you and LJ is as real than the two people that others saw each day. And those who knew you well must've seen that inner reality, whether they said it in words or not. They must have felt its presence. So in a way, your image is a painting of what some others saw. Maybe more than "some". Who knows how much the human race sees, with their inner eyes... (And incidentally---please allow me this---you used some beautiful poetry in your words. 3 of the 4 stanzas end on "universe of lavender blue," and the other ends in a rhyme---"true". Or, for instance, you have sound rhyme in the 4th stanza, with "go-ing/stay-ing" at ends of successive lines, "part/apart/heart"; even ending 2 lines in "n"---"And then/when the luster of the moon"---or even "then/when", or "strong and true/in their universe of lavender blue"...I know I don't usually do poetic "scansion" with your poems, but I felt it was time because, whether you do these things consciously or no, they're part of the music of your words. And here, with the inspiration of a great inner love guiding you, you wrote a very poetically charged poem.) As for the image...there are clearly "two" unicorns, but they are truly galloping across the cosmos in communion. They're 2 unicorns, but galloping in union. I assume that, even on those days when your and LJ's lives were so different (even days when you 2 were "miles apart"), you both had an inner connection that continued to gallop in the communion you painted above. It's hard to explain that to people, I know, but anyone who's experienced that deep connection knows it. It remains at a deep level, no matter what. (A couple can be still or even pained, externally, but they still may be doing a magnificent dance duet, internally. You seem to have always known that inner reality.) You've rendered both unicorns in cascading hues and strokes, falling down like bits of flame. In mixes of aqua blues and purples and greens and oranges; and your shadows are deeper versions of those hues. The mouths and noses are beautifully intensified (I love the deeper purple on the further unicorn and the deeper greens etc on the closer one). The manes are hair, but also light, even waters: They flow like hair that's been turned into 'liquid silver' by the force of love and communion. And your corns---ie, the horns (they both come from a similar root, witness "cornucopia," "horn of plenty/copious horn")---are like childrens' candy canes: a beautiful part of the vision. (With little stars on top, like beacons!) They gallop on top of clouds, and they're topped by a moon that contains their reflections in-union with each other: This is something you've done before, ie, putting the creature you've painted in the lower half of your art into an orb above them, as if their higher souls were looking down in peace, as their more earthly souls go about living. Of course, I don't think you could call the lower unicorns "earthly," here (because they're dancing in the stars); but I still feel like the faces in the moon are a higher consciousness enjoying the bliss of themselves, below. That's very much what one sees in deeper states of meditation, btw. And as I've said here before, to the ancient Hindus, the highest state of consciousness was "lila," cosmic play. Or cosmic dance. That's very much at home here. The moon, then, is surrounded by white lights, like snow. And it fractures and falls around the lovers, in "falls". The moon itself is filled with whites, as if, the higher we go, the more everything will become light. And the unicorn itself is so full of symbolic connection, both in ancient Europe and ancient India; and it's most often a messenger of purity or transcendence. And maybe beyond everything else, your image makes me think of the ancient belief that, when two lovers love each other deeply, they enact light and radiance that the world has been 'waiting' for for a long, long time. The lovers simply give that radiance it's "open door," its chance to shine again. This is what I feel here. I know there isn't an image or poem that can capture a deep connection in one's life. But since this is a snapshot of it---an inner snapshot---and given how deep it goes and how deep you go, it's a snapshot that carries a huge piece of the cosmos with it. I hope that you're at peace with LJ more with each year, I mean with his passing and with his presence in your life without his physical presence, which I know you must miss. The ancient Hindus said that a great love was forged through many, many lifetimes: That the 2 souls may have met and helped each other through many lives, not just one; and that their connections were so deep and indelible that they simply HAD to meet again in the next life. I can't prove any of that, of course, but I do know that such love can feel that way, to the core. And I truly think that the connection you had with LJ carried that much inside it. And it seems, from everything you've done since, that part of your path is giving what you got from that connection to the rest of the world...which you are doing each day...And maybe LJ is working through you in that way, even when you're asleep. The "dark night of the soul" was conceived as a night in which divinity works through the soul while the soul is resting; it fills the soul and prepares it for more giving, the next day. I've often felt that the love between you and LJ works through you in that way...at least that's part of what it does. Whatever or however, it's very much alive in you, and I'm very grateful you shared it in this form for us. While I'm a month late commenting on it, I find it as moving now as I did when it went up; and I wish you great blessings as you walk with this love, and let it transform you...A beautiful poem and image, filled with sights and sounds from what the ancients would've called "an eternal connection". Beautiful touching work, Carol. I wish you great radiance from all that's behind it. (I'll comment on your other most recent images tomorrow...)

Mark, I'm so honored and grateful for your comment on this artwork. Your vision and perspective always touches me deeply, and also teaches me, too. You saw so much in what I was feeling when I created this, and went even deeper than even I knew. LJ and I had a soul connection that really is impossible to explain in words, but does inspire my art beyond what I ever imagined. Thank you for seeing what only you can see, for saying what only you can say, and for knowing what only you can know. You are a gift, my friend.