This is a picture of my screen from Suzette Clough’s website. I include her site here so you can go to it, meet her and see the work and language she is bringing into the world after 40+ years of development. If you’re interested, take everything you can from her.

I am her student.

I am also a Visual Medicine Facilitator, trained by Suzette. It’s some of the most personal and creative, spiritual work I’ve ever done.

I can only imagine how many times this painting has been looked at, and how many blessings and messages it has given. I’ve personally never heard anyone talk about it, so I may not see what others see. Or what I’m about to say has been said before. But it stopped me in my scrolling and speaks to me:

In this painting I see a person who has set off onto a hero’s journey. This person has not only just left the shore but is on their way. Possibly already making their way over a few streams, and in the thick of the landscape, rocky cliffs, fertile moss-mud, valleys, fields of clover… deep into the terrain of the journey. Could she possibly know that up ahead there is a wider, deeper river? That a choice will inevitably be made? Will she decide to follow the river upstream to see where it came from? To climb to the water’s spring or glacier or snow-capped mountain and drink from the source? Or will she follow it downstream to discover where it leads? Or will she choose to wade or swim through the river and leave this water way behind her once and for all, trailblazing a new path, into the wild, slightly exciting unknown?

Or will she find refuge and rest on an island where she can be safe for a night to gather strength to continue her crossing? This river may take her in more than one direction. If you are drawn to the island, it means you need to pause and rest before continuing on your journey.

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