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Sometimes doing art is a kind of healing. This painting, in particular, began with a memory of a moment many, many years ago, my earliest memory, I think. My not-yet-huge family was standing on a hill watching an itinerant carnival spinning a ferris wheel and merry-go-round on a lot in Northwood. A very small me, little more than a toddler, was circling my father, round and round, my hand self-tethered to his knees. But when I looked up, my father’s face wasn’t there. A strange man stared down at me. Of course, I was terrified by my father’s seeming disappearance. It was a momentary separation, but one that carved a missingness that has lived all these years in me.

During my meditation practice recently, I saw the idea of this painting: What if I sat with God on that hill of my imagination looking at horses freed from the merry-go-round and a ferris wheel turning in the stars? What if we looked together at the missingness that lives in the center of all relationships to see there the longing for completeness as a holy quest. I think that my own father, now in heaven living in perfect love, understands this now. I feel him scooping me up to look at the stars he loved so much. “Look, Kitty, that is Orion the Hunter and that bright one in his belt is Betelgeuse, one of the great navigational stars.” It brought him home when he flew rescue missions in the South Pacific during World War II. It guides me home today.