river of healing

As part of my working on this project, I find myself pouring over my Visions of Heaven journal. This helps me to remember ideas I've had and things I want to shoot, or things I need to print...

As a photographer, there is always a cache of negatives crying out to be printed, sometimes waiting for the right project, other times just waiting patiently for me to get my sorry behind into the darkroom! I've even made quick copies of what I want to print and paired them with scripture and ideas for this project, but other things have demanded my time first. Other shows booked, deadlines for juried events, classes, you name it. But I digress...




So this is a pair of images that I've decided I need to print up as a diptych, called the River of Healing, based on Ezekiel 47: 7 & 9, "When I returned, I was surprised by the sight on many trees growing on both sides of the river.... There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows... Life will fourish wherever this water flows." I'm back at Ezekiel's vision of heaven and this is his description of the River of Life that flows from the temple - that same one with the palm trees carved on the door posts.

I live in a town at the confluence of two rivers, the American and the Sacramento, and we can go to the edges of these rivers to enjoy the bounty of life there, especially along the American, where some time ago citizens had the foresight to preserve a large amount of wild space along the river. I've spent a fair amount of time shooting along the American, so it was pretty easy to find appropriately lush and wonderful river images to match with this bit of scripture. I'm fairly certain the final pieces will have the palm trees along the edges, but this gives an idea of how I think it will look when it's done.

(By the way, if you want to see this image or any other larger, just click on it.)