“Among the fierce and broken-hearted, softness is just as much a revolution as anything.”
Strength in softness is a theme that comes up over and over again in my work. So much of my painting process is about exploring transformation and the unfolding of the human spirit and particularly exploring this through the lens of being a woman.
A flower opens and continues to open, gently unfolding and revealing itself through time.
My journey has been similar in that my exploration has been about becoming aware, more and more, of the grandness within. Like a flower, I have learned to unfold myself, petal by petal, each unfoldment bringing me to fuller and fuller bloom.
But I have also found that my willingness to bloom lies in how much softness and ease I can tolerate, and this is interesting to me.
“Tolerate?” You wonder.
Yes, tolerate.
For I have learned that tolerating good things can be very difficult for the human psyche.
As Marianne Williamson wrote,
“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
And, indeed, psychology reveals that we sometimes shrink ourselves in order to not outshine our loved-ones.
On certain topics in which those around us are limited, we make decisions early in life that we will hide ourselves out of love, and in doing so we begin to close the petals in on ourselves.
Rather than opening and unfolding, we learn to hide and close.
Thus, my work as an artist has very much been about opening those petals again, unveiling the veiled, and breaking free from the illusion.
For the truth is, we cannot help others by hiding our brilliance. Only when we allow ourselves to unfold and reveal the heart of the rose, that inner brilliance within each of us, can we ever hope to walk through life as the empowered beings we are meant to be.
Only when we rest in the sun, dusted in gold, can we finally know our true grandness.
So this is my homage to that soft strength, that gentle power, that trust that everything is working in perfect harmony always…
…to that sweetness of resting in abundance without having to do anything.
Dusted in Gold by Camille Selhorst
Call me by name
But do not forget
To come crashing
As the birds
fly their way to heaven
With the swiftest of wings.
You are but a single leaf
On a soft breeze,
And when your heart shatters,
Remember that
You are not broken.
For even as the world breaks,
A dream has awoken inside you.
Like a droplet of gold
in a sea of starlight,
It waits for your beckoning.
All you must do
is know it is yours
And the hand of the divine
Will move mountains
At your call.
For life gives you all
That you know you belong to -
Even as you rest,
Eyes close,
Dusted in gold
And bathed in a light
more beautiful than the sun.