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THREE FACES

Image Swimming: Day 6 of 60

Image Swimming is a term I invented for a series of literary meditations inspired by visual work — in this case, the work of Deborah Koff Chapin, creator of Soulcards. I’m using the cards from Deck 2. Please visit https://touchdrawing.com/ for more on this transformative process.


Image used with permission from Deborah Koff Chapin

There are three faces here.


There is the face she shows the world, upturned and smooth with her hair swept back


to cover the shipwrecked face inside the one with her eyes closed, the one trying to find her heart with the palm of her hand without looking.


And above it all, there is her spiritface. Its giant eye watches through the trees, or from the moon, or it stares back up at her from her work. It sees everything. Her time with people, her time alone, the minor lies she tells for no reason, the kindnesses, the fuckups, all the raw material before it’s processed and packaged and shipped as “who she is.”


That spiritface opens its eye and the whole mess every broken, limping, manipulative, needy and lost and wholehearted piece of that mess


is loved


is necessary, and


is the work of art that she and only she in this world


could be.

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