Cellular Healing: When Grief Turns to Gold

The inspiration for this piece is two-fold.

First, my late parents and their colorful personalities and their shared love of English flower gardening.

Second, a song by the great Tori Amos, in which she sings of mourning the loss of her mother and how her passing is symbolized by flowers turning into gold:

You told me once
Gardens, yes, they know
Death is not the end and
Flowers burn to gold

(From “Flowers Burn to Gold” by Tori Amos)

My father always said wherever you go you must plant some flowers. He had a beautiful English rose garden that was huge. My mother loved tending to her nasturtiums, marigolds, bleeding hearts, geraniums, pansies, impatiens, hydrangeas, dahlias, and so many others.

Now that they have passed I think of them as two beautiful glorious flowers made of gold. This art reflects the moment that my grief over their deaths began to transition into this very thought. The slivers of black represent the depths of loss and the darkness of the pain and agony that comes from knowing I will never see them or hear them again — these black spaces slowly become smaller and smaller as they are enveloped by gold. The reds and pinks symbolize all that deep, deep love between us. The yellow is for all the pulsating healing light that comes from love, a light that warms the spirit and the heart like nothing else can. The gold is for the energy of my mom and dad’s new form, their new way of being, in their new timespace.