Image: Passage of the faithful - © Charles Outhier, 2025
Here are the signs, here are the signs
think g’s dream.
Here are the signs, here are the songs
thank o’s delightful dance, oh yes!
Will I spy the shape shifting hallway
as this me navigates yet another way-station?
Will I be me after door number C opens?
Now as expected knock, knocks
at the tombstone signaling one sign or another
signing off. Mine the crap. Crave
a cross. Clock the creep.
Shall eye shift and shape the tracks
tracking pupils with a serpent’s zeal,
zoning who’s way tracks?
Uniting these signs with dots and dashes,
opening a source,
stocking a pond,
even as others disrupt, divide,
and sing songs of God’s shifting shape.
SOLD.
saved...
knot slipping, not now,
confess and cross over the tracks,
to track number three,
to Tall Trees departing,
as DIY signs exit stage left,
towards the sea.
Part of my creative process is working with words and using Procreate software to trace images that I'm exploring, such as doors and passageways. The source of the image Passageway of the faithful is a picture I took at the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. This monastery was founded in 963 AD. After completing the Shepherding A Butterfly collection doors and passageways such as this one are some of the imagery I find myself exploring, an exploration without a specific destination in mind. I'm allowing my mind and my hands a space to play without concern for including the result in a particular artwork. I will likely burn this image on a wood canvas next and if I do I'll elaborate more on this.
The words of Here are the signs, here are the songs are a way for the mind to also play. Words and titles are an important part of the creative process for me and not an afterthought. Writing poems such as this give me a literary landscape to explore in the same manner as the image above.
Each artist has their own way of composting and I thought I'd share this here to give a sense of mine as I walk, play, and dance towards whatever pyrographic artworks come next.