Ember Chadwick

Centennial Valley Triptych

New Beginnings

We are welcomed to a new world as we pass through sheets of white snow.

When the curtains are parted, the sun sneaks in to illuminate the dewy grass.
Hazy in the distance, birds flit in and out of view.
Their calls bounce off of the mountain faces surrounding the valley.
Ghosts of songs can be heard only by those who search for them.

There is something about the way the ground feels underneath my feet.
I feel a great power, not one of my own but the power of the dirt.
The earth is humming. Breathing.
Squirrels pop in and out of their holes, wandering only to find something to eat.
They must be patient.

It feels as if something is waiting to happen.

There is pent up energy in the atmosphere which must be released.
The skies produce snow until the clouds have nothing left to offer.
After days of fog, the sunrise is finally visible in the morning.
Something new has been born.
Getting High

Searching for a new mode of viewing the landscape,

The eagle sits atop the highest tree.

She scans the fields for movement. Too far away, she sees nothing.
Everything becomes too small.

The eagle is hungry. She must find a more useful spot.

Though the eagle does not benefit from the scale of distance,
People surely are humbled by perspective.

To stand atop a mountain and look over your space,

Even the strongest of people become small.

Once all else is stripped away, we realize that our scale

Is no more or less true than that of other beings.

Roads, homes, towns become the size of ants.

The people left behind can no longer be seen.

The sky, on the other hand, becomes huge.

It seems to never end.

The earth, too, does not shrink. It extends further.

More space than we could ever need stretches in all directions.

We become too small to see.

We are humbled.
Dance

When you dance, you become one with the world around you.
Electrons from the floor are picked up by your feet and flung about you.
Tiny sparks ignite as your heels click against the wood.
Your movements create currents of air, powerful winds that stir the atmosphere.

You are performing an ancient ritual that is coded into the fabric we were sewn from.
Metamorphosis, evolution, processes huge and small are dances with primordial forces.
We tango with the laws of physics and we spin until they no longer make sense.
We jump and leap and release beams of light from our feet.

The rhythm of our steps taps out a code that is transmitted through the earth.
Dance allows us to speak to and connect with each other.
We seek and connect and convey without words.
This is the silent language of the earth.

She spins and tilts and whirls about the sun and skies,
Knowing only her movements
And the light of the stars.
This is what we feel as we dance.