The world does not reflect anything superfluous. It only returns to us what our inner silence is filled with. Within each of us live light and shadow, and it is precisely their ratio that determines what we are able to perceive around us. What we see is not always the world itself. It is a reflection of our inner state.

The more love, attentiveness, and kindness there is in a person, the more clearly they manifest in the lines, gestures, and pauses of this world. Our gaze becomes an instrument of the soul. It does not merely look. It reads what is already within us. And it is for this reason that the same world can look completely different to different people.

We often think that if something is not visible, it does not exist. But the world does not become poorer. It is simply that the gaze has not yet learned to recognize that which the soul has not touched within itself. Just as the eyes of an artist see shades invisible to others, so too the heart can distinguish light and shadow, love and emptiness, joy and sorrow, hidden within ordinary things.

✦ physical oil art on oil paper