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A fox crossed in front of me on my way into town the other day, a flash of hot orange on the new fallen snow. At the edge of the road, she stopped, turned and watched me pass, then slipped under a fence and disappeared. I wondered at the encounter between animal and human; the meeting of eyes, the spark of recognition. She, on her way to hunt for dinner in an open field. I, on my way to hunt for dinner at the grocery store. Would she be distracted as I by other offerings in the hunting ground?  And when her hunting was done, did she, like me, remember the intersection where our eyes met? Was the scene etched into her retinas? Or did she just move on, a zen master living in the present, mindful only of the now.

This is my first completed painting of 2011. Hopefully an omen of good things to come, as the bison brings abundance to those she chooses to walk beside. The underpainting for this painting was another bison that I painted a couple of years ago, but it had issues and I knew I had to pretty much start over. Some of the original painting peeps through, but for the most part it is a completely different composition.  

I've been thinking alot lately about perceptions, and how they color the world we see. I think in this painting, Bison rushes in to remind us that there is plenty for all, we just have to open our eyes and the doors of perception to see the abundance all around us.

But it is not enough to just see the abundance with our eyes, we have to be truly grateful for all we have been given to feel the abundance with our hearts. As our hearts swell with gratitude, we make room and attract more.

Bison reminds us of this important relationship between abundance and gratitude.

The title for this painting was inspired by a poem by Lloyd Michael Lohr, called "A Doorway of Perception".

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