A RECONNECTION OF THE HEART

At the beginning of this year I resolved to express myself as an artist, to expose my heart to life completely through my writings, my poetry and my art. To open my heart completely, to leave it vulnerable. To be transparent and authentic, a straight arrow flying true. To connect my heart with life, with no divisions between my heart and the heart of any other person on this planet. To let the sun shine brightly on those things left exposed so that I may know them and heal them and become one with them.

I am conscious
Oh, so conscious of my soul
The gentle breeze soothes it
While the storms of life shape it
The sun shining brightest
On those things left exposed

Portraits of a Life —The Journey of Gerald Henry

A Story of Faces and Places
Of places that I’ve seen
A story of places and faces
Of faces that I’ve been

A story of many twists and turns
With more beginnings than there are ends
A story of many ups and downs
Of straight roads and of bends

The journey can't be about;

What you do—reasons change
When you do it—seasons change
Who you do it with—faces change
Where you do it—places change

It must therefore be about Being.

Being who and what you truly are—LOVE.

The only thing that exists is love. Everything else is an illusion.

We tend to think of ourselves in terms of just one or two faces, typically defined by place. The truth is, we are many faces and we present these faces from the day we are born. During our lives there are many pressures to conform, to be one face. And, there are those who will paint a single face on us and expect us to wear it for a lifetime. Such a face becomes a mask masquerading before us, as ourselves.

I saw this most clearly as a prisoner. To the guards and to society we had but one face, prisoner. Defined by place, prison. But it was here that I experienced the truth that everyone has multiple faces. Every prisoner was also son, brother, father, husband, friend, partner, lover—loved and cherished by those who saw beyond the single face, behind the mask, of prisoner.

Then, at the end of a life, before being forgotten in the mists of time, we will sum up a an entire life in a single sentence—She was beautiful. There doesn’t seem to be too much room in us to hold much more than that. So, we paint a portrait.

—A Portrait of a Life

And, it is this portrait that we hold onto—like a mental computer desktop icon. Something we can click on in our minds, start the app, and access the entire story of a loved one’s life.

Aristotle said, The aim of art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality. And, Edward Burne-Jones said, The only expression allowable in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality, not anything temporary, fleeting, or accidental.

This website and its companion book present a series of self-portraits through which I have been fortunate to access a deeper part of Self and I am thankful for this opportunity to be able to share them with you.

I fully recognize they are but brushstrokes on the canvas of life;

Compared to geologic, even biologic time
The three score years and ten of men
Are but ticks on the clock of existence
And splashes in the river of time

—Gerald Henry