Tree of Becoming: The First Ascent

The river had already begun
long before it found its banks.

It gathered
from hidden springs,
from quiet rains,
from the patient turning
of light into earth.

The tree stood
where the current slowed,
holding sky and soil
within the same breath.

The water never hurried.

It remembered
that every bend
reveals another horizon,
and every horizon
returns the river
to itself.

Nothing was left behind.

The earth
received each passing.

The light
received each morning.

The traveller,
almost without noticing,
began to move
with the river
instead of toward it.

These paintings belong to the ongoing Tree of Becoming series. They are not depictions of a particular place but meditations on interior pilgrimage.

The solitary tree serves as an axis between earth and light, while the winding path becomes a visual metaphor for transformation. Its course is deliberately indirect, suggesting that wisdom is rarely discovered by travelling in straight lines. The landscape is stripped of incident so that colour, atmosphere, and distance become the primary language of meaning.

Across the three works, the same hill is encountered from different moments of becoming. What changes is not the destination, but the traveller's way of seeing. The paintings invite sustained contemplation, allowing light to emerge gradually from within the earth rather than descending upon it.