In this 'Speckled Horse Shows His Heart Canvas Print' you can see a brown speckled horse sticking his tongue out to reveal a heart (with a stalk that makes it look like a cherry!)
This is one steed that clearly wears his heart not on his sleeve, but on his tongue!
In the ever expanding 'self love' collection, I thought it would be nice to add in a piece of art that was a little different. Where the representation of loving yourself seems, at first, to be clear (there is after all a heart displayed on the tongue of our speckled horse, so that's clear right? Hmm... maybe not)
At the top of the heart you can see a stalk, which is in the shape of a cherry stalk, so that there is just a hint of doubt as to the origins of that love.
Mostly we think that the horse has just stuck out his tongue and that his heart is on it, because he has so internalised the idea of loving himself that expressions of love are always coming out of his mouth.
Perhaps that is so...
But the cherry stalk also flips that idea on its head. Perhaps the love is something that he has consumed (as he might a cherry) and transformed it into something else, or perhaps he is even spitting it out (as we might a cherry stone)?
In truth, isn't love in the 'real' world just like that?
Sometimes we consume it like greedy gluttons. It is offered to us and we quickly eat it up. From a touch, or a look across a crowded room and we know instinctively, from just a glance at someone significant to us, that there is something meaningful stirring in our hearts.
Sometimes we reject it when it is offered. No cherry pie for us! (Horse art has never seemed so tasty!) Perhaps we aren't hungry? Or perhaps we reject love not because it wouldn't taste good, but because it isn't apple pie.
Sometimes our love is generated by ourselves.
We are the whirlwind.
We are the vortex.
We love ourselves fiercely, because it is in those moments of clarity that we realise that self love lies at the root of all love.
In those moments we look at the blue sky and the clouds and we know that we are enough, even as we may still aspire to be and do more.
Not because of a celestial magic wand, but because the seed of all greatness is already within us and just like any plant, it grows with the water of our love.
Here the cherry tree grows from within. So, naturally, it would bear fruit so plentifully, that even as you opened your mouth to speak, affirmative words, loving words, heartfelt words, may pour out (or stay, momentarily, balanced on the end of your tongue...)
Sometimes we seek out love like a thirsty man in a desert. But all around us is only sand.
In such moments it is our thoughts that nourish us.
I hope this one can nourish you.
