While receiving the gift of a massage from a dear friend, I found myself touching into long-held emotions that lay beneath the pain I felt in my body. I became willing to experience those feelings without withdrawing from them. By nightfall of that same day, my hands ached and my fingers burned from having worked so long with the pastels. This series sprang of its own volition from a tender, initially raw and vulnerable core.

Much later, I showed these images to a visiting friend. She ran out to her car and returned with her sketchbook. Quickly she turned to a group of pages where nearly the same images were drawn. I have come to believe that in those few hours following my massage, my willingness to fully open to what I felt yet did not fully understand allowed to me wander in the collective unconscious, that often elusive ground that connects us all.