River Of Gold
A story from the Highlands
There are mornings that feel like a return.
Like the world was holding its breath just for you —
until you were ready to come back.
This was one of those mornings.
I had spent the previous months walking through shadows.
Inner winters, silent reckonings.
But something had begun to shift. Softly, steadily.
And then — this journey. This light.
I followed my heart to the Highlands.
No agenda, just the quiet knowing that I needed to be there.
The gentle knowing that after this journey I would not be the same.
And one morning, I woke to golden light pouring through the clouds,
a fine mist shimmering like stardust.
The earth felt ancient and alive.
The river, like a ribbon of light, winding through the land as if it carried stories and songs and all the things I had forgotten.
It was cold enough to see your breath.
Still enough to hear your own heartbeat.
In that silence, something inside me clicked back into place. A sense of belonging. Of being held.
Of being here — again. Alive, and golden.
The painting came after.
Back in the studio, I wanted to paint the feeling.
Not the view — but the stillness. The awe.
The sensation of standing on sacred ground after having been lost.
Of realizing the river has never stopped flowing.
Only waited for me to notice its light again.
Sometimes life opens like this – bright and slow and without fanfare.
And all we’re asked to do is step in.
To follow the current.
To trust that it’s leading us somewhere luminous.