Pillars of Birch XV

Spring air stirs the leaves, and the birches whisper in a language older than words. The masked figure listens, standing between the pillars of this living cathedral. The wind moves the coat, sending ripples through the fabric like unseen currents beneath the surface of a lake.

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. This grove, bathed in shifting light, is such a place—a sanctuary, a threshold, a stage for contemplation.

The mask erases the familiar, turning the figure into something universal. It is not a portrait of one but of many, of all who have stood in nature’s presence and felt themselves dissolve into its vast and endless breath.