01/31/2026
I’m glad to share that my painting “In Her Light” has been selected for the 5th Annual Exhibition “In Her Own Time” — International Women’s Day Art Show 2026 at the King Heritage & Cultural Centre in King City, Ontario.
🗓 Exhibition: January 31 – March 28, 2026
Opening Reception: February 7, 1–2 PM
Last August, the universe connected the dots and led me to a First Nations Community on Manitoulin Island, where I took part in an ancient ceremony, meant to heal the soul. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life.
The idea was to recreate the feeling of being in a mother’s womb before birth. The ceremony itself was deeply moving. The Elder who led it offered blessings to Nature and the Creator for everything we are given. Inside the lodge, hot stones were brought in and arranged at the centre, eventually forming the shape of a turtle. They were so hot I could see the red veins glowing inside them.
One of the participants began sprinkling to***co and cedar leaves over the stones, and I had never seen such a gentle kind of burning. The moment the leaves touched the heat, they transformed into tiny red fireflies of light. It was a magical moment.
After the prayers to the Universe, the Elder closed the lodge and began to sing. It was complete darkness. I lost my sense of time and place, and that disoriented me. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as though I might die again, less than three years after my last near-death experience.
In that moment, I met all my fears. My body started to shake. That was when I realized how powerful our imagination and our mind truly are. Our thoughts alone can place us in unimaginable situations. I know this for certain because I was fully present in every breath. It was a real encounter between my physical body and my inner self.
I whispered to the woman beside me that I had to leave because I couldn’t breathe. She told me I couldn’t leave before the Elder finished his song. That statement terrified me. I began to shake, completely soaked with sweat, and I started to cry.
She told me to lower my face closer to the earth, where the air was cooler, and to breathe more deeply. She said, “There is a reason why you are here.” I followed her advice, still crying and shaking. Then she hugged me.
It was a powerful moments, when a woman I didn’t know, whose face I hadn’t even seen before we entered the lodge, showed me kindness in complete darkness, at a moment when I felt utterly lost.
In that moment, I was no longer thinking about life before or after. I was simply learning how to breathe in order to survive.
The heat and humidity were intense. My body and my mind were not prepared. That was when I discovered I was claustrophobic, a feeling I didn’t know I carried, but one that suddenly filled me with fear.
As soon as the song ended, I stepped outside. An hour later, when the ceremony was complete, the woman who had hugged me came to find me and introduced herself. We felt deeply connected, as if she had been my guardian during a difficult passage, a stranger who reached for me when I could no longer tell what was right or wrong, when the only instinct left was to survive.
Her name was Niibin (It is summer), Ojibwe.
That evening, when I returned to my art studio, I felt compelled to recreate those tiny red sparks of cedar and to***co that had stayed in my mind. I began with black paint, but instead of red sparks, a face emerged, drawn in white contours against a dark background. I followed my intuition. I knew I had been changed by the ceremony.
I painted a woman, and behind her, I placed the moon. I felt the pain I had carried inside myself for a long time. I painted her in a pose as if she were holding a child, but her hands were empty.
This was me. A woman without a child. A woman who had tried, dreamed, and prayed, yet held only invisible pain.
She stood in the darkness of night, and only a faint trace of light outlined her shadow, the shadow of her unrealized future.
I stopped and cried quietly for a long time, until I felt as though I had poured the paint straight from my heart, the disappointment of trying, the suffering I had endured.
The next day was August 15. In Christianity, it is known as the “Dormition of the Mother of God.” I looked at the painting again, and I no longer felt the pain the same way. I no longer saw her in darkness. Her empty hands now felt like hands that had already given, and then closed gently to protect herself.
I changed the background from dark to gold, and instantly, night became day. The moon became the sun, and her face began to glow. She was no longer just a woman. She became a Madonna without a child, but Nature blessed her with peace in her face and in her soul.
This painting does not resemble my other work. Its expression and shapes are different. There is no refinement in her face, hands, or body, but her soul is fully present. It is protected by two blue hands, outlined with light.
This light does not come from outside. It is her own light, shining through the shadows of her silent, hidden wounds, which have finally found their way home.
This painting is for every woman who has lost a child, for those who carry the ache of never having one, and for those who have walked the painful, courageous road toward motherhood. It is offered as a quiet gesture of love, remembrance, and hope, for every woman who embraces her pain and allows her soul to rest in serenity.
