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This poem came to me late one summer as I watched bees and butterflies gently moving through the lavender. The friendly looking carder bumble bees bending the stems of the flowers as they landed like notes being played, the evening sun pouring through giving them a golden glow and reflecting off the cabbage white butterflies in flashes of white.

At the centre of this painting is the symbol representing the sacred syllable  “Om” from the Hindu religion.  The plant life extends out from this centre. As in much of my work I wanted to capture the life force flowing through these plants. The tree bears fruit but no foliage; the flowers, foliage, fruit and tree can all be seen as one plant. In a way I was trying to convey how all the plant life of nature can be seen as one entity flowing with the life force of God but not holding the individual soul.

Circling the symbol of the Om are symbols of my own design representing different facets of creation. After these symbol comes the poem written in the characters of modern English.

Through using this connection between symbols and modern English I wanted to show the relationship between art and science.

The written world is a symbol that represents thought. Just as the Om is an artistic symbol so is the written word of English and all other language. Art and written language share a similar genesis. So art is a corner stone of science as it was interwoven with the symbolic recording of thought that led to the modern written word that is a fundamental part of scientific and technological development.

   Through scientific and technological learning humanity is beginning to understand some facets of the “conundrum” of life. The tree in this painting can in a way be seen as the tree of life. Maybe through the discoveries of science and the interaction of man with nature we may begin significantly to extend our life span. Immortality might be the fruit of the tree of life but something of the meaning of life can be glimpsed in the beautiful dance of the butterflies and heard in the gentle buzz of the bees.