One morning, just before my world reassembled itself in a very unexpected way, something physical changed. My breath no longer felt entirely mine, and I found myself holding it unnaturally.

That was when the birds began to speak. I might have thought it would happen gradually, but no. It happened all at once, the night the Silent Queen came.

She appeared at the window, without sound. A barn owl, pale enough to catch the smallest sliver of moonlight. I had been asleep, but not deeply. Or maybe I was awake in the way dreams sometimes make me awake.

The owl looked at me — not without some predation, but also recognition. Recognition? Then the boundary dissolved. The window, wall, the room — all gave way, and I was pulled into a shared dream that didn't feel like imagination. It was more like remembrance.

That single visitation opened something I did not know how to close. From that point on, the birds followed me into sleep. Not all at once, thankfully. One at a time.

Many carried something with them — an image or fragment — that came into my dreams and stayed, weaving itself into the paintings beginning to form in my head.

In the beginning I thought they were only dreams. Beautiful ones, yes. And strange ones. Sort of half-remembered stories you might think don’t mean anything. But they had weight. Texture. They returned night after night, unchanged, as if waiting for me to wake up.

Each morning I woke with dream-pieces scattered that I sought to re-collect. There were sounds too that I couldn’t quite hear. The low voice of a raven who stood armored in moonlight. Armored?!

A duet of small finches singing in snow.

A procession of owls beneath pines, hooing into the wind.

The Dreams

At first, the dreams felt like fantastic fairy tales — beautiful, but slightly archaic. Over weeks, the dreams began to organize themselves, no longer separate dreams, but parts of larger whole. A super‑tale, if you will. No real beginning or end, a universe unto itself.

The Silent Queen’s dream was the seed.

From her pale gaze I felt the forest’s heartbeat — not as sound, but as if it had pressure, or gravity that united the whole. She showed me when fear did not define the night, when owls and humans were not divided by superstition.

She showed me a time when both groups were keepers of the thresholds: watchers, listeners, archivists of things that could not be said out loud, because words were reductions that diminished the whole.

She taught me — without much patience — that painting her well didn't start with her feathers or bones. The painting began when we locked eyes and I found myself face to face with the depths of her innate intelligence, dare I say soul?

That was when I realized we had made a bargain.

I would paint them, to the best of my ability, as noble creatures — not symbols, not curiosities, not decorations. And in return, they would bring me some of what it was to be them. Not to explain themselves, but to restore something that had gone dormant in us.

<end here> Part 2

The Knight Raven and the rest of the court

The Knight Raven arrived in a dream already in motion. The moonlight outlined his shape perched at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. His feathers were dark, but not opaque — his black wings iridesced with an internal rainbow. And he had a riddle for me.

“What walks unseen, yet lives within all?” He did not wait for an answer.

Instead, he showed me promises remembered long after they were broken. Oaths spoken in earnest, when oaths still mattered. He spoke of a name lost — not stolen, not hidden — but set down in the mists of time because it was no longer safe to carry.

Only later did I realize what the lesson was. Some truths cannot be looked at directly. They wait until you have learned how to ask yourself the right questions, silently. My question, was how do I paint a faithful portrait?

Then came the Rosy‑Crowned Hearts.

Two Rosy Finches. So friendly they are often overlooked. In my dream they stood together in a habitat in which they seem to thrive - on a stone mountain, cold so severe it should have stopped everything. Yet these small singers sang, a soft susurration above the wind.

Their song began to thaw what had been frozen too long. Rivers cracked open. Moss appeared where there should have been none. From bare rock, a leaf sprouted, but carried the promise of thorns. From them, I learned that silent loyalty is the best loyalty. That love ignores the powerful, because it is the real power. That often, survival itself is an act of magic.

The dreams continued.

A hawking jay cawed of winds that stay in one place, of kingdoms hidden by the cloak of intention.

A barred owl sang a lullaby that did not put me to sleep, but stirred memories I forgot I had forgotten.

A swallow traced journeys across oceans, carrying news of places and of time, and proof that some who leave, do eventually find another way back.

Each dream visitor brought a fragment. None told a whole story. And that was the point.

<a natural break>

I had to solemnize these visits. I began to paint these birds by trying to gather the dream fragments into something living. Each panel became a threshold. I mean, even more of a threshold then any painting can be. As I sat my easel, I felt I could catch a glimpse of the Queen’s ancient stillness, of the Raven’s unspoken vow, of the finches’ shared breath in winter.

With each portrait, my painting evolved. I began to paint differently, touched by the beauty, breadth and wisdom of my visitors. I stand back at this juncture to look at my creations. Each portrait stands alone. But together, they speak.

Why are the tales different? Because each bird sees the world from a different height, a different angle of risk and grace. Each carries one facet of what we have misplaced. Wisdom in silence, courage in promise, love through hardship, hope through motion.

When you look into their painted eyes, they do not ask to be believed. They ask for something simpler:

Do you remember how to see?

Maybe they chose me because it is the job of an artist to look, and see very carefully. When I go into my studio, I am careful to paint what I see, not what I think I should see. That process of focused attention creates something I think of as holy. My studio feels like a chapel of gathering, sharing and telling of stories waiting for the ones who are willing to listen without explanation.

And to that shared space the birds are still come. New ones and familiar individuals.

Waiting. Their myths unfolding one canvas at a time. My job is not capturing decoration, my job is to infuse these portraits with the language of my dreams. And if I am quiet enough — patient — I may yet remember how to not only see, but how to listen.