Reckoning with the Unconscious #16

Watercolor on 9" x 12" coldpress paper
Original (one-of-a-kind)

What we hear often enough, we begin to repeat. What we repeat long enough, we begin to believe. Language, posture, emotional responses, even convictions can be inherited without examination, until what began as adaptation hardens into something that feels indistinguishable from the self.

Living here in the Yucatán, parrots are a daily presence. Their voices move through the trees and the open air with a fluency that can stop you mid-step. There is a moment, hearing one call out with the emotional pitch of a child, when the body responds before the mind catches up. That gap, between what sounds true and what is, has been a quiet teacher. The instinct to echo is not dishonest. It comes from a desire to connect, to participate, to be welcomed. But there is a quieter question beneath it. Where does the adapted voice end and the true one begin? Where does your voice feel most alive, not the rehearsed one, not the inherited one, but the one that remains steady even when it isn't approved? Authenticity is not the absence of influence. It is the ongoing return to what is internally chosen.

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