Soaking in the glowing yellow-green light that seeps through leaves, gazing into the illuminated buzz of a field of Goldenrod, reading the rhythmic sway of Black Willow trees, and waking under glowing tent cover begin to capture an essence of the comforting overwhelm that I experience when present in the natural world. Through the months of August to October of this year, I engaged in a ritual of meditation, walking among the wild ecology of my family's farmland and its Illinois prairie grasses, foraging Goldenrod and Willow plant materials and reflecting on the significant source this land has provided me in healing. I experience the world with a state of heightened sensitivity to emotional and physical stimuli and hold with me the intricacies of complex post traumatic stress. While my subconsciouses default state may be that of overwhelm, meditation and the discipline of encountering the stillness and luminance of the natural world are anchors I’ve found crucial for my wellbeing. My work aims to express the significance of these anchors. As the natural world grounds me and brings comfort, my family is another rooting system. The natural world and the importance of my family meld their significance in the symbolism of my family's farmland- in the prairie grasses and wooded hills and the mutual tending that takes place among me, my family and the land. Honoring this, Goldenrod and Willow dye plants are used to color this quilt top tented covering and are foraged entirely from the prairies of my family's farmland. As the life cycles of Goldenrod and Willow continue, their properties and possibilities are now preserved in this stage of these fabrics' life cycle. I too, am held in the security these fabrics now provide- this time of my life kept in record by the fixing of plant and iron dyes to reclaimed fabric. By suspending this work in the field of prairie grasses its dyes were foraged from, I proclaim my gratitude and symbolize the magnitude of its importance to me, offering its presence as a gift returned to the land. In creating a tented covering in this gallery, I hope to share the sanctuary I have found with a public audience and provide opportunity for an individual encounter with illumination and stillness. The natural world exudes an inarguable confidence- her persistence endures in beauty as it does in destruction. The stubborn return of the sun illuminates the sky and allows life to seep into Earth's living things. Amid events of storms, floods, drought, or fire, wildlife will be affected and irrevocably changed, but the creeks will continue to flow and new plants will grow along her banks, pushing in persistence through the mess of debris. Her cycle of destruction and restoration will continue, and she will do all of this without my input or control. To Mother Nature, I am no different than the willows in the riverbanks that push their way through the soft earth after the floods. Perhaps I can believe this too and will myself to grow in the ways the willows do, strong among soggy soil and singing birds.