Illustration Friday - "Wilderness"

Funnily enough, I found an old drawing of mine that has a similar name with this week's theme...

It's called "The Wilderness".

This was drawn almost twelve years ago after I read a book on the life of Jesus. Now I'm not a Christian but I do feel a lot of empathy for what Jesus went through, especially forty days and nights in the desert. Such emotional battles he would have to fight alone to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

That big guy is the Demon he has to fight, and he's quite an opponent for Jesus. The poem is really inspiring and I shall type it here in case my writing is illegible.

The Wilderness

Up from the Jordan straight His way He took

To that lone wilderness, where rocks are hurled

And strewn, and piled - as if the ancient world

In strong convulsions seethed and writhed and shook,

Which heaved the valleys up, and sunk each brook,

And flung the molten rock like ribbons curled

In midst of gray the mountains swirled: - 

A grim land, of a fierce, forbidding look.

The wild beasts haunt its barren stony heights,

And wilder visions came to tempt Him there;

For forty days and forty weary nights,

Alone He faced His mortal self and sin

Chaos without, and chaos reigned within,

Subdued and conquered with the might of prayer.

Caroline Hazard, 1856 - 1945

P.S. Incidentally "Jorden" is the Norwegian word for Earth... to me it almost meant he left Earth to a spiritual realm to fight his demons and beasts.

:) pixy