The Muse's Garden

T**S

I am often challenged about my work because I love to paint my Muse every day and most often she is topless... It seems like a complaint in its form – 'why has she always got to have her t**s out?'
The challenge comes from the civilised (dwellers of the city whose sensitivities ought to be protected).

As an objection it seems to me to be upside down.
So I would say 'why does she have to cover her breasts and by so doing make a fe**sh of them?'
We are so born into this form of society where certain things ought to be hidden and others exalted.
I love to paint my Muse, including her breasts, for the sake of beauty - if that is interpreted as a flag to the bull of outrage – so be it.

With the demise of the religions that loved to hide and control women's bodies a new ideology took the reigns – feminism.
And for all the good the ideas of feminism have done for equality there cannot help but be blind restrictive ideas too – the depiction of women by men is the sin – the controlling idea that would yoke the horse of the artist's freedom and condemn a woman that chooses to be the artist's Muse.

In 'contemporary art' discourse it is usual, for artists that have been through art school, to research all of the pinnacle ideas of the age in order to position ones self on the 'cutting edge'.
In this era – perhaps we could call it the era of 'offencism' – should we look at all of the areas of life in which anyone takes offence and walk carefully round them for fear of awakening their wrath?
That is the recipe and reason for the blandness of contemporary art – which is barely art at all.
Being greedy and earning heaps of money does not seem to offend anyone – except perhaps those that mourn the desecration of Art.

T**S!

I will think, feel and act for myself and if in my reflection of beauty in life YOU find offence you can keep it.
Be offended and try to understand what that is... it is in you not me.
By being offended by paintings of parts of a woman's body you are aligned with or speaking on behalf of control and oppression both of the Artist and all of woman-kind.
More often than not the offended complainer is not offended at all but just testing out arguments formulated by someone else – in a quasi heroic stance - standing up for the imaginary offended.

It is amazing to me - the power of my Muse's breasts..!
So beautiful, firm and courageous is she and when I paint the symbol of her femininity she draws those bigots out to be beheaded and we learn that there is no progress in the creative arts, in human instinct and in Love... just foam on the waves of life.
And as with religion – ART is fading in meaning as it dilutes itself in the chase for money – where 'product' is recycling what people already like and I am accidentally outrageous in my never ending desire to depict the wholesome natural beauty of the greatest subject of all – The Muse

REQ
11th November 2020

Sometimes the strand of bliss wafts up and out from this heart and stops me... Smudge!.. I say.

This is the scent of the Muse..

She lives as the heart of the artist mind in everyone at all times.

My Muse is an excellent person - I call her Smudge... when the feeling overtakes me I think of her.
Others, when feeling this bliss, think of or are in the presence of....
- the early morning dew in the first rays / blue sky and heat from the sun / misty streets at night / dogs in human clothing / French boys on big bicycles / rain on the window / plants growing in seemingly wrong places / schoolgirls with freshly washed hair / moss on a rusty car / cats ignoring things / mile high clouds skipping across the sky....
wherever we find beauty and joy.

That is the bliss of the beauty of life... seen on the occasion of our relaxing enough to let it rise in us.

I cultivate it with the agreement and help of my dear Muse.

Smudge....
thank you!

req
25th October 2020

Yearning

The sparkle of disquiet is felt again.... something I haven't felt for some months.
Perhaps its the jangle of beer from yesterdays or perhaps because its been 2 weeks since I saw Smudge (and we were to meet on Friday but she postponed until today).
The force that pulls the Muse-work out of me is the push of that disquiet.
It would be easy to say that there exist Gods of Art that require something more of me and are agitating me into action but that is expecting too much of our imaginations I think.
So I stay in this disquiet and yearn for my Muse to appear.
If apples fall from the tree I will take one but sometimes I have to give the branch a shake in order to be fed.
She doesn't mind.
And me experiencing 2 days delay is like this intermittent fast that perhaps does me good but doesn't stop me from feeling hungry.... I learn to live with the sensation and feel it with love – that is easy to do though because she said she will feed me tonight....!

I'm sure that everyone feels the sense of disquiet and deals with it in different ways – go for a bike ride, go shopping, meet some friends or book your Muse for another session – to engage with the process of creation and see it through with some more paintings and drawings – a direct engagement with the beauty and energy of human existence.

For now I wait and write this as a metered translation of the sparkle of disquiet.

REQ
11th October 2020

Someone asked me....

'Are you in love with your Muse?'

I didn't say so.
I said that I was devoted to beauty.

As a person standing in a landscape sees the scene beautiful because it chimes the heart of beauty within them, the artist understands that a love of the beautiful Muse is a love of the feeling of beauty known when in the presence of 'her'.

(It's easy to become lost in cause and effect.)

The difference is that the landscape looks beautiful from afar - the close-to reality is mud and brambles.

The Muse, however, is within reach and her form is known as the form of bliss in the heart... (at least known so in the heart of an artist possessing the eye of beauty.)

Smudge, my beloved Muse, is seen as the eternal light of beauty....

I love her for understanding and acting out that role for me....
despite her, and my, occasional minds of mud and brambles.

She does not pretend to know or understand what I am trying to do.
She merely presents herself as my devotional focus.
A devotion to the love of beauty as such.

There really wasn't time to explain this much so I said....
'I'm just devoted to beauty.'
and let the fellow fill in the gaps to his requirements.

Req - 22nd August 2020

This month and next mark the 5th year of Smudge.
A certain young woman that elevates my cultivated talent into the most wondrous celebration...

An artist without a Muse is like a bird pecking gravel in preparation for a feast that never arrives....
The Muse is the beating heart of the artist and her presence as a real person causes the essence of life to rise and sing....

sing... in celebration of life, nature, evolution, human nature, beauty, love - all of the greatest and most excellent things... things that are the most worthy of all earthly contemplations....
The celebrations are being planned and the trumpets of my heart are resounding as usual - forever.

Req - 22nd August 2020

Why do I repeatedly make paintings of my Muse?
What is this obsession?
Human beauty, feminine allure, love of life, human evolution, curves, light and shade, consciousness shining through her eyes and seeing all of life including myself in this one package of life.... what a glorious package!
Instead of rushing all over the place looking at all of the objects in space and in thought.... to gravitate to one and see all inside.. the work is infinity caught in a single drop.... called Smudge!
Req 24th July 2020

A Muse is not what you think....
She is the exalted one.
She is not the girlfriend or wife but separate and beyond.
She is not a lover or outlet for lust.
She is the study of humanity for an artist.
Through her the study of human experience is permitted.

This is not the same as the scientific study of life....
It is the artist's study of life so has the heart as the starting point.
It starts from feeling without description.
The steps towards truth are measured and trusted by the ring of bliss and lovely beauty felt.
The Muse's beauty is the scent of bliss, the being-ness that permeates life.
The attempt of a human to reflect this is called Art.

REQ
4th June 2020

Far far
sunshine crackles slowly
and the grass grows and the seed sown
I'm all alone on hilltop to hilltop
seen skylark twitter and dip
giant cloud balloons drift
with buzzard wing

I can't see my own eyes
and my path was trodden too near my own feet
so sensations I trust when shone from you dear
my mind shines when you are in it
and heart swells in contentment and peace
until all is seen within
when you are there
on hilltop
in sunshine
with me

REQ
17th May 2020

Spring's echo / delay

The galloping of the season causes such anxiety that I can hardly bare to look at the things of beauty in nature at the moment.
The colours saturated and slowly baked in slow tremors of light and heat – clouds sweep and pulse the intensity.
In previous times my natural seasonal yearning was expressed with love and gratitude.
Now the sunshine makes me wish for rain because it reminds me of her.... her joyous face and glowing skin and she can't be near – the shadows framing sunlight wrapped around her beauteous form seen by no one.
Let it be cold and windy then and Smudge will stay in her slob out clothes and not taunt me with her beauty in the eternal sunlight of the heart.
And must the words from strange men be allowed power over my creative expression?
If all was to blow away and start anew would Smudge still be my champion?
The review was long and serious...
Still yet others would fill her place with their own gladness but what of my desires – derailed and smashed and the fuel supplies down to the last bundle of kindling.
I cannot conceive of a more joyous and complete beauty to contemplate than Smudge's.

Wednesday
11 o'clock
20 degrees
hillside
sunlight
Smudge love.....

REQ
16th May 2020

I'm sure I ask too much of dear Smudge almost everyday....
but she is my Muse and agreed to be so.
It was almost a month since I had seen her face – she had said that she'd come up and see me a few times but twice I was out.
Today, though, after waiting for 4 weeks and 4 hours I finally saw her.
She knew her face was going to affect me and watched me as she smiled.

'The chosen Muse has magic in her eyes – the artist never put it there but drinks in the light that shines from her.
In the creative heart of this artist she becomes the essence of life magic.... this is the love of beauty as it chimes as bliss in the heart.'

She rode away waving and smiling.... fully aware of her power although not needing to understand it.

REQ
27th April 2020

The clouds went over...
did you see them?
I hoped they would rain on the whole town.
I could then look up and say – 'the rain that rains on me, rains on Smudge too.'
and be happy.
But it didn't rain.
The sun shone, the sky was blue and so it must have shone on everyone.
It did shine.
I knew you would love its rays stroking your face and be happy.
Here it was wasted on cars and drain covers and kerbstones.
I hope I see you soon.

REQ
19th April 2020

I saw my dearest today
from afar – 2 metres
She stood and stayed with smile
for me
because she knows that her smile
is spark, fuel, fire and life -
the creative love
the force of goodness
that we manifest together.

REQ
2nd April 2020

Meditation on the Muse

I see you
from this vast sea of awareness
a sea so vast that I cannot find its edges
I reach out with awareness towards the edges
but it is infinite

I see you
through the saphire lens of this mind
that is encrusted in this body
that sits inside
this field of awareness

I see you
your body beautiful
and mounted within it
the saphire lense of your mind
through which the sea of awareness shines

I see you
Muse of my heart
all separation subsides
your form rings in my saphire lens
and I know we are the same
body and jewel melted in eternal infinite

REQ
26th March 2020

In my daily life I look towards the beauty of my Muse
to clear my mind and make me strong.
How can that be?
She is the face of my heart of bliss and to see her manifested
is to see my house of creative love complete.
I plant my seeds and they grow in her radiance, always strong, clear, powerful.
I do not chase the worlds of art – we are a self contained world of art.
Smudge moves and my heart moves
my heart moves and my brush moves
my brush moves and the Muse is known as love
in the field of awareness.

REQ
24th March 2020

I saw Smudge for a session this evening.... here are my findings -

'My dear Muse

At her best, dear Smudge is the heart of bliss that I find inside myself.
The search for the beautiful Muse, the beautiful scenery, the beautiful....
is the echo of the heart of bliss that may be found inside our own heart
when we contemplate such a thing.
We play full and fun.... she knowingly portrays my blissful heart for me...
perhaps someone else plays that role for her too.
The desire to create beauty from beauty is the desire to remain immersed
in beauty at all times.
To remain in the rarefied sense of beauty.
To remain in the noble heart of peace and equanimity beyond petty distractions
of thought and it's strife.
So we celebrate the goodness in what we find beautiful –
timeless echo of the heart of bliss.'

REQ - 7th March 2020

REQ 2020
this is a bit of a long one - biographical and related to music and art

When I was young I amused myself with toys – a simple game.
It needn't have any meaning just some scope.
These were the graffiti years.
I moved into music – I found some meaning amongst the foundations of the hip hop format.... taking snapshots of old production sounds and slipping them into a new production parenthesis.
The abstraction of instrumental music has scope for expression of feeling that abstract art cannot so easily convey.
Smeared paint and colour seems far more subjective in interpretation than music and suggests to me that music has a longer association with humanity than we may have presumed.
Everybody feels the melancholy of the minor scale for instance but the interpretation of darkness is not always as menace.
I was scared of the dark.
That is a projection of potential threats that through rationality I overcame.
Minor scale stays as minor....there is no rationalising out of that feeling.
That instinctive interpretation is deeper.

Some time later...
I'm not interested in hip hop now or the graffiti form.
I might still use a sampler and spraypaint....but the mode is now mine.
The need for meaning has come along with me – the Muse is Smudge.....
She is a real person... not a celebrity desire.
It is my way to transcend the given forms and make anew – the form the creation takes is dictated by the way Smudge moves through me.
We mingle through creation only and stay true – the messy side is for other ordinary people – we have an interaction beyond the everyday and express ideas of our creative imagination.
She move and speaks and the power of creation is manifested into new work constantly.
My goal is to show the potential of love and eros and its power in the creative arts beyond the trivial everyday motives....although unknown and unfashionable this channel is inherent and also authentic to all who seek meaning beyond reflection and constant repetition of existing popular culture.
How else are we to strike out alone and without reference to the existing mode of things?

I went to see Smudge today....

Like a melody played in woodland
that floats on the breeze
a hyacinth fragrance caught in passing
and a flicker of sunlight through the green;
Smudge's nature is flavoured by
such subtle forces as these
and when she is like this
the scent of her being permeates everything
and intoxicates my heart with bliss.

Thankyou!

REQ 26th January 2020

Smudge Moon

When the clouds clear and the moon's bright face is shining on me...
It's a Smudge Moon.
When the phase is full and moving low in the sky... larger than seems possible...
Smudge Moon.
When it's quiet and very dark the silver blue light guides me home...
It's a Smudge Moon.

Req
9th December 2020

Dear Smudge Moon...
The orbit at this equinox
seems to have taken you far far away.
We see you not at this distance
and the Earth lays cold.
Please bless us with your presence
that I could shine my light of love
upon your lovely face once more...
To make everyone glad within their hearts
this winter.

Req
January 2020

I wish I could hold this feeling
That it wouldn't gradually weaken
The bliss from having seen my Muse.
Smudge.
In a few days I won't have a reminder.
I'll have the images - true
But her gentle and beautiful smile
Her soft caring voice
Thank you

Req
December 27th 2019

The Muse is eternal
She is the feeling that resides in the heart -
she is known when contemplating her.
In everyday life she is unknown.
We have to make special efforts to find and love her
so that she will stay present in our presence.
As with life everywhere there is a dualistic nature to this.
There are both the Muse and the contemplation of her.
Our contemplation of her reminds us that she is I.
So we draw her again from that space in the heart and reverberate in her love.

Req
4th October 2019

Time seems to stretch and contract but surely the heavens and the rotation of the earth are constant...
The base metronome always ticking in constant and relentless decay as radioactive particles decay.
Yet the experience of life seems to stretch and contract based on what is going through my senses and what my mind makes of that.

4 years ago - I celebrate now what happened then – the meeting of two parts of a single motion...
the Muse and Artist's first orbit began.
Yes in abstract terms but the two agreed to work towards a single goal – each with their separate roles - an egg in a cup, a glint in an eye, a sketch in a book –
or -
seeds in the dirt, rain in the clouds, love in the heart.
Thanks to Smudge for making everything possible...

req
19th August 2019

You are the Smudgley of my Smudge....

She did go away again as she must and dally in the mud.
And although I chopped the tree down to the earth the shoots are freshly jumping.
Dear one the love that natures in my heart is still of the flavour 'you'.
And if the other girl says yes I must decline.
No.
You really can't talk me out of it.
You are all I will ever need to satisfy my artful urge.
The urge you didn't know you agreed to.
'You!' I say with loving eyes – then turn to dip my brush again in Japanese ink.

Thank you – you are the best

req
14th August 2019

I remembered that time earlier, in our first few months of working together, when I asked if we were alright to continue and Smudge said 'I'm all in'.
That will soon be 4 years ago and now I still don't really know why she likes to work with me.
She is so good at it and last Friday's session is an example of how good she is.
She turns it on very easily and has so much grace and elegance – much more so than in real life!
'Move around?' she says and begins that slow balanced dance from which a thousand paintings could spring.
In that reflection she is the seed of all work and also the power.
When I think of her she is the flame of bliss in my heart and that is known as the source of human consciousness.
While to some people I am merely obsessed with girls to me it is completely different...
She is the missing part – the void in my heart – the person that powers all of my creative flowers.
I'm all in.

req
29th July 2019

Smudge Moon

Dear grace in her heavenly realm slides through our sky but beyond.
Slivers of earthly vapour frame you for our delight.
Can we really liken her to the moon?
Does she shine amongst us and lift our hearts?
Is she made of rock and have to labour around in perpetual toil?
Does she know her face is power?
She sometimes smiles on us and wipes away our mediocrity.
She doesn't know that to behold her makes us magnificent too and our triviality falls.
Standing in her splendour – flanked by her acolytes – she is she...
So I stand ready to help her to be the best she can be as a vaporous cloud up high near her radiant face but actually far far away.
For your mere existence I thank you.

Impressions of beauty

The pavement hard yet distant hills look soft and cooling.
Were I to be there what would my impression be to look back here?
A grid of cool blue and multi coloured terraces on some far valley side..?
A desire to see that quaint street where people walk their lives to corner shop and girls in dresses wait at cross roads until mum say so.
From here that yonder hill with greenish fields and darker hedges looks like heaven in its remoteness and as we approach what happens to our vision?
The distance spans many grey streets and traffic wearies the spirit so by the time we arrive all will be the same as the place we left... the road underfoot still hard and rough – the terraces replaced by hedges – all the same but different.
Where is the cool and soft into which we can repose our eyes?
Again on the hill on the other side of the valley where distance removes woe and we may see afresh, without knowing.

'Outside Carluccios.' she said and so on bicycle I sped and turning the corner there she was a distant vision... beauty at a distance – so cool and soft and seen in an instant.
It was a shock to see her face and hair – chiming with that inner sense that we say is beauty.
And when I crossed the road did she change into the same as where I had been? - as had done those distant hills?
No.
She did change – yes – but in magnification she became more magnificent.
The impression at a glance, now close to, took some minutes to absorb and each angle rang true.

So in that distant lane where impressions of cool and soft did lure my mind to come - now here I become absorbed in the specific excellence of the nature of things.

She is the one I have chosen as my reflective point because I need permission to reflect fully and each flower in the hedge though lovely cannot be that because they have other roles to play in different lanes and byways.

Is beauty only perceived at a distance? we may ask.
No.
But we have to adjust our own scale and perceive the shift.
From afar she is transcendent – close to she is transcendent and specific – isn't that great?!
The transcendent merges with the grit of life as each perfect plant feels the soil of life between her toes.

for Smudge

req
7th July 2019

The Muse moves swiftly over leaf litter,
Yew trees are like rocks – did their movement cease a hundred years before...?
Will Smudge cease to move and become rock-like too...?
To my eye this excellent Muse is the most beautiful as she moves in tempo with human hearts.
The Yew seen with Yew eyes is swift amongst the forest and fluid forms bulge with joy.
Quivering she stands in breeze's breath her foliage twitches.
She didn't stay still for long in fact the dark bark is always flowing in fluid undulations -
dark skin for her - pale skin for her.. each implying the mysterious structure within.
Why must you bulge so provocatively?
Which set of eyes are you to be seen by?
Only for us – only by us.
We stand apart in contemplation but the Muse shows us that form is nature as she chimes with ancient ones in Kingley Vale.

The winter Nixie has been transformed...
Her evil ways of winter can now be understood for what they were...
The gathering of power from the hapless, weak and decaying in order to make anew in the eternal cycle of death and life.
The leaves from autumn were still crunchy underfoot but she sent spikes of green and blue up through them towards the sky as her contribution to the splendid festival of springtime.

Bluebells in Stanmer Park.

Req - 2nd May 2019

I did see the Ground Ivy rising on Friday.
My measure that springtime is rising.
Can we venture out please and refresh ourselves with the spring sunshine and the cold bite of winter's last death?
And you my perennial springtime Muse, your superb skin as foil to nature's verdant triumph?
The Nixie did her work and now her form is subsumed into the joy that was implied in her previous horror.
I played with that and it killed something in me yet now I see you afresh as springtime does - the blind, hungry Nixie devouring life in autumn is now the blind search for light in spring - becoming aware of its own eyes as love for the sunlight rising now and is so born anew.
Please forgive my unconscious ramblings in the impossible thicket of thought.
I am back where I love to be – in the light of consciousness where the darkness is opened and exposed to the sun and seen again as my dear counterpart....
This contemplation is the power of the Muse.

req
24th April 2019

Your contemporary 2

The spirit of adventure permeates arts practises at every level.
A child’s art is an exploration - it brings the internal world out so that we can show other people our ideas.
The ideas may be jumbled because the vocabulary is incomplete.
We can liken the attempt towards realism after the Egyptians as the adventurous spirit - the quest for clarity in our narrative to better tell our story or reflect our meaning.
An allegory contains symbols that support the main motif as triangulation points, reducing error of interpretation - the artist wants you to understand and reflect on their chosen subject and consider its meaning.
The spirit of adventure caused the ‘modernists’ to destroy convention - to cut the mooring ropes of art and float free. Their work became in danger of being about cutting mooring ropes because they were there - that was all that was there - until now it seems that all ropes are cut yet the contemporary artist must still stand as if they hold the axe of truth.
Freedom! Freedom to float away in your boat of art constructed from the broken art of the masters, lashed with wire fencing and shopping trolleys because you were told that there was no heritage that you must consider worthy - no skill is necessary, just smash things and call it your work - ‘Smashed Things 001’.
That level of ‘contemporary’ is irrelevant for any serious artists but art schools don’t know anything better. It is a hundred years old and itself is due for a smashing.
Do we smash things though?
No we create.
We ignore that and create from where we sit.
My new piece will be called ‘Freedom’ and although far from being free and unrestrained in technique it reflects my feelings of restraint imposed by the ‘art world’ and broader society.
And if my Muse is n**e and you react with shock or scorn that is the effect of your lack of freedom in life and the conceptual impositions you attach to yourself and others.
We work like this - my Muse is happy to be n**e (although she is not an exhibitionist) and I love to paint her n**e form.
There the transaction is complete.
People would love to tell me that what I do is wrong - they have plenty of reasons - but I will still meet the objections head on because the freedom of expression is where I work - and instead of smashing things in the name of freedom I would rather celebrate the excellence of life as seen in the magnificent form of the human figure exemplified by my Muse : Smudge.

Req

25th March 2019

When all is quiet there are sparrows arguing in the bush - over there.
Down there the black flame in the blackness unseen but felt wriggles and tickles.
She awakens!
And like the scent from incense she wafts upwards to meet me.
She seeks her form and can become anything - in my cave she becomes woman - that is natural.
In other caves she becomes man, snail, pine, cell.
All the weight of my experience of life loves her to manifest as human female - she then puts me into balance as a man could never do let alone snail, pine, cell.
I may admire the pine and it’s strength, fragrance, stillness but there is no story to tell in that for me.
All aspects of being alive are implied in her - my perfect counterpart.
She is so perfectly seen that she resembles a polished mirror in which I see my own self and may reflect, with her grace, on areas of life that require attention or exaltation.

Humans are basically wriggling tubes like most other creatures except that we have a mirror on top through which we can observe ourselves.
That mirror is self consciousness and is made of language - when we observe ourselves we see - seeing has no judgement quality - then words make the judgement because they must divide - one idea is tessellated by its opposite.
From here there is no peace because we doggedly take sides instead of being the seeing only.
That is what being a human is.

Contemplating the Muse has the effect of cancelling the opposites momentarily - whilst we stay poised in the seeing - she phases our self consciousness and we become lost in the shimmer of balanced polarity.
Yes she is a real person that agrees to be that for a while - the artist may then contemplate all as her and choose how best to express that as their joint art of life.

Req - 12th February 2019

The Autumn makes one fear the Nixie in the thicket

The dark thicket opens the mind to dark parts… the parts that are felt but are not expressed in concrete form.
How do we show the dark which may harbour all manner of unspeakable things?
When I was small I feared the dark… it’s enveloping womb where things could grab and murder… what was that fear but lack of knowing…?
Where the mind is destroyed in fear of its own innumerable hideous imaginings - so we are frozen - playing dead - waiting for the morning.
So the Nixie…
The black velvet lure of the night is like a smooth supple sheath that we may pass through but to stretch out your hand is to feel the confusion of twigs and thorns that are the confusion of unconscious mind tremors and reactions to invisible snakes.
And as at night we wish to pass into the bliss of sleep unharmed and nest on her bosom we also wish to find the caring blanket of love in the darkness of the thicket… but no… she is there but is swaying like a supple young girl at the door of death saying ‘swish-away this way… look in my eyes my love… come near my body…’
And the Nixie has got you - one touch and before any desires have been satisfied - falling magnetised - you are hollowed out and hung up to dry on the branches of her thicket as she laughs her girlish laugh.
I move willingly towards the thicket desiring oblivion by such a sweet and beautiful lure - that promise of ecstatic release in the eyes of beloved Nixie - the release that is made of death and freedom from the care of all the things of the world.
She squeezes her breasts to give me courage and filling me with desire I step into the dark so I might hold her…
Then falling through from reason, desire, animal to…
And in my half dead state I see myself and all the others hanging like corpses on her giant web thicket - she is sucking her food from my heart and I am glad.