Original artwork description:

Against All Odds

The kingfisher or a halcyon bird is a symbol of peace, promising prosperity, love and abundance, blinding with happiness about to unfold. Allegory of Joy of Life No Matter What.
Kingfishers are among the rare birds that hatch chicks in winter. Allegory of the spiritual and material abundance threatened by the elements and envy of the gods, and thus a warning about the danger of complacency, because happiness can only be granted by Heaven.
The Halcyon is a bird of Greek legend and the name is now commonly given to the European Kingfisher. It is like a living gem, like a piece of the southern sun among the more modest in colour birds of Europe. The ancients believed that the bird made a floating nest in the Aegean Sea and had the power to calm the waves while brooding her eggs. Fourteen days of calm weather were to be expected when the Halcyon was nesting - around the winter solstice, usually 21st or 22nd of December.
Our current use of 'halcyon days' tends to be nostalgic and recalling of the seemingly endless sunny days of youth - despite the fact that the original halcyon days were in the depths of winter.
In poetical symbolism, the kingfisher magically embodies a joining of opposites, a preservation of variety, an embrace of challenge and change. In Greek mythology the kingfisher, paradoxically, is associated both with transformation and with the idea of “halcyon days”—a period of calm seas and of general peace and serenity.

So, remember the Good Past, but if the kingfisher has come to you, prepare to dive into something new. Have you been avoiding the new? Have you been afraid to take the plunge? Are you needing new warmth? Don’t worry if a kingfisher is around, you won’t drown. You will have more sunshine unfolding in your life.

Materials used:

oil

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