“Lift”

16x20in acrylic painting on canvas.

This is my take on “The Tortoise and The Eagle”

The original story goes something like this: a tortoise is discontented by his lot in life and is envious of the birds, he beckons an eagle friend to teach him to fly, at first the eagle protested, because he knew it was not the nature of such creatures to fly, but after the constant badgering, the eagle consented. He took him very high in the sky with his talons, let him go and the poor tortoise was dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

Obviously, that’s pretty dark… not my style. So I asked myself, “what if the eagle simply gave his tortoise friend the experience of flight?” It is absurd to teach a tortoise to fly, but an eagle could give a tortoise a good time, can’t he?

So my altered version of the story was born. You could see on the face of this tortoise a sense of bliss. Of course it is dependent on the Eagles willingness to share in his attributes to take on this burden. But there is a joy in lifting others to places of joy, isn’t there?

I’m sure there are tons of morals and implications that you can draw from this altered version of this fable. What are the lessons you see?