Salvation

Mothering small creatures and understanding the sacred

Today, the day before Mother’s Day, I want to talk about salvation…. I’ve been rather frantically trying to finish paintings for my upcoming exhibit in June, and I finally had a chance to finish a painting yesterday that I started many months ago and that has been hanging around in a semi-incomplete state on the wall of my studio all this time. I keep counting and recounting the paintings I have, panicking that I won’t have enough pieces to fill the gallery. Of course, under the counting is that old sticky belief that my work isn’t enough, that I’m a disappointment, that I’m not enough, that nobody will like me and I should eat some worms.

So here’s the back story on this painting. It’s based on a photo I took of a baby great tailed grackle. Great tailed grackles are omni-present here around my gardens. Adult male grackles are imposing, large, oilslick shiny black, and incredibly noisy. The only difference between males and females is their color but the females have an equally loud attitude. They have a vast vocubulary of trills and shrill calls that loop and circle around the grandmother tree in the Fairy Garden and bounce across the rooftops. They are often confused with crows or birds from the corvid family, but no, grackles couldn’t care less who you think they are or what you think about the way they act. They’re part overbearing bully (toward smaller birds and creatures) and part badass heroes of giving a flying f***. I love them.

They like to pose like the divas they are on high prominent places around my house - on top of the water tanks, on the edges of the brick roof facades - and I’ve often stopped to watch them as they watch me. I’ve admired them as they’ve looked down at me with what I imagine is disdain. The females have on occasion built nests in the palm tree in my yard. Last Spring, I suddenly heard the sounds of a frantic grackle mama clicking and clacking which I’ve already learned means there is a kerfuffle happening of my cats up to no good. Indeed, I rushed out into the garden to find both cats intent on something in the bushes in the far corner. I ran over to find a big baby grackle, who had evidently fallen from its nest, cowering behind the bougainvillea with the cats stalking and attacking.

I tried pulling the cats away to get to the baby bird, but quickly realized that that would be impossible. So I snatched both cats at the same time, tossed them into the laundry room and slammed the door shut. Then I turned my attention to the baby, its saucer plate eyes peering up at me from behind the very gorgeous magenta blossoms and the very thorny branches of the bougainvillea. The thorns were over an inch long. Good hiding place, little one, good hiding place. The cats were screaming from the laundry room. Mama grackle and all the aunties were screaming from the palm tree, from the tall garden wall, from the roof, from all over the sky. The baby stared at me silently.

I figured I had about ten seconds to make my move. I reached down and swept up the baby in one hand, pulling it out of its refuge to the tune of 30 thorns raking my skin. I clutched it to my chest and ran for the door to the Fairy Garden. The mama grackle and all the aunties followed close behind, screeching, hanging over the garden walls, pecking the air towards my every move. I hollered up at Mama Grackle the whole way. I’ve got your baby! I’m taking her to the Fairy Garden! She’s gonna be okay! I’m putting her in front of Big Mama, in front of the stone statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the end of the garden path! It’s up to you now. You come feed your baby, you hear?! Don’t build your nest ever again in a garden with cats, you hear?! Your baby will be safe here with Guadalupe, ‘kay?!

I plopped the baby down at Guadalupe’s feet, next to the candles and crystals and flower petals that folks have left in offering. And the baby kept staring up at me with its giant eyes, completely still, being such a good baby. I thought, well, if all is well, maybe we could permit ourselves a quiet moment for a sweet baby portrait… with mama’s permission. And so I quickly took the photo that later would become a painting.

The interesting thing about the painting is that I decided to use a canvas that I had already started a different painting on but had never finished. It was a painting of reliquaries based on a photo I took years ago in the Basilica San Marco in Venice, Italy. I’ve been in an inquiry and exploration about reliquaries ever since, pondering at these containers for the sacred, what we hold sacred and how we interact with the sacred.

I have written about this concept, “Reliquaries, Containers for the Sacred,” in the following way: “While the idea of relics and reliquaries may connote primarily Catholic belief, and I don’t deny that I’m cozy with Saints and Madonnas, I find the concept ultimately universal across faith traditions with similar questions for contemplation: What is the object of my veneration? What do I hold most sacred in my life? How can I create a container for it, so as to understand its holy nature, interact with it, open it, and amplify its blessings into my life? How can my reliquary be a window of blessings pouring into the world that is in such need of our healing prayers at this time?”

So how does the story of a baby grackle merge with the story of reliquaries aside from providing cool multidimensional visuals on the canvas? It’s about salvation for me. The literal act of physically saving a small creature is one type of salvation. The creating of a container for the sacred and delivering our soul to the divine is another type of salvation. It is the daily striving to understand ourselves as a part of Creator and of Creation, of the fine line of duality merging for mere milliseconds in our comprehension into a state of Oneness, Union. When humans are on an existential search for meaning, our minds try to repackage such vast and abstract themes into more accessible portions for easier mundane consumption by naming, portraying, painting pictures, and telling stories. That’s why I decided to paint the wee grackle with big eyes I saved into a painting that had reliquaries in it.

The grackle baby becomes a metaphor for my own quest to have a large hand scoop me up and place me beside the Divine Mother for safekeeping, to remember the closeness of the sacred, to remind me that I am always watched over and cared for, held in a vast container for the sacred that is this life.

As I was writing this today, I stepped out into the garden to feed my cats and noticed that Kaetzi didn’t show up at her dinner plate. I walked further out into the garden with that sinking gut feeling, and there she was, hunkered down in the long grass. I approached and sure enough, she had a bird between her claws, batting it back and forth. I swooped my hand down and grabbed it. As I lifted it up, I realized that it was … a baby great tailed grackle… Much smaller than last years, fuzzy on its head, its eyes barely able to open. I cupped it to my chest, its own chest heaving, its whole body a beating heart, and I took it to where I take all the rescued creatures at the base of the figure of La Virgen de Guadalupe in the fairy garden. I heard no Mama grackle clicking and clacking. Just me and the very tiny fuzzy baby.

I left it on the ground, but when I checked back later, I realized that between its very tender age and its injuries, it couldn’t keep upright, and had flailed about from side to back the whole time it was alone. I picked it up again and held it for a while. The holding seemed to calm it. The warmth of my hand. The solidity beneath it. I’m trying to feed it mashed bananas and soggy cat food paste (according to Google some viable options) but it’s just sitting now in a tiny little basket lined with paper towels chirping in the tiniest way.

I don’t know what will happen, but apparently this is a part of salvation. If it goes to the realms of the light, then that is salvation. If it somehow continues on in the physical realm of creation with me feeding it cat food (what an irony), then that is salvation.

In any case, here we are in the middle of Creation, always part of Creator… and that is our Salvation. Me Peace be with you! Happy Mother’s Day to you in all the ways you mother, nurture, love, care and tend… Blessings to you!

Love,

Emily xoxo

“Salvación” - acrylic on canvas 60x80 cm Copyright 2026 Emily K. Grieves

www.EmilyKGrievesArt.com