Whispers Through the Trees

Today, we will consider what love is and we will look at some of my recent art.

On September 22, 2025, Denise and I took a road trip to Prince Albert, SK. We often take road trips during the day just for fun and to spend, what we consider, quality time together. We usually have lots to talk about, but we are just as comfortable cruising along in companionable silence. In a nutshell – we love being together. 💖 Both Denise and I tell each other how much we love the other many times a day – and we mean it. There are many times that one or the other of us feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude and love for the other and we either go to the other to say so, or we just text a note and share those thoughts. Our love, as I see it, is always sincere and deep rooted. Although we have loved one another from the start, our love has deepened over the years, and I don’t think we have ever felt differently. I am not saying that we have not had struggles in our 41-year relationship so far, but we have never hit a point where we didn’t want to continue as a couple – as best friends, as lovers in all that means.

At any rate, on the drive back from Prince Albert, I said to Denise that I loved her with all my heart and how much I had appreciated this beautiful time together. Just then, she asked me to define love, as a conversation starter I believe. I said, wow, that is a real deep question, and that I would have to give it some thought. After a short while I said, well, I am not sure I can define it, but I sure know it when I see it. A little later I said that I thought that love could be defined as a blending, or a merging, of souls. I know that sounds a bit esoteric, but that’s all I had at the time. Denise said that she thought it could be defined as a decision, an unconditional acceptance, something challenging, and, of course, a joy.

After being home for a while and having had some more time to ponder what love is, I think I can say that it is not easily defined, that it is like trying to define God, or art. Maybe it can only be defined by what it looks like or by what it does.

Of course, there is romantic love, the sparks that fly when two people “fall” in love, but that might simply be the biological mechanism within us – mother nature ensuring that the species continues through copulation. I think, however, that there is more to it than merely sexual attraction. Maybe it sets the stage for a more conscious union to allow a human to travel the roads of life with a partner – fulfilling the part of human nature that requires a social connection. Obviously, having a partner makes the journey less lonely, perhaps more productive – at least that is the hope.

When Denise and I took marriage prep through our church prior to our marriage, we learned many things about what it would mean to be married. This included an in-depth look at what folks thought love was and how there would come a time when couples would need to make a conscious choice to love their partner. Everyone knows that the sparks fade, and the honeymoon ends at some point – or at least looks very different. Some folks equate only the early stages as love, so when that stage ends, they begin to look elsewhere, and the marriage likely ends. Those that recognize the change, will often make a conscious decision to keep the love alive by working at it. It helps when both people in the relationship want this. I can state without hesitation that both Denise and I always saw that we were worth whatever effort was required to keep our love alive and our relationship healthy. As I mentioned in other blog posts, we have had our share of struggles and there were times when we thought about splitting up, but we always overcame the issues by taking parenting classes, or doubling up on our self-help meetings, or by attending personal or couples’ counseling. We always worked through the issues, and our love and appreciation for one another deepened because of it.

All that said, I do think love is a bonding of souls – something that feels natural but requires efforts to maintain it. It allows one another to be who they are, while supporting one another in all ways.

Let’s consider some of the things others have said about love. None seem to define it, but rather, express aspects of it. Although I know of some personally, I did ask CoPilot for some help with examples.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.”

Anaïs Nin, A Literate Passion: “What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is.”

Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan: “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

Toni Morrison, Beloved: “Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool.”

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah: “Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

Rumi, 13th-century Persian poet: “Love is the bridge between you and everything.”

Emily Dickinson, American poet: “That love is all there is, is all we know of love.”

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.”

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving: “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43: “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

Maya Angelou, Touched by an Angel: “Love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.”

Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet: “Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.”

Gosh, in all of that, I don’t think that I/we actually defined love. As much as I didn’t want to do this, I asked CoPilot.

Me:
Please define love, as it relates to humans.

CoPilot:
Love, as it relates to humans, is both a profound emotion and a conscious choice — a dynamic force that binds us to one another in ways that transcend biology, logic, and time.

💖 A Human Definition of Love
Emotionally, love is the deep feeling of affection, attachment, and care we experience toward another person. It can manifest as:
• Romantic love: passion, desire, and emotional intimacy.
• Familial love: unconditional support and protection.
• Friendship: trust, loyalty, and shared joy.
• Self-love: acceptance, compassion, and inner peace.
Psychologically, love is a motivator — it drives us to nurture, protect, and connect. It’s linked to empathy, vulnerability, and the willingness to prioritize another’s well-being alongside our own.
Philosophically, love is often seen as the highest virtue. It’s the glue of community, the balm for suffering, and the spark of meaning in our lives.
Biologically, love activates brain chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine, reinforcing bonding and pleasure. But it’s not just chemistry — it’s how we interpret and act on those feelings that makes love human.

🧠 Love in Action
To love is:
• To see someone fully and still choose them.
• To give without keeping score.
• To stay when it’s hard.
• To grow together, not just beside each other.

Love is not perfect, but it is powerful. It’s the one thing we crave, fear, fight for, and surrender to — and in its purest form, it’s what makes us most human.

I like that – CoPilot sums it up nicely!

As a side note, I read somewhere at one time that we humans need to be told we are loved at least six times a day. Maybe we easily forget, hence the advice, but in all seriousness, I think it just reassures us that we are, indeed, loveable. I believe that we all have so much baggage and self-doubt that the reminders through the day help make our load lighter – make us feel like we matter.

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Let’s move onto the art portion of the blog post.

The first two pieces below came one after another.

The piece below called “A Forgotten Pier” started out as “Under the Horizon.” As you read, think about the text seen in the second image as being on top of the image below at the beginning.

A Forgotten Pier – Created by Don Cheke

I started with the line “Under the Horizon” in my mind. I first created a subtle abstract watercolor with the colors you can see in the piece above. I decided to lay out the first red text lines with thick oil paint to have them pop off the page, as it were. As I pondered the line, Under the Horizon, I felt it pull at my mind, a feeling of mystery – below the horizon being something that one probably never thinks about. I felt the line needed something to draw the viewer further in, and “Out Into Space” seemed just bizarre enough to do that. Somehow the two lines together seem to work. As I delved deeper, I wanted to add something over the original background to enhance the “space” theme, so I blended in a planet texture that is usually used as a texture wrap for 3D models – Mars in this case. I loved the mottled look it added. Although the piece looked fine without the pier/house pencil drawing, it was something I added just to see how it would look and found, to my surprise, that it suited the overall piece well.

I showed Denise the final image, the pier with the mottled background and the text from the image below on top. She did not like it at all, explaining that the text didn’t make sense and that the pier drawing on the background looked good on its own. Because I value Denise’s opinion, I removed the text and changed the title of the painting.

Note that the pier drawing is one of my earlier pencil drawings that I scanned and brought into my painting program. I did have a hard time leaving out the text, but in the end, I liked how this piece turned out.

Because I couldn’t get the text out of my mind, I felt a need to use it elsewhere. As such, I created another abstract background and added two embedded contrails to illustrate movement out into space. I liked the result, and hope that you do to.

Under the Horizon – Created by Don Cheke

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Whispers in the Trees – coming up – started out at a time when I was not feeling artistic, like I had lost my creative spirit. As I often do, I took out my paint program and started mucking about. I began by creating the canvas by first inserting a photo of the texture found on my balcony non-slip floor. Through the magic of the painting program the texture is transformed into something that looks and feels like a true-life rough medium, just like a real-world canvas with depth.

Balcony Non-Slip Flooring – Photo by Don Cheke

I continued by adding some pink and purple watercolor washes and some purple watercolor strokes. As the watercolor paint flowed, the tree-like structures began to show. I couldn’t have done that intentionally in my opinion, but as the flow came to the point seen below, I hit the freeze/dry button to stop the flow. The scene so far sang loudly, indicating in such an obvious way that it was a landscape. I tried again and again to get the same kind of flow with the next two layers using brown and green, but it just wouldn’t do the same thing. As such, I had to settle with what you see below, which I think still works well enough. It was at this point that I swapped out the original canvas for a smoother one, which changed the look a bit, but left the original layers as they were created.

Whispers in the Trees – Created by Don Cheke

Whispers in the Trees seemed a perfect title for this piece, as it has such a mystical look to it. I love the pink sky and I love how this piece came to be in spite of my mood. It’s a reminder to be open to the creative spirit as it is always there – even if it is not always apparent.

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The piece below came shortly after the piece above.

Tears in the Rain – Created by Don Cheke

For this one, I wanted to use a photo of a weird cloud formation I had taken recently from my 4^th floor balcony. The boot-like white bit is the cloud. If you look to the left of it, you can see some gray. The gray in reality was heavy rain and it appeared to be washing away the cloud. With that in mind, I created an abstract background using heavy oil paint with a limited color palette. As I completed the piece I thought of the line in the original Blade Runner movie when the Nexus-6 replicant, Roy Batty, was dying and said that famous line about “being washed away, like tears in the rain.” So sad….

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Into the Blue – Created by Don Cheke

Having had some success using a photo of clouds in the last piece, I decided to use a different picture I took the day I created this piece. During that photoshoot, as I will call it, I also took some photos of the stucco on the back wall of the balcony. I blended both those images into a new abstract painting which used a selection of blue paints. Because it looked like a sea and sky landscape, I added a scanned image of a sailing ship drawing I had made years before. Into the Blue seemed an appropriate title. I hope that you like it!

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Here’s something different.

Rolling Thunder – Art & Photography by Don Cheke

First off, I must say that I am not a selfie-taking kind of person, but the other day I was mucking around and took a few of myself and of Denise and me. I learned that the pictures taken as selfies are a whole world different than the ones taken using the lens that face outward, but I did like a couple of them.

Because I had recently been using photos in my art, I decided that I would do something with one of the images I didn’t mind of myself. I usually don’t like seeing or sharing pictures of myself because of my weight, but as I learned when creating my cartoon series, I am a worthy human being no matter what I look like or how much I weigh. I created a rainbow of sorts using pastels and blended the result with my photo. In part, the result reminded me of a portrait one might see on a political poster or button. As I spent time with the final piece, I had visions of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder movie and album. In that movie, all through the related music tour, Bob applied white paint to his face. If I recall, he didn’t offer much of a reason for it in the movie interviews. At the time of viewing, I thought it looked cool, and of course, someone like Bob Dylan can get away with that type of thing.

When I showed this image to Denise, she said it looked like I was wearing my aboriginal warpaint. Just so you know, she didn’t mean anything negative by that statement. Although I don’t consider it warpaint, I do think it shows an aura of pride for our multicultural and diverse nation.

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I hope that you enjoyed today’s blog post, and that it gave you much to think about. I also hope that you are the recipient of the kind of love that lives on and fulfills endlessly.

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Note that today’s release marks the occasion where I am breaking with weekly Monday posts. I will, as such, post when I write new ones, whether weekly or not. I am still debating whether or not to send out the new blog post announcement weekly or send it whenever a new one is ready. If you have any thoughts on the latter, let me know.

Donald B. Cheke – Saskatoon, SK