The Dream, the Hand, and the Icon: A Surreal Reimagining of St. John Damascene

Hey everyone!

Long time, no read... I've been bugging myself to start blogging again,but so much drama going on around me lately, I can't find anything remotely pleasant, or at least "share-able" to write about.

Until a few nights ago... You see, my mother had a very vivid, almost electric dream.

A man appeared before her — around sixty, strong but missing his right hand from the elbow down.

He looked at her with great presence and said in a deep, thunderous voice:

“Mrs. Papaioannou, thank you very much.”

And then he was gone.

The dream was brief but powerful. She woke up feeling it wasn’t random — it had a weight, a message.

When she told me, I started searching online, and the story of St. John Damascene, the great theologian and hymnographer came up, whose right hand was cut as a punishment during the iconoclasm. However, his hand was miraculously restored by the Virgin Mary after being cut off.

I remembered the icon that depicts this moment — the Saint kneeling before the image of the Theotokos, his severed hand before him, and his restored faith radiating through the scene.

As a thank you, St.John gifted a silver hand to Her Grace, that now accompanies the icon of Panagia Trisherousa in Agion Oros.

So I printed an online photo of the icon, thinking I’d simply keep it close as a symbolic reminder.

But the print didn’t come out right. The colors were off, faint and uneven.

So I started tracing over it with markers… first to correct it, then to enhance it — and suddenly, the act of “fixing” became something else.

As I worked, I felt drawn to alter the piece — to give it a surrealistic twist, something fluid and alive, reflecting both my mother’s dream and the mystical energy of that ancient miracle.

I deepened the tones, expanded the shadows, turned the floor beneath the Saint into a vortex of deep blue ripples, with the hand resting at its center — as if faith, pain, and gratitude were merging into one motion.

It was no longer a strict icon — it became an emotional dialogue.

Between dream and art.

Between loss and healing.

Between a miracle that happened a thousand years ago and a moment that happened last night.

I framed it when I finished, not as a religious object but as a living symbol of grace — of how something that begins in mystery can find form through the creative process.

Maybe my mother’s dream was St. John Damascene saying thank you — or maybe it was simply the universe mirroring her quiet faith back to her.
Either way, the act of painting over that faint print became a kind of prayer in motion.

M.