Since 2002 my life has been intertwined with the Afghan people where I served as a soldier-diplomat. I later turned to academia and humanitarian efforts to help Afghans find stability and full access to human rights. Afghans protected, fed, and explained their culture to me as I traveled alone or in small groups to nearly every province. One of those protectors gifted me this Afghan Mauri style carpet. After the return of the terrorist regime my focused shifted to rescuing at-risk Afghans. Painting pieces of Afghan culture has become my therapy as I daily talk to Afghans being hunted, imprisoned, and tortured; and feebly attempt to comfort Afghans losing their relatives to terrorist attacks and revenge killings. In this painting I try to capture the beauty and serenity of the Afghan carpet I stand on daily to write about the horror of life in Afghanistan today. These carpets are hand knotted from sheep’s wool and are made in NW Afghanistan by women of Turkmen and Uzbek ancestry.