OK-- so to anyone and everyone who wants to read about why, here ya go. Most of the time, I try to investigate why I'm doing something. What is my intent? My motives? Is it love? Is it to give? Is it to receive? Is it to amuse? Mostly all of those things. Sometimes I remember to investigate motives, but I do forget and goof up and goof up often... but this isn't one of those times :)

So, anyway, why do I blog? First, if my perspectives and experiences can be of service to anyone, I offer them. I make a lot of mistakes and many can be learned by just reading and pointing your finger at me. Why make your own mistakes when you don't have to? I have learned so much from relating to real people and real stories that I decided to be one, myself, no holds barred. I tell you the truth from my very subjective perspective. It won't be someone else's, but its mine. If it helps anyone or even lightly amuses, wonderful.

The point is that if there is any one thing that can be gleaned from my blog about life, art, spirituality, love, sadness or joy that will help someone become more secure in themselves to live openly and connect in their lives... then, wonderful. If someone, through my hard-nosed exploration can see the beauty in their own complexities and falliblilties, then this is worth it to me and I will continue to do it.

I offer my vulnerabilities in love and with the intent of love only for that purpose. AA is this way, my Mom's saving grace. We'd both be dead if it wasn't for AA and how they handle life. They talk of struggles openly and about what helped them through hard times and it helps new people and the cycle of giving continues.

Sometimes along the way, even with the best of intents, people's toes get stepped on. A note to my loved ones of past, present and future: Existing as someone connected to me, you will be vulnerable and this won't be comfortable to you. It will require you to be courageous when you feel you can't. Do it anyway and release the shame. It'll be ok.

This is why I don't name names, although the names are easy to find if you look. But the real issue in this blog isn't the name, the person or even the event... it is the lesson learned in the grander scheme of the human condition.

So, if these lessons of the human condition have been lost in my posts, then the person doesn't get it and they shouldn't read any more. For example, the last two posts were about manipulation by people who don't necessarily look manipulative... to us or themselves. We do it all the time, all of us, and we don't even realize it. Myself, included. The posts were also about how our roles in relationships change depending on our strengths and weaknesses.

So, about accepting our roles in those relationships... I accept being a bad-girl (blunt? insensitive?)  sometimes to make someone feel better about themselves. (Its mental gymnastics to understand why I say that, I know. I've been a "guard-dog" for people who couldn't do it for themselves was one way.)

I live based on how I'd like to be treated, adhering to the golden rule. I had rather have my feelings hurt with someone's truth than be placated with a sweet lie. I own being blamed (and criticized) for the repercussions of those things, willingly. I played a role in the victim/rescuer experience without blaming a soul for it but myself and I don't regret it or intend to whine about it. I don't want pity. I did it, I'm an adult and thats that.

But I am also an odd bird, wild. My love runs rampant as much as the other extreme. I wear my heart, my weaknesses and triumphs on my sleeve, opting to be vulnerable all of the time. This woman is my hero, my example and she fully gets why I paint and live as I do. To understand "why" fully, watch this: 

Sure, I get hurt and some judgment, but its worth it. I am human and very fallible and just like you or anyone else you come across. I just happen to be an artist with a blog. (Not a CPA, secretary or accountant. An artist. Much of what I write about becomes paintings.)

So, about this blog, I had been slightly “threatened” that someone had “something” on me that I wouldn't want “out there”. I imagine, in retalliation for what I wrote. I'm curious what someone could possibly have that I don't readily admit on my back through an exposed, soft underbelly. Can't think of a thing. 

But, I am not, nor ever will get, into the habit of hiding anything. Our weakness IS our courage and the day we get that is the day we are whole. I bless someone in their endeavors to dig dirt up on me because its already been dug a long time ago. Airing dirty laundry? There is a spiritual principle behind this. Respect it or not, but watch Brene Brown's TED talk and then make your judgment.

There's more of this post if you click "read more" down there to the right. I hope all who reads the above or anything from this unrepentant wild-child is blessed with the courage for a more authentic and loving life.

I can't believe I didn't write the Stag Dream down in this blog. Well, its not like my mind has been clear. But tonight, I have to get the story down so I can go to sleep. 

On September September 12, Stephen and I had the same dream about a White Stag. Here's what I put on facebook: "Y'all know metaphysical isn't unusual for me/us. If you're around me long, you know weird stuff happens, its part of my normal life and always has been. OK, so yesterday morning, I wake up from a weird dream and wonder what it has to do with anything. 

It fades into the daytime and I don't think much about it. Stephen said later: I had a weird dream as I was waking up, but i was awake. We took Mom home where she could "go" and not be in a hospital. We took her to her back porch. A huge stag, a buck was bowing down in front of Mom and he had does around him." 

I cut him off and asked "He was white or really light, too. Did yours have fuzz still on his antlers?" his eyes got big and he said yes. I asked if he was huge, I mean enormous and healthy-- and also welcoming her? He said yes, he was bringing peace. I said... and the antlers were rounded on the tips and there were does and babies around them, too. I know, I had the same dream. Something in the dream told me that it had something to do with Jesus."

I look up stags, white deer and found that they are messengers from the "otherworld" in Celtic tradition and also are symbols for Christ. Other names for the stag is "Hart". Her doctor's name is Hart and the trauma doc is named something like Hartlong. Here's what else we found: "Allegory/Moral
The stag is a symbol for Christ, who tramples and destroys the devil. As the stags crossing a river help each other, so should the Christian crossing from the worldly life to the spiritual life help others who grow weak or tired. As the stag is renewed and sheds its horns after drinking from the spring, so those who drink from the spring of the spirit are renewed and shed their sins." Here:http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast162.htm

They gave her a breathing tube, a feeding tube and new antibiotics to give her all the resources available to fight this bug. So, lets hope the Stag opens a can of you know what on that devil ♥"

OK. Backstory: It was as if All of nature was welcoming her. The Stag wasn't Christ himself, but a manifestation of Christ Energy. Gosh, that sounds so weird, but thats what it told me. It was Majestic, frightening in the awe it carried. Light eminated around it and we were aware what a treasurable gift this was to experience. . 

Allright, so here it is October 28 and so much has gone on since then. If you continue reading FB (or this blog, lol), you'll see that there were ups and downs, denial, contradictions, declines, changing diapers- adult and a baby's, doling out morphine, dilaudid, atavan, a weeks worth of diarrhea diapers and MEDS that didn't touch it, nausea, throwing up, itching, with trial and error. I had told her over and over it was OK to go, we would be allright. She was so weak. 

Warning, adult language and really weird subject matter ahead. Stop now if you're not an adult or are either so narrowminded or conventional that information from "sensitives" scare you. You've been informed. 

Something odd happened tonight and, admittedly, I needed it :) I had a rough day. My Mom is awake, but she's not eating, she doesn't feel hungry. She says no to a feeding tube, says no to wanting to die, but says no to food by mouth. I mean to tell ya, it is a full time job making sure she eats something. 

Ok, so after today, I ended up pissed off. Most of the day was spent force-feeding mom, literally, with a syringe and ensure. I didn't want to do that, it felt disrespecting, but I kept asking her if she wanted to be ill from not eating (no), if she wanted to eat (yes), if she wanted to fix her low blood sugar (yes). She was so hypoglycemic that she was cold. I wasn't mean, I was stern and loving.

Good news is that after doing that, she was more alert and felt better. I just took the syringe and wiggled it in her mouth, through clenched lips and all, and gave her a squirt to the inside of her cheek. I'm used to this stuff with dealing with Devyn's GERD and that NAAAASTY meds the docs gave him. He had quit eating at all when he was 7 months old from the pain that esophagitis had caused due to the acid repeatedly burning his throat.

So I get home and I'm mad. Maybe it was justified. Maybe it was a pity party. How long is it going to be for me to have a life of my own? Am I willing to continue this at the expense of my little boy? Haven't I suffered enough by saving her life over and over? Hasn't she suffered enough? What fresh hell is this to work so hard to get someone to survive when they say they want to, but all their actions are going against survivability? And finally, just open your mouth and eat, dammit! I don't deny I want to spend the time helping her survive or saving her, but get with the program. (And, yes, I know that her mind is inhibited by toxins, but it doesn't make the feelings any better.)

Knot in stomach, heart in vice, I go to paint. Dev's having some sleep, I start writing all I feel and what I want to say on the canvas and start getting ideas of what its going to be. The letters' lines are going to cue me in on color change. Plus, I'm letting the poison out onto the canvas so it doesn't mess with me later. 

I take a break and walk outside and hear a bell, one sound, over and over. It feels like someone is trying to get my attention. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I feel someone there. All of a sudden, I was compelled to say "I know you're here, I just wish I could see you." I then started to feel the other person's protectiveness and that I'm never alone. They don't want this dilemma for me or us. But I get the distinct impression it isn't one of my blood relatives. 

I ask Stephen who it might be on his side: the person is protective, not to the I'll take your head off extreme, but by way of getting in between an experience and the person and shield the person. He said that sounded like his Mom. "the person is also very "polite" and would never invite themselves in... they're waiting on being welcomed in. They're not boat rockers, but they wouldn't hesitate to be fierce if they needed to" so, I said it outloud... "hey here, Mom Hill, go ahead and come in. I hope you know you're always welcome here."

With that, I went to get a cup to make some putty and didn't think any more of it. While I was getting the cup, I was overcome with motherly love, all these feelings at once just flooded in like a tsunami... all for Stephen and what he was doing with his life, how he was handling things, how well he loved, what kind of father and husband he was. I was so full of sentimentality, pride and joy (like he was MY son!) for him that I started crying. For me, thinking of my husband as a child, my child, just doesn't happen.  

I stopped what I was doing and went to tell him I was sure it was his Mom and couldn't get out what (I?) she was feeling for him because I was crying too much. I AM NOT A CRIER. I listen to slipknot, I take blows like a champ- get ticked off about situations, not hard, but not mushy, either. Sensitive, yes, empathic and compassionate, but not this.
 
Finally, all I could do was hug him and tell him how wonderful he was and that she was so so so proud of him. She was proud of his choices . He was just a good man. 

I got ahold of myself and told him that was why she was outside, she didn't want to intrude (thats one of the feelings I got) and that if he wanted to be alone with her, he could go outside. Seemed fitting that was where she was "concentrated" seeing as how he was taking out the garbage a minute or so ago. 

Stephen got some things and went outside. And, apparently, so did she... because the tidal wave was gone. I was done and was by myself to do what I wanted and my mind was quiet. What was left in her wake was contentment, gratitude, serenity. Something I'd needed all day long. What a huge gift to the both of us.... she is still mothering both of us :)

I've always considered, probably because of my upbringing and the shame surrounding that-- that I was not the kind of girl one takes home to mama. But oddly enough, as blunt, wild, bossy, outspoken and fun as I can be, but I got the distinct impression she did approve of me :)  I am honored. 

Grief is a complicated thing and people vascillate between deep despair, denial, anger, making "deals" <--I never did that one, back to one of the ones just mentioned and over and over. About anger... they never really tell you why you're angry or what its going to be directed at, do they? I guess it could be anything.  

Day before yesterday, I saw Oil of Olay bodywash Mom had gotten me for Christmas and I just bawled. For 2 hours. The thought that I didn't do enough for her, make her feel loved enough, just kills me. Since I had Devyn, I didn't have the patience I used to and the thought I'd hurt her feelings, kills me. Not being able to call her to tell her this weird mix of haircolor I concocted looks good, kills me. Not being able to hear her blather away about dumb things breaks my heart. 

Last night, we go there and she's not waking up at all. They'd done a CT scan and there is nothing wrong with her head that she can't wake up... she's just sick. Its not pain meds, its not a high fever, she's just checked out. Hell, I've been sick as a dog, had 105 fever and saw things, yet I could still say hi. WTF?

Then I got angry. I'm actually relieved, anger feels better than that despair. 

A long time ago, a couple built a house. They didn't have everything that they really needed to make it as sturdy as they should, but they wanted one anyway and they built it where they wanted to. It turned out to be a really good house. In the early years of its "life", a hurricane came along, Camille. The house still stood, most folks were surprised given that the hurricane had 200 mph winds. Sure, it lost its shingles, shutters and porch, but somehow the little house made it.  

Other things happened throughout time, additions had been built onto the house, new rooms, renovations, celebrations, births and birthdays. More hurricanes came and went and the house creaked and moaned and the superfluous parts blew off, but the main structure still stood. The couple was proud of themselves and their construction and maintained life as usual, thinking that all is fine. They tended to the outside, the gardens, the furniture, but never thought to check the bones of the house.

Later on, a small but compact storm, category 1, hit the house and this time, it started to shake more than usual, making crumbling sounds. No one understood: its withstood the biggest and strongest of winds, why would it now begin to crumble? The winds are coming from a different direction, its a small storm comparatively, so why is this happening? 

No one heard the support beams splinter in initial storm's torrential rains because they were so busy mopping up the superficial water on the floor. So now, people are shocked that this small category 1 is about to take out the small, seemingly sturdy house. 

The ones living there even get mad at the house: this is a completely different situation! Why are you crumbling??

How stupid is that?? Well for someone seeing the situation for what it is, there are a few choices... strengthen the support beams, move the house away from the hurricane-habitat or watch it blow over. 

Such is the life of someone who is an ACOA when they live long enough to revisit situations that remind them of initial childhood insults. Even long after sobriety and the choice to live a better life, the structural damage remains. In my situation, I've saved my Mom's life over and over and over-- whether it was through hiding her booze so she wouldn't drink into oblivion and drown in the bathtub, begging her to leave a man who would eventually kill her, all the warnings I gave her to behave differently when Dad (if he knew what she was doing) would beat her for what she was doing, hiding her in my closet when she came back after "running off", to actually sitting on her lap as a human shield when he was going to shoot her. 

Today, I am tired of having to make life and death choices for someone who isn't present. 

No matter how many times Stephen tells me that the situation is different, I can't help but feel tired and resentful. Yes its different, but the effect is still the same. I don't get a life, I get sadness and fear and loss. Whether its by choice (alcohol, a husband) or by nature (Nocardia), I am fucking tired of this and angry. I want her to suck it up, wake up and make a choice between life and death and not leave me to do it for her, like most of my life.     

But as unfair as it is, thats not going to happen. And I'm still left here to look at limbo with the thought that something else could be done to snap her out of this. My heart still breaks and yearns for the person she was before the illness. I still see some fucking olay bodywash somewhere, all day every day. God, I miss her and I'm mad and I don't want to make this decision. But here I am. 

My beams may be wobbly, but my foundation is strong. So fuck you, storm, bring it. Blow the house down. I'll rebuild.  

This is so not what I want to blog about, but I've got to get some of this out. I'll let friends know a little bit at a time, but thats about it. And, just to let them know why their stuff isn't done yet or I'm late for something. I just had to take a minute.

Life's been hard recently and just when I thought it can't get any harder, it did. Mom had been chronically ill and on her last days/weeks/months, but I had to put being with her on the backburner to work at what I could to make ends meet. I worked my ass off painting, promoting, etc. The day that Mom got really sick, I broke and told Stephen to do what he had to do to get whatever job he could. I literally told him to stalk the HR people where he's sent resumes and meant it. 

Then, good news: we got relief when Stephen got word that he was hired in Seattle. I can't even remember the name of the place... Its going to be a drive, but I am so relieved. I'm just worried for him travelling that much and being tired. It is so hard to be ripped apart by having to choose between making a life for your child/family or spend your last experiences with your Mom. I chose and now I don't have to. Thank you, God.  

Tuesday, Sept. 10, Mom was admitted to the hospital with with colitis- caused by the serious chemo-type antibiotics that is supposed to help win the war against Nocardia pneumonia she contracted in June/July of this year. Long term steroid use (which is sometimes just one course) creates vulnerability to Nocardia. She had to go to the hospital... they took her off the antibiotics for the colitis. The Nocardia had no speedbumps and then took off like a shot and sepsis ensued (the infection is in the blood then).

Then septic shock. Seeing her there, swollen like a blimp and leaking fluid from her extremities and on a ventilator, was too much. There is a point in illness when you had rather bear the huge loss of a loved-one rather than see them hold on through suffering for you. You can let your loved ones go much easier than watching them suffer. I think that is how parents of terminally ill children survive the aftermath. I could survive Devyn's passing better than seeing him suffer- oh God. Just please don't ever put me, him, us through that, please, no part of that. No parent should.

So, these days are filled with getting up with less sleep under my belt than I'd like, trying to take care of Dev as best I can, grabbing a minute for computer work and chores, trying to keep more patience than I feel like I can handle at the moment, going to the hospital and loving Mom, coming home, doing dinner, staying up late and working. Its hard and sad, but its supposed to be. And I'm not doing it alone, Stephen is here and doing the best he can, too. 

I'm so grateful to love what I do and have a passion for it. Graphics, promo for the Stanwood-Camano Arts Guild, painting, loving people through what I do. As a gift from God, it has been my saving Grace. 

They took the ventilator out today, but her other numbers aren't looking good, but we'll see how that changes with this new antibiotic. She woke up talking about Mary, Mary, Mary Magdalene. Her mind isn't here and she's in between places and the Angels, Spirits, Guides are helping her to let go here by forming relationships there. They know she won't let go because of the love she has here. That is what I think is going on. I really think they tried earlier and it didn't work- she's a clinger and she wouldn't let go. This time, they're taking their time and easing her into it- but that means her body feels more pain than we here want to see her feel. 

I can't wait to share the dream that Stephen and I had. It'll be a painting, probably one of my best. Just when I think things can't get more beautiful, rich, mysterious or unbelievable, it does.  

 

Don't read this if you don't want your mood to drop like one of those jets with bad batteries. Read on if you want someone to relate to or just out of curiousity.

I've got so much work to do, but I'm taking a mental health evening. I read Damn You AutoCorrect! and got a good laugh. I even had a nap. I needed a mental health evening instead of working at every available minute cuz Mom had to be taken to the hospital again at about 5 a.m. this morning via ambulance. She started vomiting and had other "issues", while her hands were tingling and burning like fire. Sounded like an allergic reaction to me. I didn't take her, but that didn't mean that I wasn't up bothered, tho. Yes, I prayed. 

Today was my day. Stephen and I started switching days (one day is his work day and the next is mine) and we get a bunch more done that way. I was glad today was mine; I got to paint. It didn't help with my attitude, tho, like it usually does.

I'm just tired. Bone tired. What triggers my depression is stressful events that just keep coming, like ocean swells knocking me down over and over, and I think thats whats going on.

Normally, I'm a conqueror- I don't worry, I deal with "it", attack whatever it is head on when "it" happens and I'm not afraid of much of anything. But this shit keeps coming. Just when I think I've got a little while to recuperate, I get hit again. And I'm starting to get pissed off about it. God, fate, bad luck, whatever it is, give me a freaking break for about two months. Just let me catch my breath and get a few steps forward, ok?

Not that I think life shouldn't be this way, that these experiences are unfair, it what it is and I could be anybody. I would feel better if I could get a leg up out of this pit that keeps getting deeper. Every time I get my stuff set up to go out and network with other art sellers/dealers/interior designers, something serious happens and all forward progress has to cease. I get a project going and momentum (you know, the "flow" where its coming together and you're in the zone) I have to stop to write some dry assed complaint form with the Mississippi Board of Realtors or Dispute of Settlements and Fees. Its both draining and distracting, then there's this recuperation time (that may or may not happen) and then shit hits the fan again:

continued below this line.............

So anyway, after watching Brene Brown, the painting's meaning finally became comprehensible. It is about how the outside world lives in a space of ego and armor and I didn't. Never have. I tried and it felt completely un-natural, so I shut up and shut down.

Because of this, the feeling of belonging never came to me (until many years later when I met fellow artists/sensitives). Until then, "Fitting in" was something completely alien, and never so evident as when I was in the throws of my breakdown. The scream came from the feeling of not being able to escape it, this emotional knowledge of the disparity between what is inside people and what they show. There is a real person in there somewhere beyond the armor and spikes. Although people's internal workings are none of my business, open-ness is a gift not many people give. Sad, because they get so much more out of the interaction.

The rabbit is the Velveteen Rabbit. Like the Velveteen rabbit, you become real once you have been loved to the point of pain (intimacy brings pain). Real relationships bring arguments and misunderstandings... the rabbit has a scar on its heart and also its wrist. Its in the shape of Edvard's original person, with the same acidic colors (agitated depression heightens adhd or any of your senses, everything feels like an assault). Besides that, check out the dudes walking up the pier. You can't get a read on them, they don't want to look you in the eye. The one without the spikes actually smiled.

In the background are the tell-tale trees painted by every MS gulf coast artist that shows. All the trees look the same, so since this is about not fitting in, I put them in there. Most of the artists of the region also painted shrimpboats and magnolias at some point, so I have a shrimpboat in the background (that didn't exist- due to Katrina) and after feeling shunned at several art shows there (and not from this painting, either, lol) I painted USS FU as the boat's name. 

The struggle of my entire life had revolved around this ONE topic. When no one lives in the space you do or is willing to take off their psychic clothes either, the hunger for intimacy of being real with another person like yourself creates a starvation, a famine of the soul. At the time, I didn't know why or where it was coming from, but the depression had stripped me of any psychic skin and exposed the real guts of the matter. God was part of this, but God had stepped into the background... I suppose to allow me to be taken apart to be put back together again. How many other artists cannibalize their creations to make something new and improved?

For more information about psychic upheavals and re-integrations, read here about "THE POSITIVE DISINTEGRATION THEORY"

How do we learn to fear being vulnerable? When do we learn to hide our feelings? One of the first times I remember something like that happening, I was playing with little neighbor kids. They were a little snooty, I was 5 or 6. I think I had mosquito bites and bruises all over my legs (being a tomboy) and they picked on me about it. Unrelenting in the torment, I went home crying.

That didn't change me, it didn't bother me that much: what stuck with me the longest was when I wrote them a note telling them how it effected me, my Mom telling me to stop crying and to tear up the note. It was the look on her face and the message "don't give them the satisfaction" and then something deeper... "how can she be so weak?"

My Mom is a strong woman who had a hard life. She cries for no one while they are alive and the only times I've seen her cry was for a pet, her brother and my Dad when they died. She has the hardest time crying (when she does) and her whole body shakes as if in a panic attack. So this is evident in her fear response towards anyone else's vulnerability. Cry if you fall down, sure, but the rest? Suck it up.

I'm not alone and neither are parents in these messages, given or received. So, that is how life went for me for 30 years. I never could understand why someone just couldn't be honest with their perspectives and perceptions and so I was completely conscious of keeping "it" all in. My art was the only release for the real me underneath so much so that I forgot how to talk about it. I had a realization something about me felt different from how everyone else appeared... and I wanted something unintelligible. Life felt like it had been inhabited by hard-shelled hostile entities, but I didn't know why. I felt de-skinned, ultra sensitive and exposed. 

Fast forward. Not only had I been dealing with invisible constraints and saw them in other people, I had also been dealing with a mild to moderate depression since graduation in '03, in '05 Katrina hit. The depression until then had taken the form of anxiety and agitated depression also known as mixed state or mixed episode (a very dangerous kind that infiltrates your thoughts, behaviors but with an anger and anxiety that makes one very scared of one's own capabilities. Most depressed people would kill themselves if they had the motivation, with mixed episodes, you have the energy, PLUS rage.)

Anyway, after Katrina, the need struck everyone everywhere and I couldn't help. People died, families were without anything, children didn't have homes, food, toys, anything. (I cannot stand suffering and have to do something.) At the time, I had JUST gotten into therapy. My father had just had a quintuple bypass (yes, quintuple. 5 arteries!!) and had lost everything in his home that had gotten 4-5 feet of storm surge.

The stress was too much to bear. One day, my Dad walked up to me in the kitchen while I was cooking chili for my whole family and instantly a tape played in front of my eyes in my mind of a scene of him with that expression, and I, when I was 3 years old. Front to back in complete clarity of me trying to talk him out of killing himself and trying to talk him into living. The "movie" included the sights, smells, sounds and emotions of that time. I was three, helpless, had no idea that the world existed outside my front door and that my dad's life--- and mine- were about to crumble.

That, my dear, is a flashback. And not the post-acid induced kind (which I never took, btw) or the fluffy, fuzzy flashbacks of romance movies. Its also symptom of PTSD.

For the first time since my teen years, I had been put in the position to care for my father. The first time was an unhealthy, parasitic version of exploitation in which I cared for his emotional health when I was only 3... the second was a natural progression of his own age and mortality, but the similarity was there enough to trigger the flashback.

I caught my breath, said nothing and finished dinner. It wasn't easy, but i did it. Throughout life in other areas, things had gotten progressively worse. People don't know that depression filters EVERYTHING that comes through your senses into your thoughts and heart and then filters everything that comes out of you into the world. It is like a black filter.

Something as simple as walking down a dock can be turned into an Alfred Hitchcock scene. As I was walking down a dock (we were looking at hurricane devastation), we encountered some fishermen on what was left of the dock. (what the hell???)

Instantly, I had the painting of Edvard Munch's The Scream flash before my eyes-- and I understood what he felt like. The people looked hostile (probably dealing with depression on their own, too, from Katrina) and had no friendly expression whatsoever. I got home and painted "Velveteen Scream". It was the pictoral expression of what vulnerability, and the lack of, feels like. Disconnection. Click the picture for more information on the painting and its symbolism.    

Do YOU compare yourself to others- or, even just as dangerously, yourself at your best? I used to. Wake up. You were never intended to stay who you were, thats why human spirits grow long past the point when they grow old.

"Put it in the light so he doesn't have to fear it". That is my LIFE and what this blog is about. That is my art. And I heard these words coming out of Dr. Robin's own mouth on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, the flood of appreciation opened that God was giving me the validation that I am on the right path. This is why I chose to be open, honest and naked to anyone who will listen. I made the conscious decision that I hide nothing from myself, Stephen, friends or clients. It doesn't mean I tell things that are hurtful for no purpose (Your butt looks like two fighting balloons in those pants), but when it comes to myself, my experiences and my capabilities, I shine the light on it.

My life had been marred by so many things I hid out of shame. BUT you can't be hurt by something that you put in the light. You don't have to fear it, you don't have to fear being found out, you don't have to waste time, energy and worry about hiding it. This can be something as profound as being molested as a child, accidentally murdering someone while driving drunk, or as Dr. Robin and Oprah are talking about, Lionel Richie not being able to hit the same high notes as he used to. 

We were never intended to keep recreating what we were or what we already have. Thats not creation, thats copying. We are intended to create something NEW with our art, our lives and our spirits.

We as growing spirits must come to the realization that we create our lives as we move through this spiritual space-- and the spiritual space changes, so we must change and recreate accordingly. The mud-house doesn't hold tight in a rainy marshland, so rebuild your house and keep growing. The question is then, how?

By being open and honest about yourself. What you find out will influence your life and ultimately your art. Nothing that influences one doesn't influence the other, they are intertwined.

What is really going on now? What is my life made of now, what does it consist of, what do I need to feel completed NOW, what are my most basic needs and the needs of those that I love? KNOW yourself, who you are, your limitations and perceived inadequacies. Know your highs and lows and keep them in the light. When those questions can be answered clearly and truthfully, then the answers will direct you to a path that is yours in this time and space alone.