Change can come in an instant, forever changing the landscape that is familiar and known. Change can be subtle and unseen, moving under the surface undetected until it is ready to show its new form, its tender untouched skin.

Prior to 2012 I lived in the same location for 15 years. I had come to know this place and I had come to know my place within it. In the five years that followed, I inhabited and/or established 12 different dwellings, 12 different homes, 11 of which I personally lived in for various moments or lengths of time.

The cycle of the last 18 months, a year and a half as we currently mark the passage of time has been one in which unforeseeable changes, transitions, beginnings and endings have continually rolled over my internal and external landscapes with the unpredictable movement of a great and massive body of water, like the coming of a storm that lingers, shapeshifts and takes new and uncertain forms.  I said goodbye to my father as I knew him in this world to be. Five months following his passing I would care for my mother as she too took her leave of this earthly plane. I have walked and lived on the desert sands of the southwest and I have stood at the shores of the Mother Ocean and tasted her salted memory. I have returned to the land that birthed and raised me: revisiting what had formed and began my construction as the being that I had come to know myself to be. I lived through the season which I have come to call My Winter in the House of Ashes; four containers of those who had passed grouped in passage in their respective urns. I welcomed a new love into my arms and I opened my arms to release a love that I no longer knew how to hold. I have watched as one of my four legged companions, a teacher and a friend diminished quickly from this world, leaving another void and space that echoed with what once was. I lost and found myself, unsure of what remained, forever changed by the movements of lives and the marching of time.

I am inhabiting a new place, a new home once more. One previously unknown to me. I am in many ways unknown to myself. I am a creature who deeply inhabits, one whose foundation reaches out like the roots of a tree, connecting to the soil in which it has grown, from which it has come. What happens when the soil is scorched by the cleansing of a great fire? What happens when the forest burns and your roots, your foundation no longer stands as it once did? What happens during the period of time when the landscape lies dormant in appearance, cleared of what had once grown? Is it possible to become quiet and still while the life underneath connects to the nutrient rich ashes in order to begin to push up and live again? I have asked myself if I can be comfortable not knowing what that new form, that new life will take.  

Under the Sheets of Rain was the first painting that I completed after my Mother's Death.  The paintings always come first.  Until a feeling or experience has been moved through me by means of image, color, paint, I often struggle with "words" for they are not my first, best or preferred language.  Under the Sheets of Rain was painted while I lived in the home my parents' had built a life in.  A period of time which is included in a chapter of my life that I think of as the Interstice - an intervening space, or an interval between spaces and times.

As always, I thank you for the moments you choose to enter my world.   My Hands, Your Hands,

In beauty, love and art,
​~Heather

Following "The Dream of the Painted Face"​ it would take another 9 years before I began engaging in a sustained practice of painting.  On that particular day in July of 2004, when I sat in front of the canvas and held the brush I  considered the act of painting to be medicine.  
​

In Gratitude, Love & Art,
​~Heather

If I could, I would
whirl pigments into eddies and create you visible in energetic glow
the matter and mother which embraces you 

If I could, I would
layer incandescent hues to mirror the beauty of your muscle, skin and bone
revealing the light my eyes holds you in

If I could, I would
gracefully trace the curve of your hips in the movement of  fine sable brushes
whispering of the worlds cradled within your form
 
If I could, I would
merge the shades of your soul with the rhythm of my hands 
​giving voice to the map of stories on your skin

If I could, I would
bathe you in warmth and  ardor, creating a sensation of bodily heat
you would light the garden in your brilliance 

If I could, I would 
Glow

In dedication, gratitude, remembrance and love to the Divine Feminine and 
the Garden of Eden that lives within each one of us. 
Shine ladies Shine.

My hands, Your hands.

In gratitude, love and art,
~Heather

​

Venus of Moravary
​22,800 B.C.E
Mammoth Ivory figurine carving
Found in the area of Moravay in Slovakia.

GLOW
(noun)

1. a light emitted by or as if by a substance heated to luminosity; incandescence
2. brightness or color
3. a sensation or state of bodily heat
4. a warm ruddy color of the cheeks
5. warmth of emotion or passion; adore

​
(verb)

1. to emit bright light and heat without flame. become incandescent
   
2. to shine like something intensely heated
   
3. to exhibit a strong bright color; be lustrously red or brilliant
   
4. (of the cheeks) to exhibit a healthy, warm, ruddy color​
   
5. to become or feel very warm or hot
6. to show emotion or elation

More to come on the topic of glow soon.  Perhaps while you are waiting, every once in a while you think about glow.  More than think about it, perhaps you have an experience of it.  You could even try walking down the street while simply thinking about glowing and see what happens.  You could try it while sitting in your chair, right now, where you currently are.  I highly encourage it.

​In appreciation, art  and love, 
​~Heather

an introduction...
 
The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.  It is a symbol that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and of coming full circle.  It is an ancient whisper that speaks of the eternal return: the cycles of life, death and rebirth leading to immortality.  Like an old and ancient beautiful thread, the colors of the Ouroboros are woven throughout time in the Stories of phoenix, dragons, serpents and snakes. 
 
I have come to believe that inside the belly of this ancient snake whom eats its own tail, lies the ooze of primordial unity.  Primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force and qualities it cannot be extinguished.  Within that ooze lies the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual.  The ooze from an ocean from which all is born and where all is One.  It is from this ocean of ooze that my Story, my tale is born.  It is a Story born in a place far away from the concerns or constraints of ticking clocks and time as we have currently come to know it.  This tale is seeped in an embryonic fluid that moves through time.  Past, present, future and the unknown all swimming together in non-linear form and function.  It is from this place that this tale has been woven.
 
As I followed the trails of this Story, I found myself wondering; could our lives, our personal Stories, our collective Stories, the Stories of all mankind, the Stories of all kind and beyond be from the vast waters of this primordial ocean, from this place which, like the Ouroboros, has no beginning or end?  Is it possible that the waters from this ocean swell and rise within us giving rise and fall to our memories and the memories of our origins?  Do these waters direct the rhythm and flow of our Stories and our lives?  A perpetual pumping of liquid memory that flows through the vessel of our beings in a way that allows us to be continually reborn.  If we are reborn in this manner does our birthing hold the possibility of remembering the source of our origins and the agreements that we have made with the source of our existence?  Could this liquid, this memory, be a form of Medicine that could benefit humanity and the magnificent world that we all share and which is in desperate need?
 
I wondered if it is us/we who navigate the rivers and oceans of our lives or are the rivers and the oceans the captains of our sailing and sinking ships, navigating us on a journey that reveals our individual purpose within the Story that we are all a part of?  Are we like that ancient snake, both swallowing and disgorging ourselves in an all consuming yarn: each of us following our individual threads in order to be lead to our collective and shared story; a beautiful, expressive unraveling?  If we become aware of our relationships with these waters, if we become aware that we are not separate from these waters, are we then able to see its and our own passage through time and space?  Are we then able to see that we are all swimming in the same primordial water?
 
I began to think that perhaps the answers to these questions were unimportant.  Perhaps what matters, what is of importance, lies within the seeking of these questions and their answers? Perhaps what matters is being willing. Willing to enter into the mouth of the serpent knowing that you will eventually become the tail that will spiral its way back around and enter into the mouth once again.  Willing to become part of the food and part of the Story.  Willing to acknowledge our individual responsibility and part in an eternal return.  Willing to live a life that is an honoring and remembering of the cycles of life, death and rebirth that leads to immortality and the feeding of an incomprehensibly beautiful dance. These are the question and thoughts that line the trail that I have been following.  It is this tale that I have followed in seeking the trailhead.  It is this tale that has become the tail of the Ouroboros which is forever seeking the mouth.

The Dream

Is it possible to notice, mark and observe where one event or life altering occurrence ends and another begins?  Is there an interval, a pause, a beat between the spaces of these happenings that can be seen and felt?  I believe that there is.

Underneath or covered by the paint on "Interstitial" lies an entire world.  In many ways, this world can only be glimpsed by the visible texture on the canvas.   In April of this year I had an especially significant dream.  This is one of those dreams that when it is "over" your eyes open and you awake with  an intense  feeling of having shaken hands with the harbinger of your life.  It was a dream that foretold of events yet to unfold.  One that warned, prepared and communicated messages of happenings and transitions soon to come to pass.  One of the messages of the dream was that of my father's passing.    As with most significant and powerful dreams it rolled around in my subconscious and would periodically rise to the surface of my awareness - particularly as the events of the waking world began to match up and meet those foretold in the dream.  Then there was that particular morning in May.  The one in which I awoke and the knew.  The very air around me that I was breathing and moving through was different.  My father had departed from this world in the night.  Slipping past the veil as he slept. 

The painting began then...images of and from the dream mixing with images of the messages that had recently been received in the waking world.  The painting speaking the language of riddles and dream.  Ominous, surreal, heavy, otherworldly and filled with the magic and portent of the space between the worlds. 


The Painting

My hands, being, imagination worked those images, the paint, the canvas and my soul  for over a month...weaving this world and the passing days with those of the dream and the journey of my father and his story, our story.  After a month's work I sat in front of the highly textured canvas - with the exception of my signature and a final coat of sealing glaze I believed it to be complete.  The painting sat on the easel for an additional 24 hours.  The next time I approached it, I sat in front of it...I looked...I listened...I felt into it with as much of my senses and being as I could possibly muster...and then...I picked up the container of white gesso  and did something that I have never done before...I completely covered the completed painting in a layer of white and new beginning.  In a way that I have never done before...I let go.

It was not an attempt to erase, forget, hide or escape the dream, its' messages, the grief, my father's death, or the messages of additional transitions yet to come.  Rather, it was a new way of being moved.  In the week that followed and with no particular end point or final destination held within the boundaries of my mind...fresh paint began to fall upon the canvas.  The paint was laid over the highly textured white canvas...with my eyes softened and seeing into those places in-between.  In the pause, in the intervals, the interstices of time told the story and rose to the surface and "Interstitial" reached out to make contact and touch me.

There are 13 additional paintings that are currently in progress.  13 paintings that speak to and are a study on and experience of those places and spaces of Interstice.  Places formed by the spaces in between, what they hold, what is hidden and revealed in the play and conversation  between light and dark, known and unknown, past and present, dream and waking.

These paintings are an invitation.  I am a being born of the places of in-between, of the borderlands, of the interstices.  Can I reach out from these places?  Can I touch you?  Can I communicate a piece of a story that I do not hold all of the threads of and to?  Can I weave the mystery so you too can be moved?  Can I do this is such a way that when you touch or come into contact with the places of in-between, the interstice, you can feel the bridge that unites them both under your feet?  I am currently standing on one of these such bridges between here and there.

I have come to understand that there are Stories that Call.  Ancient Stories that whisper and speak through symbols, messages, and dreams.  Stories that remember ancient agreements and the meaning and purpose of our existence.  Stories that are Medicine in the truest sense of the word.  I believe that these Stories find ways of reemerging and being born again into our modern society so that we as a people may remember who we are.  My particular Story is carried on the vehicle of the Borderlands and the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros. 

Let us think of the Borderlands as a place where worlds touch and through their contact, a third or new world is born; a world that inhabits the spaces of in between, a world that serves as bridge, door and portal between the two.  It is through the portal of the Borderlands that I first heard the whispers of the Ouroboros.

We are the magical and physical realization of our ancestors.  Whether we know it or not, I believe that we are carrying the medicine bundles which have been passed down to us through generations.  Whether we are aware or not, I believe that we are seeking to fulfill a legacy of our ancestors’ grail quests and dreams.  We are a walking legacy.

I am of the Borderlands...and I am not alone.

It is tomorrow.  Are you sitting in the old rocking chair?  Are you moving in time with the rockers as they make their way in and through time and across the floor?  Can you hear me rocking next to you, my chair creaking in rhythm and time with yours?  Please, take a moment and listen to when the creaking of the wood lines up with one another – when the two sounds form one.  This is where we will begin… you and I rocking side by side, sharing a story.  And I ask you once again…
 
Can I touch you? 

Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I?  Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away?  Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us?  Are you willing to let me try?
 
In August of 2012, in one particular moment, on one particular day, I awoke before the dawn.  I knew that they would be coming for me soon.  I gathered the bundle that I had prepared to take with me onto the mountain.  It was tradition that I be placed on the mountain before the Sun crested over a specific peak in the morning sky.  I sat on my bed waiting.  My heart beating a little faster than it normally would.  Was I ready?  What would unfold over the next 4 days and nights?  In my mind I ran through the preparations that I had gone through in order to make it this far.  As my mind and thoughts caught up with the sweat lodge and the events of the previous night, there was a knock on my door.  They had come for me…
 
Clinging to my bundle I opened the door and looked into the face of the man who had helped me to prepare for this moment and who would lead me into the sacred spot where I would remain for 4 days and 4 nights. 
 
“It is time.”
 
There were no words spoken as we made the journey in.  There was no longer need for words.  Each step I took served to remove me from the world of the every day.  Each step deeper into the woods and closer to that sacred spot was a step closer to the veil which separates the worlds.  After the circle had been opened and I had been placed inside I watched and listened as those who had sung me in turned and waked away…returning to the world that I would cease to belong to for the next 4 days.
 
I sang the song.  The song that had been given to me in fragments and dreams.  I sang the song until it became a Being of its own…full and re-membered.  I sang the song until it began to sing me.  I sang the song until I felt that my voice, my being had been woven into the landscape around me.  No longer was I alone on the mountain and in the circle…my breath moved through the raven’s wing that soared above.  My breath was in the movement of the needles of the magnificent Ponderosa Pines.  The blood that moved in my body was the sound of the River as she moved and jumped through the canyon below.
 
A myriad of magnificent and wondrous happenings unfolded within those early hours on the mountain as I tied prayer tie after prayer tie.
 
…the mating and dance of two of the largest Cloudless Sulphur Butterflies…their gorgeous pale yellow wings moving in time inches from my face…
 
…the pair of cicadas who shed their exoskeletons as I slept and left them directly in front of my closed lids so they would be the first thing my waking eyes took in…
 
…the three fishermen who entered the circle with their lines full of fish and never saw me sitting behind the boulder tying my prayer ties…
 
Each of these moments suspended in a soup of time.  Each of these moments carrying messages and meaning from beyond the veil.  Each of these moments etched into my senses and being.  Each of these moments fresh in their birth and yet having always existed in a time outside of time.
 
As magical and mystical as the beginning of the 4 days was, I hovered between the worlds.  It was August in Northern New Mexico and it was over 100 degrees.  My body which would go without food and would only receive one small glass of water each night was already struggling.  I was dehydrated from the heat of the sweat lodge the evening before.  My skin was already beginning to burn in the heat of the Sun.  I moved around the circle in time with the Sun…attempting to place myself in the shelter of the Ponderosas and behind the shade of the boulders who were my only shields.  Periodically I would “come to my senses” and wonder how I would make it through 4 days and nights.  When this panic would begin I would once again begin tying the prayers together.  I would once again sing the song.
 
At some point in the day I was called to the River.  I opened and closed the vision circle as I had been shown to do and began scaling my way down the cliff’s edge to the River below.  I stripped off my clothing and made my way from rock to rock, my blood moving in time with the River.  I sat on one boulder, one particularly large Stone Person.  I leaned over the edge of the Stone Altar upon which I placed myself and let me hair fall into the water.  As I rose from my submersed position I saw one of my long silver hairs (there were only a few at that time) swirl in the water around me and begin to flow away from the rock.  I picked up the silver strand and without thought spoke the following words…
 
“There is a woman here on a vision quest.  I ask that this hair be carried back to the primordial waters.  If this hair is received by a Being who wishes to adopt me, they may find me here.”
 
…and with that I released the silver hair and watched as it moved down the River and out of sight.
 
I began making my way back up the side of the cliff…back into the circle…and back to the prayers that I had come to make.  At moments time passed and at moments it stood perfectly still…suspended.  At moments all I thought of was my own selfish needs and how I did not know if I could endure 4 days and night.  At moments time ceased to exist and I was the prayer.  As the day crept on I watched the Sun carry his load across the sky.  I watched and tried to guess how close I was to the Sun’s retreat and the moment that the one blessed container of water would be carried in by the man whose face I had last looked upon.  The time was coming closer and everything in me wanted to weep at the thought of that sweet water moving down my throat.
 
I sat on the ground leaning against a stone with the mound of prayer ties that I had spoken bound and wrapped in a pile to my right side…and then it hit.  I began to feel a swirling in the region of me chest between my breasts.  The spiraling sensation was such that I felt as if I was going to vomit what little remained in my stomach onto the ground.  As I sat there feeling into the sensation I heard a rustling sound to my right.  I slowly and cautiously stood to see if I could identify who was close by.  When I rose, the first thing that I saw was that of a brown snout moving from behind a tree close to the cliff edge.  Panic.  My heart began to race and my body began to emit the smell of fear.  My mind raced ahead trying to identify what I had seen.  My first thought was a wild boar.  I sank back onto the ground.  I was about to be skewered.  I was about to meet my end.  Even to this day, the quickness of my thoughts in that moment remains a mystery to me.  Breathe….slow down the movement of the time…are there wild boars in New Mexico…who has come to show you’re their face? 
 
Slowly I rose once again in hopes of seeing the one I could hear.  As my eyes traveled towards the direction of the sound they came to rest upon who had come to be seen.  Standing by the Grandmother Rock who marked the entry into the vision quest site was Bear.  Once again I lowered myself to the ground.  If I make myself small…oh so small…maybe this Being will move on…this cannot be…I am not worthy to meet such a Being….what do I do…this cannot be happening…  As I sat with my racing thoughts, the magnificent Being jumped on top of the boulder that marked the east gate of the vision quest site.  Bear and I were now 3 feet apart from each other.  I was on the ground and Bear was above me on the boulder.  I could feel the eyes on me. 
 
Do not look at him…Keep your head down…Do not look into his eyes.  These were my first thoughts as the spiraling in my chest continued.  But…some part of me knew.  I had called him.  The song I had sung was his.  He had taught it to me.  Slowly I raised my head and my eyes met his.  Slowly I stood to face this Being who had come to show me his face.  As I stood he jumped from the boulder and landed in front of me.  He then began to move to the Ponderosa Pine that abutted the boulder.  I reached out and ran my hand down his back.  He reached his great paws out and climbed the Ponderosa and then slid down scarring the bark of the tree in great lines.  He then once again climbed on top of the boulder and attempted to use his mouth to pull and remove the yellow prayer tie that I had attached to the tree to mark the east gate.  Then, once again he turned and looked at me and sat on his haunches on the rock.  He began moving his claws out in front of him.  As he moved his front paws back and forth the claws clicked together. 
 
You are his song.  Sing his song back to him.  I opened my mouth and once again sang the sung that I had been taught in dreams.  I sang until I had no voice left to keep singing.  He sat, moving his great claws back and forth.  When I stopped he did as well.  He then jumped from the rock and began making his way to the cliff side that extended up the mountain.  I watched as he made his way slowly up the side of the cliff.  He would disappear into the trees and then reemerge in an open patch of terrain, turning to look at me as I looked at him.  Every time our eyes would meet I would begin singing his song again, my voice raspy and spent.
 
As soon as he cleared the side of the mountain I heard the song  that announced the entry of another human into the vision quest site.  The water which had been so coveted and then forgotten was arriving.  As the proper steps were taken that allowed me to once again speak, I conveyed what had occurred.   The scarring of the Ponderosa was examined I was asked the following question…
 
“What will happen if Bear returns?”
 
I spoke the truth.  “I will go with him.”
 
I was removed from the mountain that night.  I was returned to the bed where I had laid in the predawn hours before part of me was irrevocably changed.  I could not sleep.  My body continued to vomit and expel anything that was no longer meant to reside within me.  In between these great voidings…I lay in bed weeping.  For you see…I could hear the stars singing.  I could hear the song of the Bear and the song of my bones in the Stars.  Did you know that are bones are made of stardust?  Did you know that stars sing?
 
This particular Story is one that until now I have never chosen to share in a public way.  I believe that there are stories that are personal.  Personal in as much that they hold power unique to the storyteller or individual whose life they were gifted to.  The time to tell this story was now.  I share this story, my story, not for me…but for you.  Why?
 
Can you keep the rocking chair in motion until next time?  Can you listen to what is being said and spoken both in words and in the pauses between?  In the deepest of gratitude.
 Until next time…

If you would like to share your thoughts or have a comment please click on the word COMMENTS below.

Can I touch you?  
 
Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I?  Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away? Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us?  Are you willing to let me try?
 
These are times that move the human spirit.  I have sat here as the ongoing events in our world continue to ripple through leaving shock waves and tremors or grief, loss, suffering, dismay, wonderment.  In light of all that has gone in past and recent events, how many of us have begun yet one more day seeing the headlines and have found ourselves sitting and wondering what can we do?  What are our individual and our collective roles?  I certainly have.  I have struggled to understand.  Even as I write this, I feel the tightening in my throat and tears well in my eyes.  I have no answer…and yet…and yet…
 
Can I touch you?  Are you willing to let me try?
 
I am a woman who has many theories that I am constantly and consistently watching…putting to the test so to speak.  I have one that I have been turning over for quite some time.  I believe that the more authentically we live our lives…the more authentically we share with the world who we are – who we understand ourselves to be…we in some beautiful and strange way grant permission for others to do the same.  This is important.  This is not always easy.  This is often messy.  I am speaking of living in your skin with as much truth and integrity as you can muster.  How much can you let the rest of us see of who you are?  This takes work, willingness and dedication to a constant process of excavation.  The excavation being the diligence of monitoring and removing the debris of what we are told we are supposed to be.  There will always be those who do not want to look upon your truth…those whose perception will be so incredibly different from you own…those who will tell you that you should act and be one way or another…those who tell you when you are right and when you are wrong.  Do you know yourself well enough to know your own truth?  You see, I believe we all have a purpose.  Every single human being has a unique purpose that can only be fulfilled through their dedication to the excavation of their truth.  Much of this excavation comes through moments of struggle and hardship.
 
I have worn many different hats throughout my life thus far.  At one time I was the Education and Outreach Coordinator for a statewide organization.  I traveled the state providing education, workshops, and presentations on issues related to sexual and gender identity.  I had both the honor and challenge of holding this position in Vermont as it went through the contortions of legalizing civil unions. 
 
One particular presentation that I did at this time is still incredibly vivid in my memory.  The presentation was for a high school – teachers and students alike.  Throughout the duration of the presentation there was one young man who proved to be incredibly challenging.  He sat on top of the desk as if it were a throne.  He was the football teams star quarterback.  His girlfriend, wearing his letterman’s jacket sat in the desk chair at his feet.  Every time I presented a statistic, a story or a piece of information related to new research he would speak out with the opposing viewpoint and statistics.  He had charisma.  He was popular.  He had confidence.  He was intelligent.  He also had the potential to sway the audience and the majority of the room.  Honestly, I was very good at my job and I am skilled at giving people the room they need to maneuver and express their viewpoint.  I am also skilled at holding space.  That presentation was one of the most challenging that I would experience in the course of that particular career.  Finally, after two hours the presentation concluded and the room began to empty out.  I began packing up the materials I had laid out on the desk and was thinking about the 3 hour drive I had still to make before I would arrive home.  From the corner of the room I heard shuffling and raised my head to see the young quarterback who had so challenged me standing there.
 
“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked. 
 
It had been a long day and I still had a long drive home ahead of me.  My first thought was…great…here comes the personal attack.  I took a moment to prepare myself and then answered, “Of Course.”
 
With his head down he walked over to me until he stood directly in front of me.  As he lifted his head there were tears in his eyes as he said, “I am so sorry.”  The tears came harder as he continued, “I just couldn’t let them know that you were talking about me.  I could not let them all know who I really am.”  Then he said, “I will never forget you.  You have given me something to hold onto.”  He turned and left the room.
 
Can I touch you?  Are you willing to let me try?
 
There are so, so many stories that I could share.  Stories that have formed and shaped me.  Stories that excavated and revealed layers of my truth and purpose, as I know them thus far to be.  But as I was thinking of writing this installment, as I sat here wondering what my role and purpose was and is in regards to the events that continue to unfold in our shared world and realities, I began to think of a different story that I wanted to share.  A different type of story that speaks to walking in one’s truth and in one’s authenticity.  A story that I thought I would never share in this particular way.  But these are strange times.
 
Remember that old rocking chair from the first two installments?  Can you pull her up and start her rocking motion back and forth?  Can you hear me rocking next to you, my chair creaking in rhythm and time with yours?  Perhaps as you move through your day today you can listen for the sound of that rocking chair.  Take a moment to listen when the creaking of the wood lines up with one another – when the two sounds form one.  Then tomorrow…this is where we will begin.  You and I rocking side by side, sharing a story.  And I will ask you  once again…
 
Can I touch you? 

Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I?  Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away? Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us?  Are you willing to let me try?

If you would like to share your thoughts or have a comment please click on the word COMMENTS below.

 has been circulating on social media feeds.  Before I go any further I would like to say that I am a lover of Ms. O'Keeffe and her work.  I am an individual who loves to learn about the grittiness of people's stories and lives.  I prefer to learn about the quirks, oddities, hardships, triumphs, misgivings, mistakes, and flaws of my fellow  human beings at the same time that I am learning about their strengths, fortitude, courage, vitality, originality, talent, and vision.  It is in the intersection or borderlands between what is so often is described as "good or bad", "right or wrong", "truth or fiction" that I find the reality that for me is the most solid of grounds.  I love Ms. O'Keeffe's story, her art, her legacy and her contribution. 

Now, with that said, I will continue...

Approximately 2 years ago I stood on the land that is now called "Ghost Ranch" (a land and place that has a story and history far more expansive than Ms. O'Keeffe and its usage as a dude ranch - but that is another story.)   I listened and heard for the first time as the tour guide pointed us in the direction of Cerro Pedernal and  told us the story of Ms. O'Keeffe and her mountain - "God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it."  Honestly, I literally guffawed and laughed out loud.  I stood there as the other members of the tour turned and looked at me, shocked and dismayed.  Yes, this is part of Georgia's story.  Yes, it is important to tell in relation to her, her paintings and her life.

and yet...when I say one of my basic tenants as an artist and human being is "Artist of Keeper of Ancestry and Lineage" perhaps it is important to say that I also believe that this phrase, idea, theory, practice extends way beyond what I believe may be understood as the current definition of the word "artist".  I offer the following excerpt from my Artist Statement as further explanation...

Sometimes when I am very passionate about something, my virgo/scorpio brain can kick into a hyper-drive so to speak.  So I hope that to a certain extent I am making myself somewhat clear.  What is missing in this article about Georgia and her mountain?  In my heart, head, body and soul who that "mountain" is in Ms. O'keeffe's story is just as important, if not more so than Ms. O'Keeffe herself.  In my belief's that mountain or Cerro Pedernal cannot be given to anyone by any god.  It is the people who are given to Her.  I offer the following excerpt from the Book, Valley of the Shining Stone, The Story of Abiquiu by Leslie Polling-Kempes as to who this Being, this Mountain, Cerro Pedernal is...

I have lived in northern New Mexico for almost six years now.  I am not from this land - I come from another land who has her own stories of great beings whose bodies are the mountains, lakes and valleys.  Although I am not born of this particular land, and soon I will be leaving here for the shores of another...I do know that in my experience, in my world, if you approach a place, a land quietly and with the intention of learning its story, it will reveal parts of itself to you.  From the moment my eyes first fell upon Cerro Pedernal it was clear that she could never be "mine".  I wept the first time I saw her, the first time I felt her.  Instead of wanting her, I felt the desire to drop to my knees and bow my head in her presence.  In that moment, the voice that I can sometimes hear in my head and my heart spoke the word, "Mother". 

In a few moments I will finish this post.  Perhaps I will feel slightly calmer in knowing that the "mountain that Georgia left her cheating husband for" has been remembered, her name spoken.  She is Cerro Pedernal and if we are lucky, if we ask beautifully, if we listen to hear her whispers... we may be given to Her.

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For the last year the water in my dreams has been steadily rising.  Even when the dreams have been rooted in the sands and surroundings of this desert home, they have been messages speaking of the water's arrival.  The rising of tides.  The dry riverbeds of the arroyos flooding.  In this nightly realm, even when the speech and messages have spoken to the absence of water, they have spoken about the events that will occur upon its arrival. 

What of the last five years of my inhabitance in this desert landscape has been or has served a purpose of "drying me out"?  An evaporation or hollowing, a burning away of what is no longer needed or necessary for me to carry.  Old ways of thinking like ancient aquifers that no longer reach to the places in need of irrigation, baking in the sun to dry and crumble and once again return to the earth.  What if I have been training on how to survive and thrive in conditions such as these?

As of late, the liquid landscape of the dreams has been increasing in intensity.  Their message growing in strength, and speaking of a quickening.  What if the magnificent Ocean Mother has been calling to me?  Letting me know of our meeting or perhaps more appropriately of our reunion?  When I made the journey to this arid land that has been my home for the past five years I thought then that I would root here for the remainder of my life.  I had been called here in dreams by the voices of those whose legacies and lives have been seeped into this ground.  This beautiful, rugged, wild and carved landscape has taught me much.  She opened her arms and embraced me, and then, as she held me tight, she began her tempering.  One lesson after another...parasitic infestations...the plummet of financial instability...near death by carbon monoxide poisoning...lessons on love and betrayal...a touch with bubonic plague...boulders falling from mesas and destroying my transportation...a swarm of locusts devouring the fruits of the garden...the list goes on and on...

I wrapped my arms around her neck and held on tight, praying that she would change her embrace.  I prayed that she would kiss me gently, whisper in my ear and speak to me of our love for one another.  There were moments of such tenderness.  Moments when she and I held hands and matched our footsteps to one another.  But as a lover she would not marry her hand to mine.  As is the case with lovers who sometimes magically enter our lives, the passion and the desire for union was intense, beautiful, epic - they teach us much.  They hold a mirror of reflection up and we are blessed to see more clearly our own faces.  She has done this for me.  She has revealed pieces of my landscape that I had yet to know, that I could not see, that I refused to look at.

As the marking of time passed and the events and happenings of the previous year drew to a close, an unexpected man entered my life.  He arrived in this desert land with the whisper of the Ocean.  The smell of her wind and body carried magically and embedded in his skin, being, words and way of existence.  Recently I have found myself wondering if she had sent him to carry me in his arms to her.  The cargo is being prepared.  The route is being mapped and the sailing crew is almost assembled.  The voyage from this land of sand and sun will set sail on August 20th, making a voyage that will lead to the waters.

Mother, I am coming home to sit upon your shores and fulfill the promise that we spoke of in the watery realm of the dreams.

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The world of my dreams drips - rich in images, symbols and swirling paint. 

Many years ago I began to think of the dream world as a reality that formed or was in parallel with that of the waking world.  Dream visions and symbols began to pass through my being, the paintbrush in my hands, and onto the canvas that I painted.  In reverse, the same occurrence was also true.  Paintings that waited unfinished on the easel slipped into my dreams where the next layer of their becoming was revealed through symbols, events and other dream realm beings and participants.  This has remained an ongoing reality.

My dreams are the voices of ancient and unborn storytellers.  These storytellers read life back to me, reveal messages of what has yet come to pass and weave the thread of my life's story with images, symbols, colors, sounds and otherworldly happenings.  When the dreams sound their calling I have learned to listen.  When the dreams do not speak, their silence is deafening,  My body is the borderland where the worlds of dream and waking meet. 

It has been almost 20 years since I had the dream that was the impetus and inspiration for the painting that bares the title "Turquoise Soul" .  When I awoke to find myself in this particularly dreamscape I had not yet laid eyes upon this land and earth which would become my home.  It would be another eleven years before this waking world would move in tandem to the messages the dream had conveyed.  It would be fifteen years until the borderlands of my body would bring these two realities together and join them in paint, turquoise, beads, feathers, copper wire and the soil of this land.  But before I picked up the paintbrush and swirled the image of the dream into being, the experience of waking and walking in the dream world on that particular night was written in the pages of my journal...

 The dreams have once again begun sounding their calling.  Fresh paint is drying on the canvas in the studio.  The storytellers are turning the pages of time.  There is a new chapter which has been carved into the stones of memory.   I am walking between the worlds of what has been and what is yet to come.  

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It begins by  closing my eyes and allowing myself to  wander through the hallways of collected memories.  The hallways in this interior world of recall  are a dreamlike and misty place.  A place where doorways open into pockets of times passed.  When these pockets of time first formed, when they first occurred in their present moment, there was no way of knowing that they would form rooms and doorways constructed of their images, sounds and smells.  In their inception, there was no way of knowing that they would live beyond the doorways that appear in the hallways of my memories.  When I lower the windows that cover my eyes, I am searching for where you live inside of me.  I am searching for those pockets of time that have been etched into my soul, the place where your memory will always live and continues to move through me and my footsteps.

There is a place housed within my body and in close proximity to my heart that always begins to tremble and shake when I know I am moving in these hallways and I am approaching  where you live.  I always know I am getting closer when I begin to  hear the echo of your laughter.  I never knew that part of what I would long for and hold so dear would be the sounds your life made.  Like a beautiful old vinyl record complete with the sounds of crackling and ambience created by time's passing.   The passing of your days and life have left a soundtrack. 

If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways  of my soul there is a door which opens upon a scene from my early childhood.  Did you know?  Did you know that when you would disappear into your bedroom and I heard the latches on the guitar case clicking and opening that some part of me began to dance and sing inside?  Did you know that when I would place myself on the floor at your feet and I would stare up at you, watching and listening to you play your guitar and sing?  In those moments I was a girl, a daughter at peace.  I did not have words then for what I now understand.  From my spot on the floor I would look up and wonder how the fingers on your hands could work.  How hands that had been marked by a life of hard work, holding tools, stained by years of  grease, carved in cuts and old wounds made by the engines and parts of thousands of cars could begin to move and allow for that sound to wash over me.  That thought would fade as I watched your fingers press down and glide over the strings and as the sound that you made with your hands and your voice changed your face.  I knew you to be happy then.  I knew some part of you opened and existed in connection to the clicking and unlatching of that guitar case.

If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door from which the sounds of waters flow.  I still hear you in the movement of water.  The sound a fishing pole makes as it cuts through the air and lands upon the surface of a lake.  There is a connection between the image of your hands turning the steering wheel of a boat and the sound of the water parting in rhythm to the actions and choices of your hands.  I can still see you standing at the window looking out over the lake.  Your stillness and silence was a conversation with that body of water that was in so many ways your home.  For me, you and your memory will always be tied to the song of the water.  The sound of your laughter will always bounce upon ripples and waves.

As time passed and you and I both grew older the sounds that marked your place in my world began to change.  The last time I made the journey home did you know?  Did you know I was watching and listening to you?  I watched you as you put your sandals on over your socks - no longer comfortable walking on bare feet whose bones had contorted with the passing of time, age, and a life lived.  In the early morning hours I listened from my bed when you were being so careful not to wake me.  I listened and memorized the shuffling cadence of your sandal covered steps.  Tears would slip from my eyes.  I knew then that I would not have the chance to hear you pad past my door again.  If I close me eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door from which I can hear you softly humming and singing a song as the sound of your sandals shuffling past can still be heard.

You never had the chance to meet in person the man whom I would come to call my husband.  The two of you would only pass each other in this world for a short time.  Held within that time was a shining moment.  On the day that he asked you for permission to take my hand, your daughter's hand, you spoke to him of wild horses.   You spoke about how you can tame a wild horse but how you cannot ever keep it down.  I wept after that phone call.  Until that moment I never knew you understood this about me.  I never knew that you saw and understood me to be as I knew myself to be.  If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door that opens upon a field where the sound of a wild horse's running hooves are connecting with the earth.  You are standing on the edges of this field and you are smiling and laughing.
 
If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul, there is a doorway that exists and through which I cannot clearly see.  It is the doorway of my passing.  The doorway which holds what will come to pass when I am no longer in or of this world.  I have thought about what lies beyond this doorway and I have often wondered if I will become part of the images and colors of this world when I am gone from here.  Will I become the painter of the sunrises or sunsets when I walk in the other world?  Perhaps I will become the colors themselves - the vibrant green of a newly spouted seed, the magnificent cerulean blue of the water's deep.  

The last time I heard the sound of your voice, the last time I spoke with you...it was not said....but we both knew...it was the last time.  In what was not being spoken, everything was being said.  The last words and sounds that I heard from you were, "Be good to each other.  I love you."  I have heard those words every day since the day you passed.   I hear you in the sound of the water's movement.  I listen for you in the whir of engine motors.  I hear your shuffle in the passing of sandal covered feet.  Your laughter lives in the jokes and stories told when family gathers together.  In your passing from this world, you have become part of the beautiful rhythms and harmonies of the song and soundtrack of mine.

But perhaps where you exist most for me is in the sound of the unlatching of the guitar case that I carried home and in the sound created as I press  my fingers down upon the strings.  I am once again a girl, your daughter and I am at peace.  This song is for you...

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As the old rocking chair continued making its grooved motion back and forth and I thought of all that had recently come to pass...how those tectonic plates of my foundation had shifted and come to rest in new and previously unknown locations I wondered.  I wondered, did I have it in me to rise one more time?  My life and story have kept time and space with ancient creatures and their multitude  of representations.  The Phoenix.  Dragons.  The Ouroboros.  The threads of their mysteries are woven throughout the images of my artistic and spiritual practices and the worlds in which I inhabit.  Like the ancient snake circling around to eat its own tail (tale), was I ready once more to let go of what needed to fall away and shed my skin?  Like the magnificence of the firebird, was I ready to step from the ashes of what had burned and what remained into a new form and spread my wings to fly?  Those who have known me or who have witnessed my story's unfolding have at times spoken about the colorful and seemingly dramatic rhythms of my life: the glorious rises, the plummeting falls, all the mysterious events that seem to move through the passage of my years. 

In my newly found willingness to share my stories and thoughts with the world beyond my own skin in a written form, I offer my deepest vulnerability.  Please allow me a moment for further explanation as to why it is important for me to say this out loud.  I am a painter.  As I mentioned in my last communication this identification and knowing, this act and process of painting, well...this is my terra firma...my solid ground.  I do not question it.  I never have.  Whether or not a painting sells, or whether or not I receive affirmation or acclaim for the act of painting or the corresponding result in many ways is inconsequential.  For me there is no choice.  I was born to hold a paintbrush.  I was born to swirl colors into formation and images.  It is as essential to my being as breathing,  I do not mean to say that I do not embrace or welcome the monetary benefit that could result from the engagement of painting.  Nor do I mean to convey that when a person witnesses or is moved by one of my paintings it is not appreciated or beneficial.  What I am saying is that if those factors ceased to exist you would still find me holding a paintbrush and mixing paint.

In this act, the process of painting, I am incapable of lying, withholding, or telling someone what they desire to hear or see.  Painting is my truth.  At times this truth is raw, beautiful, ugly, not easily understood (even by me), simple, complex...whatever it is...it is a piece of my internal landscape, my mystery, my magic, my soul, my story.  At times people have suggested that I paint images that are more easily understood or embraced  by a wider public.  These suggestions have come with the best of intentions and perhaps a desire for those who care about me to have the joy and experience of seeing a lifetime of work begin to "pay off".  I understand this logic and reasoning and yet I am incapable of doing so.  To do so would be a lie and a coercion of some core part of my existence.  I know for some this will sound dramatic, but it would be the beginning of the death of a part of my spirit. 

So why?  Why do I share this with you?  Why do I share with you this insight regarding my feelings and thoughts around what it means for me to bring an image onto the canvas?  Because the same promise and process exists within my commitment to sharing these written words.  The truth is I have been writing for years.  There are books upon books, pages upon pages of my thoughts.  I have been asked by numerous and various people to share them before but it has never felt right to do so...until now.  Perhaps it has always been too close to the bone. 

And so...back to that glorious old rocking chair.  Back to that moment when I rocked back and forth and I asked myself the question - Do I have it in me one more time to rise?  You see, as I rocked back and forth I honestly did not know.  This time it was different, everything seemed different.  The driving energetic force that had always propelled me forward had shifted along with those tectonic plates.  I kept rocking back and forth and a thought began to creep in.  What if...what if instead of shedding my skin and feeling as if I had to protect that oh so tender new and exposed skin, the skin I did not yet know...what if instead of rising from the ashes of what remained into a new form...what if I chose to step fully into the skin that had been being formed around my blood and bones?  What if I  began moving from the inside out?  Perhaps this seems easier for an outsider looking in to realize, but for me it was revolutionary.  In that moment, in the rocking of the old chair, I understood that I had to think about it differently.  This time I could not shed or rise.  This time I needed to step into and inhabit who I am becoming. 

The old rocking chair made the sound of of its bones creaking as I continued to move back and forth and I believe the friction of its' moving sparked a small and delicate flame.  That flame flickered and I was moved.  What if like a painting, this was an offering from my soul...what if I shared the experience of my inhabitance with you?  You who might be interested in what I might have to say.  In that moment I made a decision to fully inhabit my skin and a commitment that I would share what I had been previously unwilling to do so.

Here is my promise to you whose eyes are moving over the formation of these words - I will be honest and I will paint now not only with images but also with words the picture of my soul.  The same rules will apply...I will not make a portrait of myself that is easier for the masses to embrace or one that is an inaccurate depiction of who I am or understand myself to be,  I offer you me, as honestly as I am capable of seeing myself as I begin consciously inhabiting the skin around my blood and bones.  I have always believed that we grant each other permission.  What do I mean by this you might ask.  Well, I believe that the more capable you are of being truly and authentically who you are and the more you live or inhabit this authentic truth, the more you allow or give permission for others to do the same.  What I have to say and what I will write is in many ways an invitation and one I offer with and in the deepest of love. 

So...it is time for us to pull up our beautiful, old, creaking rocking chairs and let us sit side by side.  Let the stories begin.