Love & Glitter

Persephone (w/VIDEO)

Persephone is very much alive for me right now in the dance the earth is doing with the sun. I love her story and her symbols. Seeds. Pomegranates. The descent to the Underworld and the return. The mother (Demeter) who grieves for her and in her grief witholds her gifts from the world until her daughter is returned to her once more. 

I went hunting for Persephone poems tonight and found a few that really rocked my world. They were all found in this extraordinarily fine poetry quarterly that I'd never heard of but stumbled across in my search. I believe the title of the quarterly comes from a poem called "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rosetti ~ one of the first poems I read out loud for the sheer joy of the words on my tongue, and the first poem that made me cry the ugly, snotty, red faced cry that one prefers to cry in private. 

Serendipity feels spring-like, doesn't it? 

Let me explain. 

I am a blocked poet. A lot of you have read that in my bio. I started arting because I couldn't write, and prior to the block, writing had been the way I got through *everything*. Having no outlet, no means of creative expression was *killing me* and if you think I'm kidding, I'm not. I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed. It was the winter of my discontent. I was Demeter in those dark days, grieving, only I felt that the gifts associated with Spring ~ inspiration, new beginnings, poems ~ were being denied to me. 

In pursuit of a deeper understanding of the divine feminine inspired by my experience in The Red Madonna, I recently went looking for some poems I'd written that I *thought* were about people in my life, but realized were actually about The Mother/Sister/Crone. A few tweaks, and yes. These were poems about longing, about wanting, about women, about sisterhood, about the divine. The *very week* I did this, I got notification about the monthly Red Madonna call in which we were invited to read our own writings. 

How do you say no when the Universe comes knocking in such an obvious way?

You don't.

So, I swilled two glasses of CabSauv, and I got on that call, and I lit a candle, and I read.

Here they are. As an aside, I write as 'F. Stuart' and have since 1997. 

This Is What It Is To Want                          

As though it's spring and I hear water
lick my lips, prepare my mouth to open wider.

As though sense receives a hint of herbal green
in the last white days  of dying winter.

As though heat hovers over what is cold;
lit match over wick, 
winged mother over egg
or open, wanting beak.

As though there is no water near,
winter is new, 
the match won't flare to life and 

the mother bird, fallen, flightless, 
is silent, 
empty bone and feather.

As if she always was, went from me
and is returning.

As if she never was, never,
and is now beginning.

©F. Stuart 

 ***

Magdalene's Mirror                                                  

Unlike silver on glass
giving back
only what crosses the face;

clenched jaw, nod, smile, furrow.

She is black ink in water
three a.m. river
sipped Shiraz in the
lupine hour.

Not cheaply bought

in press board gilt frame.

Magadalene’s mirror.
Dreamed of sister.
Under skin twin.

©F. Stuart

***

Remembering that I once wrote, that I could write, that I may write again brought me into stark awareness of the return of Persephone in my life. She just arrived, holding a pomegranate and offering the juice as ink, beckoning me to take a taste, wiping her mother's grieving eyes. 

Here's the video

 

A thousand thank-yous to JournalArtista who demonstrated the stencil technique I used to create the background, and to Shiloh McCloud who is teaching me oodles about painting stylized, iconic portraits. 

Supplies Used
(wherever possible, I link to my source for these products) 

Strathmore Visual Journal 9 x 12
Frog Tape (great masking tape that seals against acrylic paint)
Liquitex Basics paint
Stencil by Julie Fei Fan Balzer (purchased from The Art House Store)
Baby wipes. :D
Dylusions by Dyan Reavely
Stewart Gill Paint
Copic Multiliner 
Floral stamp by Donna Downey
Pan Pastels
Archival ink in black by Ranger
Sakura Gelly Roll (metallic) 

Music by my 'art-to-guy', Anugama. 

Inspiration provided by Persephone and her glorious return from the Underworld. Thanks, Hades. We'll send her back soon. xo

Oprah Saved My Life & Julee Described It. (with Video)

I had this amazing experience this morning. I got up, got my coffee and sat down to check e-mail. I had a lovely e-mail from Julee Herman about the video I produced for Book of Days on Monday.

She said:

I loved this one, Effy!

I was talking to the screen... looking a bit nutter I'm sure... I love flopportunities! Here's the thing, once you "mess it up" you now have automatic permission to push it as far as you can and wouldn't dare with a piece you were afraid to wreck. You get to GO for it!

I swooned. 

Because that sentence there? The one about messing up and the having automatic permission to push it as far as you can?

That's how I have lived, and I couldn't have told you that until I read that letter from the gorgeous Julee. 

This is what occurred to me: 

For the first thirty plus years of my life, I was in 'clean up the mess' mode. In my childhood, obviously, I was not responsible for the mess, but I was sure made to feel like I was. I spent the first 20 years of my life trying to adapt to my (crazy) surroundings, trying to 'fit in', trying to make the people around me happy. I was a poster child for the story about how abused girls who are raised by addicts (and their codependents) go on to enter abusive relationships with addicts in their adulthood. 

I'm aware that some people get stuck in that cycle. I know people who never moved passed victimhood. I know people who, having been abused, perpetuate the cycle of abuse either by living in untenable, abusive relationships or by becoming abusive themselves. I've seen it a thousand times.

But I was lucky. I had Oprah. (Not kidding!) She came into my living room every day and told me what happens to abused girls (and so I woke up). She told me about adult children of alcoholics. She showed me what is possible. 

So I didn't settle for where I was at. I marched my ass to therapy in 1992, and though I still made horrible messes of my life by making really bad choices, I was growing in awareness. Ever growing. Ever stretching for that place beyond the limitations I was conditioned to accept. 

Even now, my life isn't easy. I'm reactive, socially very awkward, I drink too much sometimes to medicate ennui or anxiety (and sometimes both at the same time). I have a hard time leaving my head in favour of actual, embodied life. I am triggered easily and can go from fine to despair in the time it takes to smell something that takes me back to...

Well, let me be straight with you. (TRIGGER ALERT)

....watching my father beat my mother in drunken rages. 

....experiencing neglect and deep loneliness when my father left and my mother checked out emotionally.

....being orally and digitally raped and sodomized, used in child pornography, lent to my abusers friend, and beaten between the legs for a few years after I turned five. 

....being blamed for the abuse in covert and overt ways. 

....being that kid who dressed funny and was so obviously eager for teachers to like her that she alienated her peers and was bullied (and 'beaten up') throughout her school career. 

....being little more than a sexual object to my first spouse, and a punching bag for my second (and third, and so on...the relationship that I'm in now is the *first* relationship in which I have not suffered any kind of physical abuse or sexual violation. The first.)

....living through the suicide of a sibling and the resulting 'survivour's guilt' ~ something I still struggle with to this day...

***

When you come from that, you have a few choices. You can succumb and let life beat you. You can identify with your abuser and become an abuser. You can stuff it all into a tight little space within you and become an automaton ~ someone who plays a role and goes through the motions, but never really lives. You can drink or drug yourself to death or suicide (my sister opted for that route). You can stay in your victimhood and blame every awful thing that happens to you *after you have the power to choose* on everyone else. 

Or you can "...push it as far as you can and wouldn't dare with a piece (life) you were afraid to wreck."

I was already a wreck. I was about as wrecked as a person can get. And I saw in that fact *permission* to push. I had to let go of most of my family of origin. I became 'too much' for a lot of people and lost them. I struggled with depression and post traumatic stress disorder and self-loathing and self-mutilation and love addiction (codependence)...

But I kept pushing.

Because, really? What the fuck else was I going to do? Stay where I was? Oprah said I could have a different life, and I *believed her*. 

So I kept pushing. 

And when Jul described my process in this video in the specific and perfect way she described it, I realized that I had played out how I have lived my life in my art journal. Confront the mess. Do not deny it. Work with what you have. Push. Keep pushing until you're where you want to be. 

I may still be a bit googly eyed, a bit wonky, but listen: I am a long way from where I started and I have half my life to keep working on it. 

(Thank you, Oprah. Thank you, Julee)

Here's a time lapsed version of the video Julee was responding to:

 

Saying No

My beloved Teacher tells me clarity comes when we first know what we are saying 'no' to.

I say no to:

~working too much for too little

~giving a crap what other people think of me

~identifying myself ONLY by the roles I have been cast in

~staying 'on the ship' that is my tiny house, my red leather couch, my little life

~being small to make other people comfortable

~denying my worth for fear of what God might call me to do if I'm willing

~remaining unwilling

~refusing to sparkle

~mistaking empathy for being a door mat

~being too scared to try

~refusing my birthright

~rejecting myself/abandoning myself/neglecting my self-care

~being so self-loathing that I don't recognize how lovable I am

~responding to other people's appreciation and love with self-deprecation and invalidating statements

~not planning so nothing will happen

~letting life ride me ragged

~believing old tape

~thinking that since my mother didn't love me, no one can love me

~hiding from the love of my Sisterhood for fear of eventual rejection or abandonment

~being a hermit out of fear 

~denying my need for friendship 

~being prickly as a mode of self-protection

~remaining unconsciously reactive

~sinking into victimhood/poverty consciousness

(As I type my yes grows and grows and grows...)

This is the kind of work I'm doing in The Red Madonna. It is opening me to the rich, full life I dreamed of but never imagined could be mine. There are shifts happening, people coming into my life that *belong in it*, people who believe in me, love me, support my vision. The smoke has cleared, and I have not just closure but a clear sense of direction forward. I am coming into a knowing that I am the place where God/dess moves, breathes and has her being. I am the place where God/dess shows up. My choices, my actions, my gifts are sacred. I am sacred. 

The no leads to the yes...

I'm listening. 

 

I Really Am Okay. :)

Inspired by the fabulous Sisterhood of the Book, I have adopted a name for my inner turtle (also known as my muse, my internal inspiration station, She Who Creates). 

And she told me today that she wanted dangly feather earrings and wrist bangles. 

So I took her shopping.

And she is very happy. :)

I don't know why I'm sharing this with you except that I want you to know just how very *okay* I am. 

Your letters & messages have buoyed me right up out of the ghetto of self-doubt. You. rock. my poptarts. And I am very grateful that I'm priviledged enough to have an opportunity to, in small ways, rock yours. 

(Wow. That was a doozy of a sentence.)

Because, listen. Internet Drama? So not even on my radar. A great service is being done for me by the Universe. My rose garden is being pruned. What is being excised is nothing I want anyway. The paring down means we get to have more light, more love. 

What I began last year felt like it was going to be my 'forever thing'. And it was beautiful for a while. I knew nothing about group formation, though, and I was ill-prepared for the 'storming' part of the group formation process (Thank you to my LaRue sister who knows who she is for naming this for me!) and I admit: it freaked me out. I felt like my world was coming apart at the seams. Because I *ran away from the storming*, because I didn't *deal in a transparent way* with the stormy ones among us, the group didn't get to move into 'norming and performing'. Wild Precious died. I couldn't stand to be there any longer. Neither could my partner. Yes, I'm admitting I let a few people ruin it for me. Yes, I'm admitting that they won. 

But I won, too. Because what I learned from that experience is informing how I handle this bit of stormy weather. 

I know better than to run away from the 'storming'. I do things with as much transparency as possible. I don't delete shitty messages left in my worlds. I let people see exactly why someone is being excised from my life like a dangerous, cancerous tumor. 

Because, listen. Toxic is toxic. Trying to work with it feeds it. Leaving it alone and moving into spaces where love lives, where encouragement lives, where people know your worth, feeds something in you. 

Which would you rather do?

And also. I get that one girl's toxic is another girl's champagne. I don't expect everyone to be allergic to what I'm allergic to. 

But I *do* have the right to say "You do not belong in my garden. You are welcome in my foyer or in my front yard or in the house down the block, but I don't want you that close to me."

I will say it nice the first time.

And then I will say it firm. 

And if saying "You do not belong in *my* garden" makes me a dangerous person? Then, I embrace that kind of dangerous. 

Good boundaries, people. 

Get some. 

All my love,

Effy

 

 

Gloomy Weather

It's January and it's RAINING. And foggy. And cloudy. This does not in any way resemble any Canadian winter I've ever experienced and while you're not going to hear me complaining about NOT having to scrape the car, shovel the walk, or walk in knee-high snow, you are going to hear me complain about having no good light to record video in or photograph art in!

Because I have things to share! And record! And photograph!

But I've been thwarted by this moody weather we're having.

*Temporarily and only slightly bummed*

So, I did a little retail therapy, and you might be interested to note that Michael's has the fun Tulip fabric spray paint that Traci Bautista has been using in her class at Strathmore this month. Score! I got a party pack for $29.99 without a coupon. If you have a coupon? Bonus score! I had no idea you could use this stuff on paper, but it makes sense. Cotton paper? Might as well be cloth. Why not! *Happy Effy*

I'm also very stoked about this workshop by Shilo Sophia McCloud, Canvas Create with Donna Downey, and Way of the Wild Woman by the gorgeous Mellisa. These aren't affiliate links. I'm just flinging glitter because these offerings are rocking my socks off.

Also? I was PUBLISHED! In Cosmic Cowgirl Magazine! And I'm teaching in Angels In My Studio this year!

*Big happy whoop for joy*

That is all. Hopefully, tomorrow, there will be LIGHT so I write the post I really want to write! 

xo

Effy

 

Clearly, I Need Practice!

So, I watch Inspiration Wednesdays pretty much without fail, and as most of you know, it was in part due to Donna's never failing to produce a video for her readership every single Wednesday that inspired our Monday 'full spreads' in Book of Days. I already had a very regular art practice, but sharing it...well, I sucked at that, but the more I watched Donna, the more I realized that I *really wanted to share*. 

So, now I do. Yay!

Donna recently announced a year long subscription program called Canvas Create. I had to sign up because what inspires me about Donna is how intuitively she makes the things she makes. She plays in a way that I resonate with and want to embrace. 

Clearly, I need practice. 

Doesn ' t Get Much Better

This quote has me rubbing the goosebumps that rose up on my arms and stayed put for hours:

“As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice, and the instructions were these: Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”   ~Leonard Cohen

Gah! I love contemplative meditation. It's my favourite kind, because my brain doesn't do "no thought" very well, but give it something to chew on, and it's happier than a dog with a bone. Example: [caption id="attachment_1917" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="Jazz!"][/caption] As I turned this quote over and over again in my head, what came up for me was the question "What instructions come with my voice?" I love this idea: that the gifts we are given come with instructions. It reminds me of Danielle Laporte's writing about 'The Metrics of Ease'. I even art journaled it: [caption id="attachment_1918" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Julie Balzer inspired "Book of Days""][/caption]

If you'll notice, I haven't answered my own question. I'm still musing on it, but I know a few things for sure:

The instructions don't include "Shrink to accommodate other people."

They don't include "Be acceptable to others at the expense of your own authenticity."

They don't include "Don't talk. Don't tell. Don't feel."

They don't include "Give up."

Sometimes I derive my most important answers from investigating what the answers *are not* first. I enjoy this kind of deconstruction, but then I do love to navel gaze. It is one of my super powers.

***

It's Friday and though we celebrated Thanksgiving back in October, the spousal unit took a long weekend and we are enjoying it so much! There is a pre-made lasagne in the oven smelling like heaven, kids taking up space playing Skyrim and chatting animatedly, happy dogs and good coffee.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Happy Thanksgiving, Stateside Peeps!

Messenger

My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

~Mary Oliver~

   

Sincerely, L. Cohen

"As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. And the instructions were these... Never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done wtihin the strict confines of dignity and beauty." L. Cohen

Panacea

Asking my tribe for reiki, lighting candles and incense, sitting in wave after wave of love, incoming. This helps. Thanks. xo