Take care and have a beautiful weekend.
As ever, stay hungry and curious.
N. A. Jones |
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I have a short amount of time. Just wanted to tell you new pic from the sketchbook are up. Look here.
Take care and have a beautiful weekend. As ever, stay hungry and curious. Simplicity
My room sits at the close edge of dark. If it were not for the flickering street lamp, I would stare out in the direction of the window. As I desperately look for the slightest change in value around the room, I would eventually fall back to the digital clock for guidance. A few moments ago I was buried under quilts studying the light that made it through the slats of the window blinds. I laid ever so still as a solution to an old problem came to mind. The problem was with one of my templates for stuffed animals. I yielded to the design block about four years ago. Frustration and tears is what I vaguely remember, along with shreds of poster board that covered the floor. I trimmed a slight bit too much here and overcompensated for it around the curve. In other words I was tired and made a mess. My “on-the –verge” of sleep solution makes me more than happy. Muse often calls on the edge of passing through those dark corridors guarded by Somnus and Morpheus. Come these past few years I no longer have to call out, rather, beg for muse to visit. I have found a permanent grace complimented with a shy memory come morning light. Maybe to save my frustration I should sleep with the light on and an open page to a sketchbook set next to the bed. For now I keep an army of pens and a paper stacked clip board in reach by my bedside table. Other times in darkness after midnight, I have risen and begun to sew. A handful of hours later I returned to sleep. Deciding on a stopping point when I begin a work makes it easier to finish mentally and emotionally for the day. Otherwise gremlins take hold and argue the night through. Come those nights, my nerves are shot for a day or more. I have got to tattoo patience on both of my hands. For the sake of making better fine art and skilled craft, I want to shift from churn and polish to giving an image the working it deserves to manifest fully. The whole concept of my personal process being an argument between simple versus involved is a little tricky in my head right now. There is that well of accomplishment with basic skills that suits a beginner’s merit well. Yet, what does that say of a master? I anchored once on the thought that a master brings new concepts and practices to the table, not to forget they also explore their own image core with deft skill. A master may elevate a studio project to a higher level, but even that does not demonstrate challenge to the point of being respectful to their experience and accomplishments. I get involved with my work, immensely so. Part of the journey these past eight years was to be consistent with my approaches in mixed media as well as fabric. I have learned so much that integrating new method and media with my staid approaches is sometimes difficult. Taking time between works, keeping detailed notes, sketching every day, and allowing myself to dream, yields imagery that I would have never thought possible during the initial stages of an image search. I have been resting these past two weeks. As a result, clarity arrived like a lightning bolt and I have been singed to the bone. Welcome Spring, indeed. As ever stay hungry and curious. Where you at dog?
I have two plastic boxes full of them. One is nestled in the crisper of the refrigerator. The other rests in a back corner of the freezer. The recipe never seems to get old to my palate. With every bite of sweetened oatmeal comes spiced pumpkin cream. One each night before bed rest and the swelling hackles on the back of my neck flatten. The itch relaxes though red remains. Long ago my creative bent drove me in to the kitchen with a mind that kept dreaming possibilities. Over these last few months I bake on the turn of cold weather. I stock up on freezing sweet oven fresh bites as the urge to cook wanes with every drop of cold rain. This month, what tempers my eyes with deep seeded hunger is drawing outside in the garden. Sketching the sources of what is cooked in our household is building a strong respect for nature and farmers. The need for study burgeons behind my sternum. Today was day four. Instead of penning the cilantro shoots I moved back towards the raised beds to focus on the largest collard green plant. In the pots, cabbage loopers (larvae and moth) have devastated what my mother planted weeks ago. Last week I helped her pull larvae off stems and drop them in insecticide. Between my thumb and index finger stretched something that fed on in one night about as much as I would over three days. I have a study of an arched cabbage looper in another sketch book. Should I remember I will post the drawing. I got encouragement to continue drawing for the past two weeks. Seems many people know I have not been to the park in years to draw the ducks and geese. Going back to the garden feels the wise move as well as not forcing realism. My abstract sense reflects in the cropping. After the first half hour, even I do not know what I am drawing. Old lessons in shade and light reverberate as the sun descends the horizon and the casting light dims. At first penning I did not realize that I had no direct light source. It was just gradations of shade that shifted every few minutes. The clouds above ruled the long moments as I continued drawing under threat of rain and wind. I push, for more time, way too often. Last month, as I finally closed my book and hauled pen under the awning, I caught the second front of a storm forming behind the house about a block away. By the time I shut and locked the door behind me, I clued in to the neighbor’s talk. Apparently, I caught the edge of a tornado. The real skinny for me and the garden has been listening to my mother regale her battle with a rodent that has been helping itself to Brussel sprouts, peppers, and seedlings over the past five months. As she talks I cannot help but visualize the character Basil who runs a hotel in a British sitcom. Quietly I laugh, but the amount of work she has put in over the past two years is an amazing transformation of the back yard. I feel the need to document something of the occasion, much like when I wrote “Jelly”. That was about a bird that fell out of the nest on a farm I worked at. No doubt that needs to be found, typed, and edited again. As for other artistic endeavors, I am still working the quilt for 2018 little by little. Concerning previous quilts documented on this website, I am opening everything up for sale. Quilting a dowry will have to wait. It might be better that way. Besides, when the time comes, my skills will be more refined than ever. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I waited until I had the energy to set up. I only wanted two photographs for Photoshop work. The sketches will come later from pure observation. Not to much later though. My still lives have a tendency to decay on my before the muse hits. Preserving the notion in a photograph seems the wisest thing despite being told never to draw from a photograph again. The words are old but the intensity of the delivery still rings in my head. Friend asked me to share and thus as so I do. Lastly, the biggest hurdle is to develop an eye for turning magic in the drawings. I am anchoring the request in an approach that is different than the renderings of gnomes, elves, and brownies of the past. My core problem is it being difficult to forget drawing dragons and unicorns religiously for many a year. I do not come to this task fresh. I am tainted. Though that may give me another place to start.
~As ever, stay hungry and curious. For you, dear friend, who wondered how I have been passing my time. Accordingly are a few selections of the month. One is from a recital. The other is from daydreaming on the back porch. The weather has been good. You will find my sometimes lengthy notations here.
As ever, stay hungry and curious. The time is late and my body feels the pain and the acid reflux. Eating simple these days does not seem to get me back on track to where I think I should be. The list of to-dos amounts to everything that can be done to alleviate insomnia. I worry at the desk sewing and outside working the stick pile. Worry lingers into late nights. Lately I've been too jittery to work. So I fall back on the business of art hoping to accomplish something on my behalf that will advance my skill and execution. My notations and additions are completed on my C.V. The studio is almost completely overhauled and I am being called Debbie Mumm. Bashful and quiet I am as I think through my imagery, both plain and simple, others hidden in the art journals and sketchbooks. I talk it over with friend and we both chime into the confession that I need approach these images as tarot cards as well. I do not complaint at the thought. I cannot. The notion makes that much sense. It feels good to know all the emotional suffering in the studio plays out one way or another no matter what age I am.
Let me break that thought with these notions: I just pulled my head up out of the laptop and looked out over the bed. I see three quilts laid out for me to lose my limbs in. I turned over all my store bought comforters at friend's behest. "Throw 'em away," he yelled, "Don't you have enough blankets without the store bought?" I was totally chagrined. The image I was giving off was I do not have faith in my work. I rarely used them he noted. I heard in his voice a question of artistic integrity on my part. Why should I not lay under them? I was treating my work like fine art. On the contrary it is fine craft and itchin' to be used. All three on the bed are my works. As the seasons change I will rotate them out with summer kanthas and thick for winter batting. I changed out my two dimension work as well. The room feels different on multiple fronts, as it should, I assume. Courage everyday to work is waning. Meanwhile, the opportunities that arise at the temperature change are refreshing to the soul. Working outside is helping my malaise and hands get the rhythm of a different task. Using muscles in different ways is what I am looking to do before sitting down to weightlift again. The days are not gloomy and venturing out into the garden once a day helps to refill the well. This seasonal transition leads me to believe I have intense work coming. Using hands with both the creative and logical minds tends to mean focus and intent. My conclusion is not too ill founded. In high school on nights papers where due, I could not work until my bedroom was spotless. I was afraid anything and everything out of place would distract me to no end. These days I clean up and something and/or someone always arrives. I mind thinking you cannot receive with a closed fist or a full studio. How can you not end up being a conduit when you have so much? It will always get passed on. Right now, I do not need another thing. I'll enjoy the breathing room for now and the sunlight. I pulled about eight oak shoots with acorn from the ground. I rescued about ten others. They are sitting in a old relish jar filled with water. Officially I feel like the beginning of a witches hoard again. The accumulation begins, hopefully not. I want to photograph the shoots as part of starting herbalist studies again. My best skill has been to investigate what we use in the kitchen and the plants on the property. I feel the need to add in insects as well. At first it will be small, but I expect growth to yield a thick worthy log. I just remembered I wrote about this long ago. I am glad it came back up. The other joy is to revisit old strategies to committing to memory. Taking it a little at a time will yield many sign posts to anchor. On another note, I have got to find my jar of wishes. The dandelions around here do not spread seeds my houses way too often. I need check storage again. This must be important! I need to reread posts one day. Being brief can be difficult when you have much to say. As ever, stay hungry and curious. The last three days, including today, pushed my patience to an end. Still, I evaluated almost everything that has been in my space in the last four years. What more that needed to go I could not tell. As of today, I have downsized all of my possessions from clothes to art. I contemplated for years these trips to the resale shop. The biggest bundle to drop was unfinished paintings. I picked them over carefully before packing then in the car. Letting go of physical manifestations of emotional attachments is difficult.
Why I finally understood to let go of so many works came with a vivid memory and odor. I painted for two years in my room. By the time I realized I was poisoning myself with fumes in close quarters, the fumes seem to have lodge themselves in the walls. Looking over the blue and green stacks this morning, I felt good about setting them free. Current damage to the panels would never let me garner a nominal price. If the Christian Resale shop can get anything for them, I will be happy. As of this afternoon, I feel lighter. I feel as if I can breathe. Organization is the next step after I go through my fabric stash to pull what I absolutely do not want to use. Right now, my mind is clear. Some days I used to bend over in anguish over how many ideas I was pursuing. “Get it out. Just get it out,” was a familiar mantra to make my way through mind fog. I am willing to settle in again on collage/assemblage for small works on paper. It may be a long while before I stretch my mind beyond 12” x 12”. Make standard limitations means I know I will have the space to grow into. I know I could budget for a separate storage space, but I am leery over control being in someone else’s hands. Friend told me once that most storage facilities are highly targeted for theft. That piece of knowledge left me uncomfortable. As for quilts, I am making some hard decisions as well. Come my thirteenth king size quilt I will be sizing down significantly. Why 13? It was a decision to top out at thirteen for a wedding dowry. Also, thirteen lunar months makes up the calendar year. As for continuing quilting and competing, I would like to pursue that to the hilt. Also, I plan on having a small cadre of work for the winter craft shows. Not to forget, I may continue to piece large and sell quilt tops instead of the completely finished product. Daydreaming: As for the work, getting commercially critical is going to make a difference. Strong graphic images may begin to come out of the works on paper first. I want to produce imagery that is easily replicated with a strong finish. Incorporating the wood blocks that I have carved over the years will no doubt come in handy. This bout with space still has me in a tizzy. I am sure I did the right thing and may take this approach every Lent. Meanwhile I have stuffed animals to design to replace my former pillow charmers. Overall, taking a break may be in order. The weekend doth approach. As ever, stay hungry and curious. March 20, 2017
In February, I started eating fish twice a day. I repeated that menu twice, sometimes three times a week. The craving would not leave. I am not a Catholic, but instinct said the Easter season had begun. I followed the old Catholic tradition of eating fish for the craving never left, even after finding fresh fish at the Asian grocer. Come forty plus days along in the perceived season, I received my first ribbon for quilting. The whole occasion made me dazed and joyful. Instinct clarified my perceptions saying it was my gift for the new season of Christ. Out of respect, reflection and rest had me on guard for days. I was taught that the best time for planting is after the full moon of Passover. Any chance of frost is gone as we journey fully through the gateway of spring. As for me and my perceived rite, I am in shock and suspended in slow motion. My drive has me downsizing without argument, confusion, or complaint. Incentive was born from public encouragements for me to plan for a lifetime of quilting. The issue has always been storage. Since the ribbon, I decided to start clearing and sacrificing the remnants of a hoard. Seizing the moment last afternoon, I placed handmade stuffed animals in a plastic bag. I grabbed knick knacks off shelves and sliced pieces of cardboard boxes and walked them to the garbage can for pick up. Today was more of the same, but I targeted every bit of my art supply stash that I collected over the past seven years. Sifting through all the manmade and natural objects collected, I pitched both the polished and dirty into the garbage bags as well. Honestly, I do not know who would be able to use the little things I cherished for years, but I dropped most of the bags at a Christian Resale shop. My Buddha and horse statues are gone as well. Driving to the resale shop I could not help but realize that I was feeling crushed and choked by my collection of things. They are things no matter how precious for the moment. They are still things no matter how many series I plan to produce from a handful of stones. They are weight and crap without the sentimental attachment. Without writing down a complete plan for the new work they are suppose to engender, I am lost. I pulled a box from the top of a bureau, put it on the bed, and then started sorting. Joy turned to disturbance very quickly. Images I had made five years ago lingered between bound newspapers. I realized that I was very happy with what I discovered, back then. For the moment, I did not know why I had not continued to make art in that vein. Rescuing my heart, I realize now that I took the techniques and continued with explorations. I became temporarily upset because I keep exploring and not persisting in an appealing vein (i.e. developing a style and building sales). I argue with myself though. As a result of art being a sign of the mind’s progress, I will have a several veins to entrench myself in. I must learn to be content with discovery. Remembering to document is important as well. I forget all too easily what it is like to have no drive, no subject, and no inspiration to look. I almost gave up then, but I learned to be patient. My Buddha was a good reminder for that. A little picture of Buddha or Christ at Gethsemane may be in order. My space is changing and I am reacting to it. New combinations and solutions to old problems are rising like a cup of coconut milk separating from the sweet black tea. I am feeling freed up in ways I had forgotten. A voice whispered in my head that it is time to take my cross down. It is a quilted wall hanging anchored on a branch marked with bird sign. It then dawned on me to take down a hex sign that has been hanging for over seven years. Friend says it is time to change out the art. For some reason I cannot argue. After pulling frame and wire down, a visit to Home Depot to buy spackling is in order. I wonder if these are the little lessons in being a collector. I cannot fathom being an artist without being a collector, benefactor, conservationist, and preservationist as well. All of those traits fall well together in and out of the museum or national gallery. There is a little time left to sew before the sun crests the horizon. I will use my time wisely. Besides I promised I get a little something done before desert, lemon jello. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I am horribly tired. Writer's group is next week and I am too pooped to write something specifically for that. Luckily I kept writing over my hiatus. No doubt something polished will print off by the weekend. Right now I am so exhausted that I need to stare at a white wall and let inner sight project it's shades and highlights. That technique tends to help me process and calm down. There is too much to see these days. There is far too much stimulation and detail. Hmmm. Sitting on the porch and watching storms roll in may relax those muscles. Maybe a eye mask might help as well.
I found a large stash of prepared papers and clippings stored in an unassuming box. Despite the joy of discovery, the best part was labeling the box so I would not overlook it again. My discovery came on the tail end of reorganizing portions of the studio. Cleaning up also led to prepping for new work. I got a challenge Sunday night after the show. I have nine months minimum to execute and I am still acting like a fool. I am maintaining my inexperience by working from echoes and shards in my mind. For some reason I refuse to sketch the quilt out. I have no real defense, it is that I just have not set aside the time to draft. Muse visits far after midnight these days as I hang on to the edges of unmaterialized dreams. The last time I was like this, clarity came after a long rest. I am counting on a long rest to help me through the rest of this month. The real fear is in knowing that something is about to give. All my appointments this month keep me closely by the clock and the weather. Rest calls incessantly between every alarm chimes out to the fourth ring. I am also not getting any better about squeezing in five more minutes by a second clock. Recalculating the time for tasks before I leave the house always overlaps leading to being inevitably late. The real reason I am late for appointments, after rising out of bed, is because I never get out of the shower at a reasonable time. Who can resist water therapy on a Monday morning? Hot steam makes breathing bearable while running water washes the slightest clue away. As ever, stay hungry and curious. The long break for my hands away from sewing has me noticing when my hands are cold or hot. My sensitivities are changing and the prick of a piece wood can be felt to the bone. I picked up the brush and oil paints for the last two days having been encouraged to seek former methods. At friend's behest I worked remnants into underpaintings and laid on the oil yesterday. I broke rules for painting, but that is what experimenting is for. The eight pieces will be worked repeatedly over the next 6-8 months. My mind has something greater in mind than I have explored in over ten years. Photographs of four are at "Experimental 2017". Friend could not wait, so these shots are definitely for him. Meanwhile I need start documentation of what I am doing and plan to accomplish with this chosen trial. The notes will be valuable the day I move into a painting studio. I never thought logistics had a place in art until the day I could not move a piece from a gallery show to my home over twenty miles away. Something good need be said about boyfriends who live in town. Meanwhile, I am fighting the storage and framing battle for more intimate sale to hang on the wall. Salon style is the only thing I know right now and downsizing will arrive before the end of April comes about. The things they never say in graduate school fit in a length of Oxford dictionaries. Cat-on-the-fly, learn as you go.
As ever, stay hungry and curious. I just finished cooking dinner and I could not let myself forget to tell you...... I won a purple ribbon (AKA Honorable Mention) at the show for "Bird Sign by Crooked River". I have not picked a spot to display my ribbon yet. That will come after the buzz in my limbs leaves. I'm a little high off the peer and competition recognition. Granted I still see the mistakes and take them to heart very heavily. Still, that is the standard for being an artist along with pushing the proverbial envelope.
So, I'm left with a stack of paintings to pursue tomorrow and a cup of decoction made of echinecea and honey to drink tonight. Based on this afternoons goods and services at the quilt show, I've got game coming out of my ears to start immediately. Everything I started is about to get pushed to oblivion. I will go back to set plans in a year or sooner. Funny, I don't have a sketch. My head is floating with pieces with now. Scratch that, I do have a sketch I can refer to. Tomorrow there will be a reckoning with fabric stashes to check. Don't mind me, its is the creative process and inspiration. I'm like this every year. All of a sudden nothing matter but quilting and I have until April to go before I do anything hand driven. I need to learn the predominant health concerns of artists. No doubt it changes between disciplines. As ever, stay hungry and curious. BTW: Kudos to my old friend Ruth Weiner coming to the show and helping me cart quilts out to the truck! I appreciate her support and aid more than I can explain. Not to forget Tonya Littman and Deborah Boeshert (sp?) for their words of recognition and support. The day would not have been the same if I had not run into both of you. I am humbled and thanks again so much. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop". Meanwhile I'm going to heaven for a bit. Definitely Siddi and Kantha. More work to do. I finally found the native American work in sewing textiles. I've been looking for years. Funny the satisfaction I find after the show is almost over. As for Siddi and Kantha, I've solved my issues with finding a good use for scraps. Patience will tempter the new endeavor for a long time to come. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I started salivating at the siddi link and haven't stop chewing my cheeks. Achi bachi! Visual food forever, please. https://www.google.com/search?q=tribal+quilting&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOkPiej9DSAhUFQiYKHagoD1kQsAQIPw&biw=1366&bih=651&dpr=1#tbm=isch&q=siddi+quilt&* https://www.pinterest.com/CathySmith410/quilts-siddi-quilts/ I just posted my submissions for the Dallas Quilt Show 2017 under Quilted Arts 2014-2018.
Take a gander online or at the show in Dallas at Market Hall. Meanwhile, I'm chilling out for the weekend as much as possible. Next week is as about busy as the last two put together. Getting rest is the main priority. As ever, stay hungry and curious. 2017 Dallas Quilt Show Dallas Market Hall March 10-12, 2017; Friday and Saturday 10-5; Sunday 12-5 www.quiltersguildofdallas.org Please forgive my extremely late notice. If you can make it vundabar! If not, I will be posting my other three entries under the 2014-2018 Quilting Arts Tab by this weekend. Meanwhile I am setting aside a little to spend on my favorite vendor. The husband/wife team sells silk from Japan. The other date I will be showing work this year is the first Saturday in October at the First United Methodist Church in The Colony for their Annual Craft Bazaar. I believe that date is the 7th of October. I will be reposting this venue several times as the date gets closer. As always, thank you for your kind word and support over the years. I appreciate you more than I can explain. This is Night Heron (1986-1987) by David Bates. It is located in the Fort Worth Museum of Art. If you haven’t guessed yet, it has been one of my favorites for a very long time. I was prompted today to return to my memories and sights that I had to share with God because no one else was around to listen or watch. My repeated introduction to Night Heron hits the mark of vision every single time. In the last two years of graduate school I had a habit of leaving the studio early to venture out to North Lake Park in Denton, Texas. It was one place I could observe and find stillness without much trouble. Besides when I would venture towards the lake, there was never anyone in sight; the lake and landscape became mine and mine alone to contemplate. Come late spring a personal event occurred that marked my calendar for as long as I lived in that town and sometime after. It was the season when the lotus sprouts and blossoms take over the lake. During my time in Ohio, years before enrolling at TWU, I was mesmerized by mystic tales and depictions of lotus blossoms in Asian Art. For years they were but a simple fancy that became the base of my imagination. I fondly remember an image of Buddha nestled in the heart of a lotus blossom. Born out of a reaction to legends, my curiosity welled at eternity’s grace given to lotus blossom eaters. From then on, the lotus plant was as mysterious as ambrosia on Mount Olympus. With every season of the lotus came a determination to witness an open blossom. Watching blossoms open seems a marker of passage with every art degree I achieve. In college, the chair of the art department had cared for a Night Blooming Cirrus for decades. The plant sat in the window of the second floor taking up much, if not all of the window space. After I finagled a few dollars out of department to repot the plant, it grew exponentially from being root bound. That fall, Cirrus made over ten blossoms. Despite my planning and patience, I missed opening night for another season. I was frustrated. As a kindness, a friend started collecting the falling blooms for me every time I missed the fragrant opening nights. I kept them in an old cigar box, which, like my clippings of Cirrus, is long gone. With the Lotus in Denton, I settled for watching Greta, Gertie, and Turkey Duck paddle past tall stems to get to shore. It was “something to do” in my mind. I never fully understand the impact on my psyche of being close with nature. Years later I chat with acquaintances that have never been inside an untended forest or seen animals in the wild. I feel such a shame and pity for them, and then I wonder how God manifests in the suburbs. Their encounters may be just different not to be discounted. Come autumn’s exertions out of the studio, the lotus had been removed from the lake and the shore side was open territory again. What I wanted the Lord to see was what I never could imagined. The deep breath I took walking the shore those months was enough air to hold these lungs still and imprint shape, color, and line in my mind for Him as well as me. I look at Night Heron and tip over just enough so I won’t have to use stock photography or etchings to paint North Lake Park. It is not a moment in the mind to capture anymore. Too much time has passed in order to do that. I have nostalgia. I have desperation. I have eyes that summon emotive line not draftsmanship’s control. I am too selfish of the memory to drive up to the park and study in sketches before approaching any media. It is a moment in time no matter what I feel is suspended. Passage is always noted somewhere in the heart and the intellect. What I see in my mind’s eye now is a man and woman going down into the water, pushing stem after stem to the side. There is no baby Moses in the foliage. A large blossom sans green supports waits to be opened. A green beetle here, a fish tail there and the mind’s picture becomes a moving one. All I know is a need a pair of waders, permission, and a bag of mixed greens with vinaigrette. I want to taste what eternity is like, fresh from the Lord’s bounty. As ever, stay hungry and curious. For the inquisitive gormet:
Source: Peterson Field Guides A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America by Lee Allen Peterson Published by Houghton Mifflin Company New York Copyright 1977 ISBN 0-395-92622-X On page sixty is the American Lotus, Nelumbo lutea. Contrary to thinking that the flowers were edible, I was wrong. It is the leaves, seeds, and tubers that are of great taste to the palette. I am tempted to drive up to the park and harvest this year. Of course, only after proper identification and permissions are doled out. I also learned about Yellow pond lilies (Nuphar spp.) whose seeds and rootstocks are edible. I wonder if Monet went through this while he painted water lilies. I do not care to be a copy cat, but this curiosity has got me fixed between the car keys and sourcing memory. This draftsmanship argument that rises every single time I get fascinated about explorations in the abstract tires me out. Observation is starting to leave me raw and cold. Memory's shapes and colors spark fires in my intellect every night. When I work, I am warm. Even when intuition settle my hands white from stitching one hour to much, I do not sulk. I do not feel vacuous. I am not confused. I know where I am, even if it is high up in the intellect observing like a foreman over the work day. I may not always understand what I draw or why, but the drive is there as well as the passion. I find the whys and wherefores moths, years later. Sustaining the artist's hand from concept to finish piece is all I mumble passing through Saatchi and Artnews websites. Here's me, in the studio, still looking for place, context, and relevance. To quell my curiousity, I understand that I do not have to fit in. I briefly read about those artists that ban together and rise to fame together in the galleries and museums. There are other ways to show no doubt. I'll be looking for them with more effort between stitching time. As ever, stay hungry and curious. XIII
For me, Empress is an archetype full of anguish and defeat. She, overwhelmingly fecund, forms the mortar and grit that holds empires attentive to the ways of culture, lineage, and heritage. She is the connection between ages. Her fullness resides in the realization of place in personal life and civilization’s cycles. If I were to bitch about taking the Empress’ symbolism to heart, I would call her a baby factory between calling my name and articulating whispers of being a wanton witch. For me, Empress’ definition and symbolism are excavated, explained, countered, and envied with every gaze into the card. Probing beneath my shadow self, I allow the accusations to bubble out of my personality and froth over. For now, I know her as the seduction to becoming a prostitute. The call is lashing out at the women I have heard and seen fall from grace over the last nine years. They take part in forming the archetypes of my daily life. Through aspects of the tarot I presumed I would understand them better. So be it they become the face of the Goddess and I slip into a mental eon long gone to know where I live. Painters Egon Shiele and Gustave Klimt had the same bent. Both elevated the mundane and hidden to a level of exquisite beauty and worship. Like them, I do not have far to go to find a muse and model for my work. What little I could pay for services may not suit for attractive work. The other side of appeal may not guarantee them a place in eternity. A prostitute sitting for Empress comments a reality in social circles that deserves careful probing. Despite my inferences, I never see Empress as demented or psychotic like some of the women these years have become. It may be a matter of post traumatic stress disorder following through her fertile cycle as well as eventual post partum depression. What I presume then is that the pregnancy must be a constant high over nine months. In my mind’s prejudice, the women who embody Empress are always clean and watchful. Of street currency, the women I hear of stay dirty and covered in grime sometimes for the full term. Correcting my prejudice with reality, smoking, drinking, and addiction does not prevent other women from sitting high on the cushioned divan to be quickly photographed into family history. I must let the spiritual lesson in the window separate the chaff from the seed. Otherwise, why do I seek Empress beyond immediate reaction? I am resolved that she is a guidepost for all females. There are certain marks of the aging feminine that cannot be ignored. By looking over the card I see a handful of guise of the Goddess. With deeper contemplation I am a hostage of my own maturity. There is more to understand of her immediate presence. I feel I am missing a core part of her mystery and am backing down angry for another night. The real fear is in missing another point of my life’s passage in the feminine. I once thought there was no guidebook. This is life, do as you will I seemed to practice. Over the last thirteen years, I know I am wrong. Without a discussion of gender roles and types, I find my way through old literature and being quiet around the wagging tongues of old women. I found something in adjusting to classic roles. I seem reticent to attempt the myth of the super black woman. I am learning that I do not have to have it all. I fall not into submission, but into a stillness and quiet that speaks stoic to the trees and wind. Contrary to this, Empress seems gregarious and sociable. Another turn of the car and I am rejected again. I do not care why I will not walk away from her. All I know is that I cannot give up just yet. Something is about to break again in my subconscious and I want to be fully attentive to any change in my reality. I am learning through confrontation. I refuse to lose another lesson again. XIV. I am in the way station for another night wondering if hell will take over come nightfall. It is the hard questions that I need let stew on paper before I attempt to answer even one. A few days ago I decided to commit to the psychological work with the tarot. It is likely this journey will not end even after I am finished writing. Working the tarot as a supplement to personal symbols will enrich my work with untold depth. The first questions lead in multiple directions: What are the characteristics of the shadow part of the Empress? What is her countenance? What is her posture? What can I expect of myself for wanting a child between dosages of medication for twenty years? Is my selfishness appropriately hidden? Will I waver between wanting a career and/or family through to my twilight years? What will a child do to my calling? Sacrifice does not come just in terms of time, but also in relinquishing power, position, and knowledge. What about a husband? Promises to marriage make child rearing easier. I have had few real prospects, if any at all. This keeping in mind that one night stands are no case to build a marriage on. I muse at night underneath cold cotton sheets that I sustain my drive by resigning to being a lady in waiting for another year. No doubt it would be forced marriage of convenience. The children would be his and I would be a simple incubator. Being a child of two divorces, how can I believe that love exists? If I wed I am settled that adoption, in all turns of choice, seems best. Still, I fear sound judgments may not be had on my part. Providing stability and consistency is an environment I strive to provide for myself. If I can accomplish it for myself maybe I can maintain that presence for three. The night is about to claim my tired limbs and writing. Before I put the pen down, I have to acknowledge that my introspection thus far lends mostly to the cold temperatures of the mind. Instead of all these intellectual arguments, where do my emotional arguments lead? What makes my case with the Empress singular in bridging my soul through to her mysteries? Without resorting to a dictionary of symbols and the staid definitions of the Major Arcana, I need know what agrees with me concerning image, conflict, and responsibility of the Empress? Also, what makes my case with her particular to my growth and understanding of womanhood? In the least, I can count on her to mean a fruition of hard labor. Or is she simply an incubator for notions? I see her as the gateway of maturity. She is a symbol in part of walking out of the innocence of maiden’s tradition aware to the tools of adulthood by way of what the body dictates. This graduation into the next phase of the feminine is an achievement of intellect and emotion honed beyond the simple use of skill. Empress can be given praise, but is she ready for the work? The question can be answered in light of those adults who are caught in the glamour of pregnancy. The occasion reflects it as special time and high for a woman. For those with a selfish concern, I wonder what happens after the baby is born and the shine wears off? In that requirement to work, Empress sits at the edge of being trained and charged with responsibility. The robes and crown speak for themselves but the shield tells more of once being a student. The shield is the heart and a mark of the feminine celebrating the moment of recognition of womanhood. A badge or medicine shield reveals Empress coming full term to being recognized as woman. The shield reflects self-control and appreciation of womanly arts and sciences. The shield celebrates the obligations and rights of womanhood as an aware participant in self-knowledge and practice. Empress is one who has born before and knows what to expect. She knows the wisdom of cycles. As one who wields the aegis, lessons in the feminine are now at her command for personal use as she is embraced as a symbol fully vested in the ways of feminine wisdom. One would think that this includes the dark faces of the Goddess as well. In the rites of the Empress, this exists, but it is shunned and not spoken. It hides in suggestion when coupled with other tarot cards. My conclusion is not meant to attack the positive light filled and plain lessons of the joys of aging. Even I have learned the shallows, but know the deeper feminine resides in the dark as well as the light. Compared to the calm that settles in the dark after wrestling with the angel, it is the child or creation that comes full term in the Empress that needs nurturing to full maturity. These creations are not lost to the dogs or abandoned away from the cemetery. What lives may not stay with great mother, but it will have a fighting chance to abide in health, ethics, and moral guidance. XIV. Empress enthroned is a temporary state. We do not see the trial and agony that precedes the joy of good news. It is a wonder that the pain that follows is as much an old wives tale warning the newly wed. Empress presents the obligations of a copulated marriage. She knows love just as well as independence. Taking poise on the divan, she is a symbol of accumulated knowledge practiced over time and trial. As a result, she sits in her power recognized and loved. The Empress also rules in water’s fashion. Warmth and harvest time exudes and wells in her gaze. This tarot window is a snapshot of ignorance reflecting bliss ensnared and captured. I can only wonder if the emotional state that follows after this isolated moment is one of psychosis. Standing in the aisle between the book stacks, on the second floor, I began rummaging the row as usual. I already pulled items on Celtic mythology and legends from India. Every book title I browsed after that became a topic of extreme interest. I was sure to have inspiration for clay works by evening light. What resulted from the readings on Aboriginal art, legend, and culture was a series of vessels I intended to hold a single human breath. I was positive that I could capture an air of spirit, versus designing a vessel to hold flame. From Empress I learned the hinge pin of being a creator is to animate. Somewhere before that imbuement is culling the creation to shape and form. Just like the potter, Empress calls to work an incubator to mature life until it can perform on its own. Based on Empress' demeanor, I have one question. What are some of the obligations of a Creator archetype? For me, I know the act of creation must be born out of responsible action. What is created is made with intention and purpose. Lastly, there is an anticipated place for the creation to belong, reside, and grow in relevance to its environment. Another series of questions begins with whether responsibility to the created ever ends? Could the creator/artist ever be a Deist in perception and action? In this manner the created is formed and left alone to graduate into independence instead of fostering a parasitic co-dependence. With those things said, I wonder if I will be able to let go of what I make. When I die, if probate does not latch hold to my former property, will the end of my works come in the form of a garbage truck? The logical conclusion resides in continually finding place for my creations even after death. I hate to mention it, but right now letting go is a personal condition of commerce. I think about letting go of the books, papers, paintings, quilts, and effects. I never seem to fully realize they are gone even after reviewing the sales slip for taxes at the end of the year. In graduate school, I learned a story about Jasper Johns. He raised the fact that he could not let go a painting to a level of vandalism. At parties thrown by collectors he was known to bring paint brush and fresh oils to work in a corridor where the painting was displayed. He could not let go. Rampant thoughts must have flooded John’s mind: “It’s not done, this needs to be corrected”, “I used the wrong color”, and "This belongs here, not there.” Time passes after finishing a handful of works and I go gray over making changes. Should I nurture and tend to the pieces more? Parenting never ends. In another instance, Dad and Mom tell me to get my shit together one way or another. Pursue my dreams but understand they will not always be here. Both follow with a penetrating look and quip, “You know you will always be my baby no matter what you do”. I don’t argue anymore. I used to angle around the reality of the statement trying to show independence followed by respect. Now I stifle comments that, “I’m grown! Whaddaya mean I’m still your baby?!!” My dignity and endurance fall, realizing that to them I have not yet reached a level of maturity that they see as one of an adult. Or maybe it is just a matter of sensitivity to the tender chubby cheeks of a two month old that I have retained into my forties. We cry when they are gone. Mother told me of the days she would cry for her mother’s presence and wisdom. She had no one else to trust. The vacuum had not sealed of her mother’s musing presence for over thirty years. At that time, her soul needed sun, water, and wind every day. Despite nurturing through the years immediately after her mother’s death, the stem fell and the root of grandma’s creation almost finished rotting out. Tending to my mother’s needs from the day I knew she was still hurt, was a weak suggestion of the inexperienced feminine. Mother needed mentoring born of ages closer to being bent over with a polished cane. I do not know how it resolved itself, but thinking through what Grandma would have done in the same situation may have caused responsibility to parent through the veil. XV. From the artistic angle, Empress is a stage in the creator archetype. To me the compliment to her abilities is a factor of time. She is an incubator and not so much a mother or caretaker. She is pure potential. To me it is a clinical observation; she is a pregnant woman at the height of womanhood’s mental and physical fruits. In my anger, I reject her. If not for knowing that t here is no assertion in a physical reflection, then for knowing her prime maintains while mine is gone. First, I have not dealt with the issue of race and this card as I fear resurrecting shadows of guilt, fear, and toxic shame irrelative to tarot history. Settling into my senses, when I read I look past cultural prejudice and use of the cards. I take into account my immediate reactions to text and image. Some days I deeply want to understand the tarot card I choose, so I have to let the unconscious bridge old hurts with new concepts no matter the pain. In this way I see reading the cards as a game but also a psychological tool to manage the self from the core. When studying the arcane, I cannot stop the lessons of discernment because of perceptual barriers. Putting subsequent revelations from the tarot in their proper perspective is an art to elevate to mastery. I well in old arguments right now and seek clarity in understanding Empress regardless of the card’s design and implications. XVI While she rules from her cushioned roost I fear a gut wrenching admission that I have wasted my last twenty years. I veered from the norm. Sometimes I lay in the night desperate to understand where I have gone? What do I still long for as a female? Have I rejected fundamental knowledge of my sex? Are there any traditions left to me to participate and feel a member of the clan of woman? XVII I sat up in bed, turned the switch, and waited for the light. She’s there, dangling on the wall clipped together in a small stack, Empress from three different decks. She has been hanging there for the last five months. I cannot look right now. I am too angry – at her and myself. How could I have missed it? The obvious source of confusion is in what the card implicates, not just a fascination about a figure wrapped in finely decorated linen. My focus is on the shield and aegis. While browsing a book on tarot definitions, I conclude from the lengthy entry that the sign is a call into women’s health. Empress points to the biggest ill of the last century wrapped in Roe vs. Wade and our pervading collective ignorance of our own bodies. Even from my last graduation, my fear into the 21st century has the Devil destroying our hopes by playing our bodies against our minds. Personally speaking, I came to carnal knowledge through grade school friends. The slang from back then escapes me, but the code among kids became familiar to me as a bond between friends. They confessed to my ears what they could not share with brother, sister, cousin, father, or mother. Since young, this code of trust and possessing a relative ignorance of human sexuality has shielded and removed me from a persistent path of vipers. On one occasion, I was bribed for sex by an older “cousin” in his bedroom. The situation left me open for a life change if I did not immediately retreat to join adults downstairs. “I’ll give you this purse if you’ll have sex with me,” he attempted to persuade. After being molested by a different relative, I began to defeat growth of self-esteem by falling into a pattern of yielding when asked for sex acts. No matter how infrequent the request, it took a long emotional trial to realize that I was not a slut. What I became was something lonely and emotionally programmed. Desperate for attention may have left me that day with child by incest. Though I am sure someone would point out that just because those involved where black and called themselves brother, does not mean the tempter was a blood relation. Quibbling the understanding would not relieve me of the damage short and long term. For the time after, constructing personal boundaries made for the second line of defense. The first was to yield to a personalized verbal and psychological dismantling. So, dear Empress, this other door through which I have passed reveals you a discipline, law, and a counselor. Because of this, I have completely changed from a literal interpretation of you to a hidden concept of perpetually renewed energies. Now I can sit. I can actually sit comfortably now with her sight and influence. Now, before Hecate cackles out my state of bearing without the yoke of motherhood, be reassured that Empress calls to order the discerning shadow side of femininity as well. I may finally see myself and what lessons remain may come through the face of another arcane. It is strange and funny how the queen of swords looms before my eyes again as I resolve a close to The Empress. I said nothing before, but the queen was apparent as I started writing about the Empress from the beginning. In my close, she returns. It must be a portent that I have intellectually reasoned the mark. Living through the Empress physically will have me intrinsically know this Arcane through a fulfillment of task. As a result, the trials of womanhood, gender, and femininity may not escape me again. I am committed to going through this mystery where ever she leads. Personal rites of sanity and age demand recording for now and for the healing that comes after. ©N.A. Jones 2017 All Right’s Reserved X.
Now I know that I am not equally obligated to hold fast to a classical age of woman as is Empress. I have to stand fast in the thought that another fecund female does not have to behave the same way. Brainstorming through that comparison I conclude that other ways of the feminine brace against her wake. Wading through the clarity of personal obligations insinuates that I am a woman after all, despite a lack of children. I shudder at the thought that giving birth is the only measure of my value. How do I deal with the staid reaction of a blank stare in reaction to being called a slut? Of course, that logic is never argued publically. I will sit quietly in the window behind secured blinds and ponder the ills of being caught devilish in both public and private. No doubt, that sexist battle need be prepared for to strike on another day. Every venture out into the world leaves me with a cache of reactions and warnings to heed. For now I need not answer, let them mire in their own dark pits of conceit. After returning home I am always left wrestling the angel about my father teaching me how to be a woman and a caretaker. I thought Empress would be about women teaching women. I learn from Dad otherwise and leave my tomboy nature to the side so I can hear him. I do not believe I have ever listened to him. One phone call a week ain’t enough anymore. Mindful of Dad’s contribution in forming of my mind, how does the male offering of fullness in fertility participate in the rite beyond conception? In other words where is the man’s participation in all this? Considering this absence, we must contemplate what is apparent and absent from the cards in all readings. Now I am able to breathe the selfishness of character in each major arcane. My current presumptions argue that there is a limit to what you can contain and explain in a card face before the symbols read confusing and argue with intuition. Synthesis will arrive soon, I hope. XI. Empress sits after the condition. She mentors with a sweeping hand and deep gaze. She is the forming of ideas and materials. She is a needed incubator and therefore respected. Empress is the next test and trial for me; especially learning what comprises womanhood. For one instance, the journey of menses had become a long passage for me to reclaim my mind from denying birth, sex, and sexuality. Though menses does not mean I must have sex, I am countered with my brother telling me the main point of Christianity is procreation. Religion is an obligation to fulfill, maintain, and continue my humanity. For the moment, dare I say, I am not fully human in my faith? So, at this age, I have no children. I muse and breakdown in my role as an aunt. I am quiet. I just watch until I am invited to share an experience where everyone flourishes emotionally and mentally. I am learning to play again and other moments are filled with a need to teach something small that will sync with my niece’s and nephew’s personal pursuits. In confidence I plant my ancestor’s seeds in their minds today and water those notions every time I see them. The best teaching moments come from self-watering seeds. Every concept I offer to my niece and nephew do feeds and nourishes them in small ways. I only hope those moments can be of service when they are older. Even if they are not listening to me, I am sure somewhere they hear. My role to them I fear is finite. If they remember but one thing of me after I die, I will be pleased. Know that planting a concept is not about me and a conceited penchant to surmise the millennium by being mentioned once a year over a handful of cornmeal sprinkled at the forest’s edge. I will be known as a “nice” person who was quiet and distant. They will learn over their time that I stood in reserve and waited until they could understand me and my ways. My anger and ugliness will never be mentioned. Over the last decade I learned to hold my tongue over barren and poisoned wombs. I hold back my jealousies in a heart’s cage. As a result I look at Empress with disgust. Her positive expressions leave me sick. My nurturing instincts conquered personal care and now reach out far beyond what I have been allowed to conceive. Empress gives me an escape - in creation or production by my hands or womb. Forgive me not my greed right now. I want both. I want it all. Even if I read the Empress physically, what follows? Fears of mentally retarded children ransacked my hopes to bear for two decades now. Not to forget staring into walls over giving birth to a simpleton? Or maybe a physically challenged child? Screaming, screaming, screaming at my intellectual prejudice is not going to solve the possible pitfalls of my desires. In high school, an upper classman gossiped that I was overly focused on the educated to the point of being prejudice to everyone. To him I was a stuck up intellectual elitist and a bitch because of it. Over twenty-five years later I scream, “Damn him again!” I have hopes for the unborn and unseen. I fear to breed a genius as well. These fears may be a matter of denying being needed by my child, then wondering when to let go. Yet, my mother’s emotional inheritance is one route of rearing that I fear not to be prepared. The other fear is a curse never to resolve even with a healthy dash of cayenne pepper over every meal. Simply put, blood is blood. I cannot assume a child of my womb would manifest every bit of DNA and habit that comes from the man I marry and me. Some inherited skills I do not know how to polish to performance levels. I will just have to wait to the age they can sit still and listen for more than five minutes. Blood being blood may mean my selfish need to bolster my will unto him/her may not be cut to the quick. Still, children need to form their own minds. I have no need for a miniature reflection. Doing right by progeny means to teach them attentiveness to their instincts and encourage them not be afraid of making their own mistakes. Blood is blood. I cannot believe that is all I see. Passing down physical, emotional, and mental personal history must be a good to do for surviving the grave. That way I will survive an age and find immortality in my blood descendants. My life’s work will escape having been for not. What I would teach my blood and flesh will disseminate and seed. I will live on. My fear of death and finality has seized my tongue. One tear later and I presume in conceit and fear that my non-existent child is not to live out my loose ends. They too need realize independence in the light of submitting to God. Blood born understands blood and I desperately strain the argument to follow into adoption because I may not be able to bear genetically healthy children. I am past the determinant 36. Fear tells me my choice for bearing lay in adoption. Will I be satisfied at that? Can a man stand not to rear his own blood and flesh? If he cannot, I stand blocked in the ways of ancestry. No, I could not marry that man. I would have to reconsider that marriage and would have to let him go. The fullness of Empress demands it. I confess I am a creator and nurturing soul. I choose not to tear away from either reality of nature and nurture. Empress reminds me of ritual I left in the back of my mind for twenty years. It is a rite joining blood to blood. I need not leave the adopted out from the rites of spirit in my family of origin or family of choice. I feel they would need be joined to me and my husband as if they had dwelled full term in my womb. Seriously though, can I really consider adoption? Shall I settle for no blood? I do not completely understand the obsession and fear. If I adopt, will I be a failure as a woman? Is it a transmission of intellectual heritage, emotional stillness, and ancestral artifact that I am terrified will be rejected? After the broken needles and success after toil, to whom do I give these things? Does it take genetic memory to understand me? Does spirit end in my womb? Will that child be accepted by my family? Right now I cannot answer any of these questions. What I dreamt in the recessed of heart’s flesh is the ritual of spirit transmission to symbolicly include my child with my family, their protections, and privileges of our ancestors. This blessing and sharing can occur during any point of their lives. In my blank stare musing the future, I hold my adopted son close and whisper into his ear, “I’ll teach you, dear one. Even in my selfishness. My greatest fear is you’ll walk from your father and I unaffected.” A for my husband, he would need to participate in the same ritual to join his genetic memory as a gift to our child. All this blessing and inclusion is coupled in a test for all three of us. Should we accept a blending of ways, we all would change. I know this. I know it all too well. I cannot argue with the necessity of this rite nor it implication to destroy and rebuild. In daydreams, I have seen spirit’s seat in my temple weighted with a flame. Rising against the stone and mortar around that foundation would destroy my intellectual heritage forever. Also, to rise against myself would kill a root. I refuse self-destruction and wait to pass on skills of planning and discovery to the listening; whether heard by blood or joined by another path. Ultimately Empress would force me to deal with what I have worked and unearthed being lost or destroyed. These are the lessons and cautions to be taught of a creator no doubt. The creator archetype does not specifically sit in the tarot, but Empress embodies cyclical creation in nature. The spark may begin with the wands, but the force germinating every seed wells in her demeanor. XII. In first grade I must have reached a level of demented that most adults never achieve. I became immersed in the dark of Halloween’s witches, the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock’s marionettes on weekly television, and the plastic pulls in my desk that grate against wooden joints. At age seven I could confess Bella Lugosi as father of my hidden depressions. I nurtured a classic dark, watching cult and occult movies every Saturday afternoon while mother shopped and stepfather mowed the lawn. Satanism I could spot from the investigators tongue a half hour into the movie. The Monday after watching a remake of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, little white girl slipped me a book on the school bus. It was a memoir of a brother and sister who were kidnapped by a Satanic cult that lived in their neighborhood. From what I remember, the abduction and ritual occurred in their house. I was only in third grade. I did not need this reality check. At that point of discovery I knew positively that movies are written based on real events. Reading the book was like losing Santa Claus in the middle of Kmart in late November. Memory echoes some mother breaking down next to the Archway ginger snaps, “It’s not the fact that your grandparents spoil you, it’s the fact that I cook the turkey and the yams. I buy the presents and the tacky wrapping paper. All this I do every year without complaining. Reality sucks and mind this all with the fact we do not have a fireplace in the house.” Now I know that my mother’s subsequent arguing with my stepfather was a clue to being more attentive to the neighbor’s accusations as to how far from God we were. That little white girl’s book seeded my mind with being aware of your surroundings is only a part of self defense. Better survival techniques would come with age. So, now you know I was a kid once. It has been a tough task to prove, even by drilling myself for years. I ache thinking the best defense comes with growing older. I painfully despise wearing at innocence as a detrimental folly only second to ignorance. Still, l’il ol’ me holds the pass and bides the wrinkle by playing jacks and coloring pages to maintain gravity’s pull around my waist. My body has grown older, much more quickly than my mind. I love winking at logic after speaking notions. Maturity can wait. I need another glass of warm milk from the radiator and a lemon iced cookie please before empathy for the young defeats me. ## Harassment sat still an hour ago. It was her; the one down the street. I heard her stick up for me. That ain’t supposed to happen. While she spoke up I lay silent listening to her response to an unknown voice. I gather the threat to children to train household dogs to eat kids and babies bodies was enough to quiet the surrounding five blocks. I felt the verbal check and remembered that I used to force myself to be glued to the television on Saturday and Sunday afternoons though winter until what I know now as Easter’s call. The daydream suited me fine to escape the neighborhood confrontation playing out in the open street. When I cued back into reality for that outing of pedophilic frustration, I did not scream or cry, I took it in stride and did not interrupt. What followed was a mother’s voice brimming with much necessity to clarify. I laid still, listened, and uttered nothing. If I have kids, I don’t want to think about this shit called out of darker realities. A dark motherhood out of Empress harkens to Hecate before I could see a child from these loins graduate eighth grade. I am old according to a church prostitute. I am too old to have a child – a health one that is. Thirty-six is the prime number to conceive without chance for genetic disease and physical disability in the child. Sitting at her feet signing her cast the quiet talk turned and I found myself nowhere accomplished and a waste of anybody’s time. I laughed at my brother when he said the point of being Christian was to procreate. I laughed from an uncomfortable space and swore there was more to serving God than sex. If not, I could not dare look into the sun with a straight face. Since then, I find bouts of abstinence and celibacy more filling to my inner well and practice this as an approach to the edification of the soul. ©N.A. Jones 2017 All Right’s Reserved I tend to joke to ease the pain of not bearing children. I thought that birth was the singular most important mark of womanhood. In terms of the feminine, little did I realize that I had other emotions and relationships to discover. Despite stereotypical thinking that I would never be fulfilled I took to dreaming of a time of conception, but without sperm and ova. What happen in my mind was coming to be responsive to being planted with an idea. In conversation and eavesdropping, I learned there was a contingency of men who had no idea how to materialize whim, fantasy, or dream. Mind you, think not these things on the sexual end, but on that of childhood play and adulthood’s vision quest. At the beginning of graduate school, I had become familiar with another handful of occult principles and practiced articulating emotions to incubate the seeds of ideas to engender creative growth. I assumed brainstorming said male energies would produce a glorious breakthrough on a myriad of canvases. On the contrary, what I received was quiet talk and encouragement. Being talked through painting someone else’s mental haven was the easy end of honoring the Creator’s energies. Giving birth and nurturing other’s ideas amounts to careful management of an orphanage in the mind. Sometimes I have to let the germinated intellectual seed grow elsewhere. I have my own passions to manifest as well. Still, for those months I am in the male stead, I know another world and I kin closely to their tutelage. Of my work, I let go of the comforts of stagnation in grace and mourning; sometimes the relationship with rest and the usual order of workflow simply has to be over. I focus on input inspired from male understanding and produce something I would have never otherwise considered. In the end I walk away. I leave them the product of their seed. I let go and return to calm a vacant womb both mental and physical. The time with them is always valuable and the work produced is of a healthy vein. Still, I see not how to claim the growth solely my own. Which brings me to selfishness and the Empress, does the Empress take care of her own? Yes, no doubt. For now she is the burgeoning that is sacred to the sacrifice. In intimacy and kindness, he told me I would have charge of the children until they turned six. Then I was basically forbidden anything where they were concerned.
IX. I came across state lines purely by instinct to Granma’s house in the city. You could call me the last homing pigeon before Thanksgiving feast in November of 1993. Welcoming me in, she put me down at the kitchen table for a meal. Scooping noodles and peas from a weathered stock pot with a plastic ladle, the neckline of her dress fell open and I saw what I still do not want to understand. My father would have understood. He is her second born, the youngest, and the tender pea pulled from a rough but flexible casing. “She is old,” he’ll spout, “and a little doddering at that. Forgive her lack of coordination. She means no harm”. Contrary to Dad’s reasoning, I felt uncomfortable. Turning to the plate as she fixed herself, I said nothing. She continued to speak a litany of silence while dropping a chicken thigh and lopsided drumstick to my plate. The look on her face was that of an old woman whose needs were in a dire state of care. I, on the other hand, felt something askew and misunderstood. Come fourteen years later, I sit alone in the pew at the oldest Methodist Church in the county. My family of choice occupies the pews to the left and diagonally ahead. Dale loved sitting right down in front of Pastor Tim. Pastor roosted and roared from in front of that spot every Sunday. The rapport between the two made his sermons all the more beloved. That early autumn Sunday, Tim warned something of grandmothers and curses. According to him, revealing the breasts to a descendant curses them from ever having children. I pursed my lips and hunched forward in the pew. As for the rest of the morning I was lost. What followed that Sunday was a litany of private musings and demeaning sarcasm about marriage and children. With no prospects in sight, for the rest of the week, I delved into irrationality and old wives tales. Another Sunday in autumn, I railed on beneath the covers on behalf of Pastor Tim. Granma and I recently had an argument. I felt uncomfortable for the first time. To bear under accusation and blame, I chose not to call for months. All that time, the distance between us was confusing and had me processing memory, pain, and choice daily to make it through the winter. This remains another block between Empress and I. It is a matter of family care and overriding old wives’ tales with freedom of choice. With every occasion of tears welling in my eyes, comes the clarity of choice being procreation or adoption. Still, there seems a shadow clouding my future. It starts with knowing that I am forced again to account for Goddess’ in her fullness knowing in this simple choice. What I want may not be possible. If I take care to look for reality in archetypes and in the faces of the Gods, it is not likely I will crack the rod and walk away from the gauntlet. Seeking the service and knowledge of the Christian God, I hope to find permanent resolve and solutions. What I wonder now, is what is left to a barren womb that God has not already been provided for at length? I cannot find the presence or discussion in any aspect. I feel relegated to the Hecate, the Crone. I see no solution or provision in Empress and her bearing title of procreation’s poster mother. I feel her as a rejection of my identity and her presence a lasting insult. I will have to slowly work over this welling hate, confusion, and envy as a result of non-inclusion. I had hoped the dark side of the feminine to be glimpsed in the card. The other things we as females don’t admit, let alone say except in the dark of bedrooms and other private refuges where we cannot see ourselves anymore. The pain of the feminine does not reject itself, but quietly acquiesces and keeps form by the fires of the soul. It hurts and I must remember that I have committed no wrong. Then why does guilt well in the same open space every twenty-eight days. X. The evening snow fall was a nice touch to the end of my travels for the day. Contrary to the calm of winter’s beauty, I was still confused as ever. An hour earlier one airplane ticket to nowhere made looking for my father at the luggage carousel a trial of patience. Looking past the windows, the shock at the sight of him was buried beneath the plastic buttons of my sweater. Though I had no picture of him, I heaved and tears cascaded down my cheeks quietly at his call of my name. Thank God he knew me on sight. I, on the other hand, had not seen him since I was six years old at the courthouse hearing for my custody. What followed was twelve years of silence from that side of the family. With one phone call to my dormitory room in mid-autumn he made first contact. For both of us, this vacation was as much about business as it was about healing. Forty-five minutes later, what disturbed me was not just the location. The brown brick building set back from the street. It invoked fear from every passerby who walked beneath the dim light that formed a shifting halo over the street corner. While we lingered in the warm car Dad spoke openly about the businesses around the corner. Local Mafia owned the restaurant on the first floor. The line for valet service tended to cover both sides of the street with brightly painted Lincoln town cars and black Rolls Royces most Thursdays. It was Wednesday night and he was having a hard time parallel parking in front of the apartment building. Getting out of the car I looked up at the shadows cast on Dad’s apartment building. After the Mafia comment, I was positive that local celebrities take roost on the third floor. The next blaring thought came from a need to disappear. If I need keep my mouth shut, I’ll be fine. The strange smells and foreign sights on the edge of winter’s night were beginning to agitate me to no end. I wedged my cold hands into coat pockets while waiting to get into the apartment. The wind began to caress sharp pains into my stiffened feet. Black flats and a fall dress were the wrong choice after all. Suddenly I heard something snap a sharp tone. Silence was suddenly clipped awake all around the block. I thought the sound came from down the street around the left side of the building. Racing eyes and one thought more led to an avalanche of paranoia. I become a wide eyed new born. Turns out Dad miscalculated maneuvering around the ice slick underneath the foot of the trunk. One heave of my suitcase and the ice cracked beneath his feet. He quickly sank into a pool of cold water. Standing at the front door of the apartment building, I had no clue about Michigan winter weather. Bags in his hands and in mine I wiggled through the front before the security locks tripped closed. Dad went up the stairs to open his apartment door. Afterward, I wiggled in the door again, tote in hand, and tried to keep still after passing over the threshold. The apartment was barely furnished and cold. The lights in the back glowed dim. The shadows were made of mottled streaks of brown on the dining room walls and water marks on the ceiling. I quickly judged his home a hole in the cracks of time. I countered peering further out by standing motionless. Fearing cobwebs were about to crown my head, I braced my heel together and waited to be bitten by an errant rat. Now locked in and with a direct cue, I walked with him to the living room and dropped my shoulder chip with the luggage. I would be sleeping on a white couch stained with coffee and wreaking of tobacco. Walking to the back, he went to gather a sheet, some blankets, and pillows for my rest. Leaving me alone for the moment ignited my curiosity. I started snooping. A dining room table and chairs sat stoic in the form of a weight lifting bench anchored with dumbbells. The study room was turned inside out. Books lay propped open on the built in desk and more lay askew in piles on the floor. The logic of trigonometry and algebra lay before me, but what the compelling reason to look closer were the notes scrawled across college ruled paper and squeezed into the margins of text and theorem. It was obvious he still had the drive to learn the depth and breadth of mathematics. At that point, I could not but become fascinated with his mind. Suddenly, one call from the kitchen and I peered around the wall. Blankets and pillow in hand he asked me if I was thirsty. I declined as he said not to mind the kitchen. There is no stove and the refrigerator is temperamental. We will eat out mostly, but just in case I get hungry later, he would grab oranges and ice while he was out tomorrow after work. I said thank you. Then late night talk and response began. “Mom’s fine. She’s still working for the same company.” “Yeah, my brother is in elementary school. He could use that advice in a few years.” “I have another year to go before graduation. I…” After the expected, I pulled my legs in and let him continue. This is what I remember; after praising my mother for her refined beauty and good cooking, he went on to joke that I chose my parents like some Buddhist guide to how we are all born. I giggled and let my guard fall as he continued on to tell me the story of my conception. I did not draw my legs in closer as a defense against what I thought would be abrasive, but I grabbed a pillow cushion in preparation for inappropriate detail and his admission of sex with my mother. Surprisingly, that is not were his speech flowed. He admitted that he loved her and always would. He lit a cigarette, took a draw, and went on to tell that he would remember always that night in late autumn. Dad did not bruise me with pornographic details of sex and magic. I fetched from his phone calls over the last two months that the occult had a place in his life. Still a small detail of his regaling will never escape me. During the height of coital pleasure, he focused his mind through the muck, mire, and detritus of living to pull something out of God’s being to manifest in mother’s womb. According to him, his timing and presumed incantations were better than good. He lay the rest of the night next to her changed, charged, and tired all the same. To this day mother never knew. Bringing me here to Detroit was a test. He tested my older brothers and now it was my turn. He wanted to see what I matured into. Dad, spending the money on a plane ticket and taking time off, had everything to do with looking after his progeny. That night, the life I understood as my own was required of me. With these words I write, the calling is the same. Should I embody Empress ever, what can I expect after the celebration of fertility moves into a stage away from the blooded woman I have become? Will I be too caught up in the attention that comes with the first child? When do the jealousies arise? When does the credibility for skills get linked to genetics? Motherhood and Fatherhood does not end, even in old age. I assumed even a matriarch, like Empress, would conceive that to the point of her own brittled bones. Her responsibility seems to end after birth. Again, I see selfish experience at a cost. The perception argues that when my time comes, I cannot let myself to be lost to expanded awareness and my family forever. I am afraid to recognize her conceit to use a child for her own gain. She not regal and cannot be expected to teach family heritage inclusive of the intellectual and emotional realities over ages. Now I know that I am not equally obligated as another fecund female to behave the same way? I have other ideas of the feminine and her wake. Clarity of choice alludes I may be a woman after all, despite lack of children. I shudder at the thought that giving birth is the only measure of my value. How do I deal with the classic fall back of being called a slut? No doubt, that is a battle for another day and a warning to build a tradition of oral history wherever I go. After that I am left wrestling the angel about my father teaching me how to be a woman and a caretaker. I thought Empress would be about women teaching women. I learn from Dad otherwise and leave my tomboy nature to the side so I can hear him. I do not believe I have ever listened to him. One phone call a week ain’t enough anymore. Mindful of Dad’s contribution in forming of my mind, how does the male offering of fullness in fertility participate in the rite beyond conception? In other words where is the man’s participation in all this? We must contemplate what is apparent and absent from the cards in all readings. Now I seem to breathe the conceit in each major arcane. There is a limit to what you can contain and explain in a card face before the symbols read confusing and argue with intuition. ©N.A. Jones 2017 All Rights Resolved |
N.A. JonesPicking up where I left off. Archives
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