Suffocation

Aug 9, 2008: SUFFOCATION; Canvas & Acrylic (24X18")

This (painting) just turned out to be how I was feeling. I felt driven to do it. I wanted to portray the soul of a little girl, a shadow crushing her soul's heart. She feels she cannot speak (for fear of what will happen to her, mostly), and this causes her to feel suffocated. I felt this portrayed well the issue of my mother's interference and the issue of my cousin's sexual predation on me.

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Update after Wednesday Aug 13, 2008...

I had to write a confession of sorts, because it was too difficult to tell him verbally what had happened to me and what I thought had happened to me and what I had done to someone else when I was around 7 yrs old.

After he had read this information, T looked me in the eye said there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that I had not done wrong. Several times he reassured me that I had done nothing wrong.

Considering the fact that we had both been interested in doing the same thing, and were curious, and with the limited information we had we didn't really know what we were doing.

I had a good cry, because I was quite relieved.

------------------------- PS: T had thought perhaps my asthma was psychosomatic... I don't think so. My father smoked for years and I was always coughing coughing coughing and our physician did say I had it.

Speaking of psychosomatic symptoms (referring to the session last Wed), if anything was, I would suspect it would be my thyroid. Both Robin & I have thyroid issues, and if you know a bit about Chakras, the throat chakra symbolizes truth and voice. It wants to be heard. In the phsyiological sense of things, our tissues were/are being attacked by our own immune systems. How symbolic is that of inner turmoil? But since I've been talking with you, my symptoms have lessened and now I'm back on keeping levels up with meds (because you might recall I had my thyroid destroyed with radioactive iodine so 'normal' now would be hypo instead of hyper). lol Even Robin even mentioned that to me, but I had already mentioned it on my private blog ages ago (I've got all sorts of uneducated theories about things on there). I realize how much I really really missed him now that he's come for a visit.

'The throat chakra, Vishuddha, is said to be related to communication and growth, growth being a form of expression. This chakra is paralleled to the thyroid, a gland that is also in the throat, and which produces thyroid hormone, responsible for growth and maturation. ' http://www.crystalinks.com/chakras.html

'This chakra controls the throat and the neck, and the arms and the hands. It is associated with the brachial or cervical plexus.
Endocrine Gland: Thyroid Gland
Consciousness: The aspects of expressing and receiving. Expressing can be in the form of communicating what one wants and what one feels, or it can be an artistic expression, as an artist painting, a dancer dancing, a musician playing music, using a form for expressing and bringing to the outside what was within. Expressing is related to receiving, as in "Ask, and ye shall receive." ' http://www.healer.ch/throatchakra.html

New Paintings

Aug 8 2008: I made a triptych out of the original 'Lupus Eclipse.' Now I call it 'LUPUS ECLIPSE: NIGHT OF THE WOLVES'
I am starting to wonder if the wolf in the middle is me: I am shadow and light. Those two become one. The other two wolves, I am not sure. The one on the left howls... Is it an alarm? Is it hoping for an answer? Is it to lure? I call this painting, 'Siren.' It seems to symbolize my mother. The one on the right is a bit more sinister. It looks away, into the distance - is it looking intently at its next target? I called it 'Counting Sheep' because it looks like it is ready to hunt.


Jul 31st 2008: EARTH AND SKY; Gesso, Acrylic, Canvas (11X16")
The red (earth) grows into the blue (sky): the sky seeps down into the earth. Emotional Stasis, each seeks the other to gain balance for itself or The Self as a whole.


Aug 9, 2008: SUFFOCATION; Canvas & Acrylic (24X18")
This is simply how I feel sometimes. Or perhaps is an indication of how I felt. My soul was smothered. I was too afraid to speak, so I smothered myself in my own guilt and repression. Something felt as though it was squeezing my heart, like my heart lay in someone's fist. My spiritual struggle manifested some physical symptoms: panic.

Good Times and Bad Dreams on a Long Weekend in August

My brother R and sister-in-law G came down for a visit!

I was nearly ecstatic!

David and I haven't had a chance to see them in a couple of years!

It was a good weekend. We had fun watching the Riders win against Calgary. We had hotdogs and a shrimp ring and pop. G helped me cook the dogs. We talked and sat together.

My brother also came over for a few hours on Sunday. I told him the reason I felt so close to him was because we two are the only two who really seem sane in this family. R made a good point: my brother C and mother both are only their thoughts, they don't think about or analyse the source of their thoughts. And dad is hard to pinpoint... He doesn't seem to think at all on his own, or if he does, his thoughts (as J, David's mom, once pointed out) aren't his own. They are my mom's.

For my mother's & father's sanity, we had planned to keep this all on the QT. However C somehow got the impression that R was coming to visit mother and father as well. So now mother can stew about it, and has thought up several reasons why they didn't visit mom & dad... Primarily that it's somehow G's fault.

It all started out fairly quiet, although my mother, sounding high or something, called around 10 am singing a Christmas Carol on the answering machine.

Then sometime between then and when R&G arrived, C called and asked mom if she had heard anything from R.

C told us later that Mom said no, but she wanted C to have a good time with R.

So apparently C wasn't supposed to tell us that he had told mom. At least, according to mom. So then she was even more angry/hurt because she found out from David and I that C had told R & G that she knew he was there.

Mom seems to think that this gives R & G some sort of plus that they can feel good that mom and dad knew that they were in town and didn't visit with them.

She kept asking me if C told us that SHE told him to have a good time? Did C tell R & G that SHE (mom) told him to say she SAID to have a good time?

*sigh*

Mom pointed out that a couple of years ago, R had told her that it took him 2 weeks to help heal G after interacting with mom. Mother doesn't seem to focus much on the fact that she wrecked G's sanity for a couple of weeks. Instead she accuses G of manipulating R by driving him crazy for two weeks after visiting with mom & dad. She completely misses the point that G was driven crazy by her.

I find it ironic that mom says she hopes someday that R gets a spine and comes for a visit. In actuality it seems like MOM is being driven crazy by G and R and it's going to take DAD 2 weeks to heal HER. Dad is the one without the spine.

I also find it almost funny that mom is now even more perturbed that we all knew that she knew. It was fine if she didn't know, it was fine if she knew, but it wasn't fine if she knew and we knew it??

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Nightmare:

Somehow my brother C and I were sharing a bed (as though we used to when we were children). I had some kind of pet or animal like a wolf pup or harmless animal, but it was squirming a bit.

C kept fretting that it was keeping him awake and that we wouldn't get enough sleep; some kind of anxiety was causing him to keep me awake.

I finally left.

The dream shifted and I found all of us together in the same bedroom.

A woman was in bed, watching us with great interest, but not really seeming interested in assisting us. Instead she wrote down her observations in a notebook and occasionally caught my eye. I would frequently see expressions of surprise, or intense interest. A raised eyebrow when someone said a certain something; or if volume raised louder in the argument. I caught her eye a couple of times, and tried to explain something, but she was more interested in observing the behaviours of everyone in the room.

G and R were part of the discussion, but I don't think they were actually there. C and mom were yelling at each other. Dad was muttering and throwing up his arms, but for the most part staying in the corner wishing he didn't have to be there.

I once in a while would try to say something. I would occasionally get one person to calm down or be quiet, but then the other who was arguing would start the ruckus up again. At one point I even grabbed hold of my mother's collar of her shirt and begged her in a hoarse whisper to be quiet and listen. But then C started up again, or dad, so I would have to go to them. I remember breathing very shallow, gritting my teeth and being very tense about the face, neck and arms. Like old times!

At one point I woke up gasping for air. As I fell back to sleep I dreamt I sat down beside David and whispered to him/muttered to him; 'Well, might as well sit back and watch the show, too...'

My Four Paintings

July 10th 2008 - Blessing Light and Shadow: I found this one quite tedious. I've grouped them from top to bottom because I like the one at the top the best, and the one at the bottom the least, for various reasons.

Almost done!

My fourth painting is on it's way... It's similar to the one with the Raven and the Dove: that's sort of an homage to David and I.

It's about Transformation, although it's hard for my consciousness to put a description into words.

I've been so busy the last few weeks, it frustrates me a bit that I can't update this as often as I want to. However, my internet training certainly takes a lot of my brain energy up. I don't want to add more pressure by expecting me to get done everything else on top of that. However, the worst is over as I have passed the written exam by 80%.

THE WHITE HORSE: Feb 22, 2008

The child tells only
the white horse
who listens
keeping secrets
safe
inside a
free and gentle spirit
sweeter than honeysuckle
stronger than truth
steadier than the horizon

The White Horse
runs like the wind
mane flying
like water against time
when the child
hears the footsteps
coming in the dark

She runs away
until she becomes
a white speck
a star
against
a black sky
too hard to track
hidden amongst
clouded constellations
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I think this is can be related to being disassociated while being molested, but also at other times when the verbal abuse from mom was a bit too much. I simply went somewhere else. I was safe there. The White Horse is a symbol of my spirit, and it retreated into some corner of my being or my mind, which is possibly why I escaped relatively unscathed from my past. It's just been lately that this 'White Horse' has been, shall we say, coming out of hiding. Or my unconscious resurfacing to consciousness. And it really bothers me sometimes still, although not so much now that I've had another look at it instead of trying to repress it again.

PREDATOR: Feb 19, 2008

What Scent
draws the rabid creature?
Its transparent skin burns
from the sunshine in a
lamb's bright eyes.

Was it the same for the
Piper's children
as it was for me?
Lured with guile
and strategy
right under everyone's noses
exposed under shelter of night
hidden in the dark of secrecy.

Fearful promises
become binding contracts.

"No one will believe you."

Learning helplessness
looking into the jailer's eyes.
How long did the predator
watch and circle
before deciding to strike?

Sneaking
with sick appetite.
What missing piece of mind
or spiritual lesion
makes it drool,
tongue hanging out?

How can it stomach
swallowing Innocence,
feel it slide down slowly
as it laps up another
soul dry?

Makes me sick enough
to want to hunt them all down
rip open their skeins
and let all the poison
drain from their reptillian
black veins and force
it down their own swollen throats
until it eats through
their stomachs
and it kills them dead.

But instead of wasting
precious time dissecting and
playing with those
vermin
I would hope to set about
bringing its victims
back from the dead.
Salvage and triage
after they've been freed
from their cages.
Give them hope to put
some of the Light back in their eyes.
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This was in response to some newspaper articles that I read regarding those bastards who victimize children.