Mermaid
Moon Maiden
Here are a couple more examples from my days at the garden and the beach. There must have been something in me responding to all that water energy. The second piece, “Moon Maiden” reflects how I often feel a deep connection and oneness with nature. The wind in my hair, the pull of the full moon, the smells of the natural world are all things that bring me to a place of stillness and spiritual ecstacy. As a child, I spent my summers with my grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins, 2nd cousins and 3rd cousins in the hilly farmland of Ohio, where I never wore shoes unless I had to cross the tar road to get to my aunts farm, where I would make my rounds to all the animals. Duke the German Shepard always was the first to greet me, then I was off to brush the horses and tease the baby pigs. I’d check in on the chickens and the hogs that were even bigger than me. I could spend a lot of time with the cows. I would talk to all these animals in their own languages and I learned the different bird calls and spent hours whistling back and forth with them. There were wild bunnies and mice and moles. There were butterflies and dragonflies and locusts that buzzed in the air. At night I caught fireflies in the dark dewey grass and put them in a jar. A good part of the day, I spent laying on my back on the ground staring up at the huge blue bowl of sky above me, feeling the cool grass tickling between my toes and saw all the amazing pictures in the clouds…faces, animals, make believe creatures. All the while, the giant Earth was turning under my body and I could feel it, as if I was a baby being rocked in my Mothers arms. Those summers were vividly sensual and alive. I was a part of everything around me and everything around me was a part of me. Now, I live in New York City. I’ve been here for over 22 years. There is a lot less sky here, but I look up at it as often as I can. As for wildlife, I still get to commune with the dogs and cats that are pets of friends. I go to the gardens and I go to the parks, but the natural world here is kept at bay by a very different vibration than the one in nature. But it’s OK, because the natural world is rooted deep inside me. It’s in my cells and my blood, my bones and my flesh. I am the creatures from my childhood. I am the birds flying across the fields, I am the buzz of the locusts. I am the wind and the cloud beings marching across the sky. I am the blades of grass between my toes and the smells of the fields of corn and hay and my Grandfathers roses. I am the wind that runs it’s body through the fields of wheat in the dark of night just to hear it’s whisper. I am the stars and the moon. I am feathered, furred and carapace. I am everything and nothing. I am the macrocosm and the microcosm. I am in everything and everything is in me. Sometimes…in those rare lovely moments, I can begin to feel a tiny bit of all of that coming through in my art. Just a tiny whisper, but still it’s there, waiting for my surrender. The great surrender, when it all comes flooding through. The sweet orgasmic flow of life. Peace, Peace, Peace.
When the CD was finished, I took off the blindfold and sat for a long time, just staring at the overlapping lines. After a while, my eyes kicked in, trying to find the order in the chaos. I began to see faces and bodies and birds and water and boats in the swirling lines, so I started highlighting and shading around the images to bring them out into manifestation. It was a perfect compromise. It was also fun and exciting to see what would emerge from just letting go. These are two of the earlier examples. I call the first one, “Jumping from the boat.” The second one is called “Athena’s sisters”. Once again, I got that heady rush of the prize found in the box of cracker jacks. My body was relaxing… Finally, I could begin to breathe again 
