CANYON POEM, LATE SUMMER

Mornings in the canyon

I let the delicate fray of my nerves rest.

The descent feels private -

a steep and bumpy trail.

I kick up dust as I scuffle down.

A stray plumeria flower in my hat

–or one day, a hawk feather–

and I am alone in this dry and quiet universe.

Smell is the anchor of the coastal sage scrub.

The land is rich in its dryness, nourishing in a way the desert-dweller knows.

Daily walks through this space become devotional.

The pockets of coolness in the shadows,

and the sea breeze

greeting me on the west-facing

curves, a benediction.

Mindful of poison oak,

I look out for the wild rose hips.

They’ve been ripening in the late summer sun.

Sometimes I parse out the rich ebbs and flows of my internal world here,

and sometimes (today) there’s poetry.

I start with the poem.

It wriggles quickly out of me

like a newborn eager to greet the world,

but then the landscape says “Stop, I’m calling you.

Join me with every sense you have.

Put your awareness here - we are one organism.”

And so I put away my phone,

and the little taps that spin words and build worlds,

and simply be.

These days,

the earth feels like a lover

and I can fall back,

like a swoon,

into its arms.

These days,

old loves feel

like unused trails

being reclaimed by the land.

Like jewelry I once wore

and have since put away.

These days,

I wear my dark hair loose in the sun

and the ends turn

the color of honey.

These days,

I wear a white linen shirt

to protect my skin.

It flutters over my body like a flag:

Surrender.

-Del Mar, CA 2022

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

My artwork is the result of a lifetime of gathering. I take textures and shapes from nature, then reinvent and reorder them. I find images in dreams and archetypal mythology. I study plants, colors, and patterns of human movement. I incorporate synesthesia and allow myself a free hand with the exploration of images. A lot of my work is simply intuitive. For me, creating art is an offering to the collective human experience and a homage to the mystical and spiritual aspects of everyday life.

I’m inspired by the concepts of micro and macro as they relate to nature and to human consciousness. Repetition pulses through composition then changes into something new. Matter is balanced with nothingness. Dreams fascinate me, as does Jungian psychology and the concept of a collective unconscious. I’ve always had an active, vivid dream life, and images from dreams frequently find their way into my work. Through art, I seek to strengthen the links between different realities. 

I primarily use ink and gouache on large pieces of watercolor paper. Gouache has a seductive purity of pigment, and the precision of ink balances bold colors. Most of my paintings are fairly large – up to eight feet by ten feet. Working on this scale allows me to create a sense of atmosphere. On closer examination, however, my work is full of tiny detailed patterns that merge and shift and change.

The art I’ve made in the last few years is charged with emotion. It documents the alchemical process of personal growth, change and rebirth.

HOW TO CLOSE A DOOR

When the phone is hung up

and the screen remains blank,

but the threads of loss

and questions

and imagination

still float free,

find a dark stone.

Any one will do,

but let it have weight in your hand

and let that weight feel heavy.

When silence follows you,

but is occupied by ghosts

and shreds of color

that flap in the wind like old prayer flags,

cut a branch that flows rich with sap.

Get the stickiness on your hands –

it’s hard to wash off.

Cut a ripe tomato with a sharp knife.

See how it slices through the tender flesh

so cleanly.

Make a stew and eat it hot enough

to almost burn your mouth.

Make a pile of bones,

if you can find some.

When you wake up in the darkest hours of

the night,

peek into the private spaces of your soul,

and see if you still have a few tears to

shed,

even if those rivers of grief have largely

dried,

and are now full of sunbaked rocks

and parched willows.

The nocturnal animals:

the owls

the mice

the roaches

the raccoons

the bobcats

roam outside your den,

carrying on their night-work.

Albuquerque, NM - 2022

THE VAMP - THE ARCHETYPAL FEMME TRICKSTER

This piece was inspired by a dream in which the femme trickster showed up, accompanied by ripe mangoes and embodied by twin raccoons. I played around with some of her imagery in this photoshoot. Enjoy!

The Vamp is the femme trickster who slips in through the back door and turns the patriarchy on his head. The Vamp is any age, from very young to very old. In fact, she especially glories in her powers of seduction as she reaches the upper echelons of age, for the sleeper surprise of her allure is part of her modus operandi. She inherently operates throughout all ages, see, because one of her primary functions is that she seduces across the lines of patriarchal normalcy. The Vamp exists in all gendered and ungendered spaces – I say “she” but I refer only to her unexpectedly radical feminine energy. This energy exists across all strata of identity. Her signature move is a surprising and “fated-feeling” seduction with the secret but primary aim of revolution. And when the seduction is complete, those outdated, rotting and backwards patriarchal energies are cut off at the knees and left to reflect on the clear mirrors of their own inadequacy. They crumble from within.

The Vamp isn’t really the “Bad Woman” who seduces the upright, moral man. That tired trope stems directly from masculine fear itself. She isn’t the sinister femme in the portraits the patriarchy has painted of her. She will merrily become sinister if it suits her purposes, but there’s always a subtext. The Vamp pretends to play by the rules (both bad and good), even as she subverts them. However, her targets are inevitably attracted, almost with a sixth sense, to the hint of insubordination they perceive. One could even say that the tired parts of the patriarchal structure covertly seek her out, wanting a way to blow up their own stagnant toxicity without having to take the blame themselves. True to the way of the Trickster, the Vamp is ethically unethical, or, as they say about Mercury, the Roman incarnation of the Trickster archetype, “good with the good and bad with the bad.” In patriarchal constructs, The Vamp is often pitted against the archetypal Wholesome Housewife – but in reality, the Vamp is the disrupter who empowers the Wholesome Housewife and high-fives her as she pushes back against the toxic masculinity that has made her weak and subservient. The Vamp slinks away with a wink as Wholesome Housewife asserts her right to equal treatment and compensation for her unpaid labor.

The Vamp is the archetypal “one who got away” – but as she did, she burned her lesson deep into the heart of her wayward lover. And she did it not for herself, but for the benefit of their next partner, and the one after that. The Vamp’s work is not self-serving – it’s for future generations of femmes. She may allow her body to be borrowed (and knows how to take her own pleasure here) for the greater good, which means for the overthrow of the patriarchy. She’s willing to do this, because she knows that if she stays wise, she’ll never lose her power. The Trickster has usually been portrayed as a masculine archetype, but I believe the feminine Trickster has always been a part of our archetypal pantheon. It’s just that the way she has been portrayed (by the masculine) is as a scapegoat for the failed masculine itself.  She uses the tools she has – her sexuality, sensuality, aloofness and allure ­­­– to upend outdated, sick patriarchal structures within our psyches and in society. There is very little written about her because it is difficult to see her for what she is through the lens of masculine vision. To see her clearly, we need to shake off the shackles of male power structures. Only then do we realize that she has been there all along, laughing at us from the shadows.

CEDARWOOD

Last night in my dream

there was Eros and death -

Thanatos.

A golden young man,

dying by my hand.

I lay with him, stroking his back

in awe and horror of what I had done,

but filled with the certainty of this death.

It was inevitable,

it had to be done.

“Take this,” I said,

“It will help you get to God,”

as I smeared cedarwood oil on his upper

lip.

In my waking life I revisit the dream.

I pick up this beautiful man

and carry him to the edge of the forest.

I lay his heavy body on the earth beneath

a cedar tree.

He and I are there together,

our hands clasped,

as he breathes his last breath.

The light flows out of him.

I split open the earth,

warm and fertile,

and lay him inside.

His body is not yet cool.

The earth swallows him up,

the grass grows over the disturbed soil.

Graceful stalks with little puffs at ends,

like I saw on the shores

of the Aegean Sea.

The sun sets and the sun rises.

He’s in there somewhere,

dissolving as I write this.

He becomes molecules of nourishment

for the vast network of roots,

and the tiny animals

who feed on such things.

I trust that the microbes

and the mycelia

and the earthworms

will do their jobs.

I trust that the roots will pull up what they

need

from the water and the soil.

I trust that the xylem and phloem

will shepherd his atoms through the

trunks and the branches.

I trust that the light will meet the branches

and that green will spread wide, reaching

towards the sky.

I trust in buds and in blooms.

I trust in fruit and in seeds.

I buy some cedarwood oil,

an elegant unguent in my hands and on

my lips.

I breathe in the perfume of ancient myths,

Inanna’s scent before she goes down,

her inhale as she returns.

-Del Mar, CA – 2022

CONVERSATIONS WITH VENUS

In conversations with Venus,

Why? is generally my question.

But this is a dance,

and inquiries are not answered in the

order in which they were received.

She’s a green planet

and I do not know her well.

Except maybe I do –

she has been an orchestrator

of moments behind the scenes

and a whisperer behind folding screens

and curtains.

What I mean is, she is a familiar

but unacknowledged thread

that runs through my life.

I look back and think,

Oh yes, she was there that night.

And I do remember catching a glimpse of

her that day,

and now that I think of it, she was the one

who told me what to say,

when I leaned across the table to you.

Venus, let’s bring our relationship

out into the open.

I invite you.

I love it when you complement my hair,

and suggest the blue shirt that matches

my eyes.

I appreciate how you whisper,

“Try thinking of this situation in a different

way, a softer way.”

I love dancing with you –

we look good together,

and our moves swell the room

with pleasure.

As much as I love the joy,

I also need your help.

I’m tired of repeating the same dreary

scene from the same depressing play

with the stark spotlight

and the lonely chair

and the chiaroscuro stage.

In fact, I even got fed up

and closed down the whole playhouse.

And I’m making moves,

and they feel new and uncomfortable.

I know I’ll break in these dancing shoes

with time.

I know what feels awkward now

will eventually be a graceful glide.

Please stay by my side

while I learn.

To love and be loved –

it sounds easy.

But my love rushes into strange channels

and the love I allow in

has to pass through a pointless gauntlet.

Please accompany me while I soften

my edges.

Please keep whispering to me as I learn

why you are the bravest planet.

Please remind me of your light,

even as I feel your shadows.

-Menorca, Spain - 2022