New Love

Aho, Wakan Tanka,

This day I marry my beautiful Muse.

This day I dedicate myself to a life of joy.

May the flow of Creation ever move within, through and around me.

May I SHOW UP to do the work of my passions.

May I share my love and my creations with my world, uninhibited, egoless.

This day I wed my spirit to herself.

This day she becomes my lover, my partner, my life.

May no other disrupt the commitment I make now for a year and a day.

I am alone with the truth of my heart and my spirit and myself as a channel of Spirit.

I am fully present in the birth of my purpose and in the offerings of my gifts.

This day I become that which I've always been.

This day I am whole, within myself.

It is my Art who I marry.  

It is my Art who I love.

It is my Art who brings me back to myself.

Aho, Mitakuye Oyasin!

This is Crow Boy.  

More Ink

I want to put more work up here, but I'm having trouble uploading the files onto the blog.  I can't seem to resize my scanned work with the programs I have.  Lame!  Anyone have suggestions for free photoshop like programs for Macs?  Anyway, here's one work I did while completely bored on a "date" this summer.  The best thing I got out of it was this picture!

Moving and Moving and Moving Again!

Ah!  I've made it almost 6 months!  I've clawed my way through to this moment, finding myself full of anger and resentment, mostly at me, for not standing up for myself, for not fighting back.  The day I moved in here, I felt unwelcome.  I thought, "Perhaps it will pass and things will get better."  Ever hopeful, that's me.  Well, better it did not get.  Worse it got, worse and worse and worser.  Now here I sit, anticipating a total revolution in my life.  I'm moving out of this prison house and into what I hope will be a more liberating and freeing social experiment.  I will begin a new home with strong and clear intentions.  I will begin a new romance in the same way.  I will begin my work as an artist in a way I never have before.  Everything is falling away on a grand scale and I'm letting it all come tumbling down.  As I claw my way through the rubble, I look to the truth of my heart to guide me through the rebuilding.  There are things I feel meant to do in this lifetime, many of which I've only scratched the surface.  Now I'm being called to live my life in a dramatically different way.  Dramatic it is!  I'm being called to trust in time, in space, in the unknowns of life more than ever before.  I am stepping into uncharted territory, and I'm finding it both exhilarating and contracting.  Despite the contradictory and paradoxical nature of my situation, I feel utterly compelled to dive right in.  I can't seem to stop myself.  My friend said recently, about my current happenings, that he thinks there is too much changing all at once, and that I will probably drop some projects from all the pressure.  I countered that I've been under even more stress in the past and came through it all, having accomplished all of my goals, only slightly modifying a few of them in the process.  No, I won't have to drop any of these "projects" as he calls them, it's the stress that feeds me and pushes me to move through.  These are merely labor pains.  In the end, I get a brand new life, more unbelievable, more amazing than the last.  I'm finally in the birth process.  I've died, I've replanted, I've ripened, now I let forth this new life.  So Be It!

And I Let Go...

In my exhaustion, the fighting in my heart and mind subsides.  I give all the trying to the Mystery, I surrender it all to... what is it?  Fate or Destiny?  My breath feels clearer as I give in and crumble under the pressure.  The phoenix and the tower, explosion and destruction, sacrifice and incineration, these give way to fertile ground.  Even as I write, I create and destroy.  I choose the words that will live in this composition and those that will die or perhaps never have a chance at being included this time around.  My life is no different.  There are little pieces that fit into the puzzle, while other parts slough off to become pieces of something else.  In this moment I feel helpless as a new born babe.  Have I died and returned a new creature?  I've plunged into the depths of Persephone's domain, down into the dungeons of Hecate, I've sucked the blood fruit of a sizzling death.  This has been my descent.  Now, I take pause.  I stop to retrieve my articles shed, to reattach my very flesh and make my journey back.  I humbly hope and pray for new love, new warmth, and a new hearth, a new home for my heart.  

Ink

A couple of my recent artworks.  I'm still working on a series of drawings I call "Bus Drawings".  Once I'm done, I will be looking for a place to show my art.  I hope you enjoy!

Do I Want to Be a Zombie? Hell, No!

So... there's this thing in our society... maybe throughout the world... that cautions against taking chances, jumping right into our fears and dreams and really trusting in a Higher Power.  Sometimes it's prudent to be cautious... to take our time and let the fire die down a little.  However, a great majority of the time, it's more like real life when you just go for it.  GANBATE!  That's Japanese and translates to something like "Go for it, do your best, work hard!"  When we resist trusting in the wise guidance of Spirit, we only make our lives harder.  We essentially cut ourselves off from the purest of soul food and become zombies, necrotic, dead in our bodies.  That's what a lot of people are... Zombies!  They are literally Dead Alive (hilarious movie, by the way), stumbling through life, jaggedly calculating every move, passionless and disconnected.  Well, I'll tell you what I'm not, and it's that.  I choose a life of truth, trust, love, passion, and adventure.  Bring on the best of what life has to offer!  The only fear I have is the fear that saves my life.  I have no room for fear that voraciously tears away at my very flesh.  I trust.  I trust that I can move the mountains that have set themselves in my way, or at least move around them.

Snip Snip

I cut my hair!  

I dye it red!

Red with earth blood.

A new visage,

a new countenance,

for a new day.

And I say,

Today is a good day to die,

for I've no fear of the things that shadow my life.

The crows have flown in for the Fall.

One keeps a'knockin at my door.

I open it repeatedly

to find he's not there.

I wait patiently as ever.

I hear there's been a storm,

and he's blown off course.

In my dreams I sing.

Sounds flow forth like rain.

I cause and stop the flow.

I call him to me, 

like the Siren.

Suddenly, 

he's there,

when my eyes open,

for the rest of my life.

Today is a good day to die.

So I dye my hair red like blood, 

and I cut away the old,

to make way for the new.

Nemi!

I  just discovered that Nemi has made it across the ocean!  I randomly discovered her while visiting a tiny village in Norway, the name of which I can't even remember.  I was in a store and saw the cover of the comic and was instantly drawn to it.  I got it and made my Norwegian cousin, Egil translate every sketch while traveling by bus and boat along the fjords.  I still have the book, a treasured keepsake from my European visit.  I occasionally peruse it's pages, trying to remember what they say, trying to pronounce the Norwegian words, conjuring a distant memory of the warm hospitality of my Scandinavian family.  When I got back to the states, I searched the internet for more of my favorite gothic comic girl and was hard put to find a site that made any sense to me.  Eventually, I found that she was syndicated in the Metro, some UK rag (hey I don't know what it is... A newspaper?  A tabloid?  I'm just glad she exists in a language I can understand!) so I could occasionally check out what she was up to.   Recently, however, I found her at my local library!  How exciting, no?  Yes!  I am so getting a copy of the English version book.... um, someday when I can justify spending whatever it costs to own it...  For now, I've got it on loan from the library.  Long live the Library!  I love you Library, you're like my second love... My first?  Well I'll let you guess at that one!

Well, You Never Know Until You Try

The ten of swords... what does this mean?

Am I a martyr, a victim?  Have I hit rock bottom?  Is my life just a silly melodrama in the vein of Tartuffe?  10 swords... now that's excessive.  Where did they all come from?

I think I'm going to marry my art.  Nothing else seems quite right.

When I Remember

I tend to forget and remember in waves, the magic of moving my body.  I'll lock up for a few weeks, I'll become stiff and stagnated, then I'll recall a moment when my blood and breath spiraled through my body as if upon wings.  I'll think, "Oh yeah, that's what living feels like".  Then I'll get my weary self to someplace safe and let my body speak to me.  She often tells me all about my cruel neglect towards her needs, and then she slowly, compassionately shows me how to make up for it.  My body becomes lover to my mind, my emotions, my heart.  She brings me back to my breath, she takes me to inner temples, she slithers, she jumps, she spins, she releases intellect from it's frantic grip.  My body has a mind of her own.  Every cell, every molecule awakens in the bliss she brings.  By moving, she teaches me to be still.