Interdisciplinary Shamanic Artist
(Please click on artwork to see the full images) |
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My spinal cord is eviscerated throughout the four inches that span the heart chakra. Dozens of tears and punctures straight to the nerve bundle. There is a sharp crease where it was bent in two, trapped in the vertebra, being chewed with every movement I made. There is a partial sever, scored like folded paper. It is similar to having MS lesions, only mine are deep and never heal.
The jerking spasms made people laugh at me. If I fell to the floor from the agony, I might get kicked. Or worse.
Only 79 other people on the planet have ever had a thoracic tethered spinal cord. They all had it corrected within weeks of the accidents.
It took 34 years for mine to be discovered & treated. By then it was too late.
The head neurosurgeon explained the spine is unnaturally snapped back at the heart level, opening up the vertebra. In that instant, the spinal cord was caught in that crevice, then chewed up for over three decades.
I recounted all of the violence I experienced to the neurosurgeons. Severe stuff at the hands of people. No. No, this can’t be done at the hands of another person. Neurosurgeon said. I recounted various falls from trees, bike accidents. No. Nothing like that is enough to cause this impact. A birth defect is equally impossible. Everything is developed normally.
He says an example is a speeding boat throwing someone 60 mph into the corner of a barn. A significant, unmistakable accident involving heavy machinery and high pressure impact is the only way this happens.
Mine was even weirder than that.
The lack of injury to the surrounding bone and tissue indicate it was a highly precise impact in infancy.
There was no way to heal all the myelin damage. They untethered it, but the operation made the condition far, far worse. It also turned me into a literal barometer. Any pressure change throws me into unbearable spasms for hours.
No one ever believed I was in pain. Not just family. Not just peers. Adults thought I was a hypochondriac. Though school nurses puzzled at the frequent fevers. They hid their rage when mom returned me to school days before they dictated. I likely had low-grade infections throughout childhood.
They always took too long on me with scoliosis check. This kind of injury causes a rare lower back curve. Instead of recommending a doctor, the checkers would eventually wave me along. Every year.
I had a attack in school and for the first time someone sent me to the ER. The doctor saw it and had no idea what it was, just that it was very serious. He told mom this, and gave her the address of a specialist an hour away in Boston. He’d arranged for me to be seen that afternoon. She drove me home and told me never to talk about this bullshit again.
The attacks had been a part of my life since early childhood. She’d hit me for disturbing her peace with my howling. Sometimes she’d scream in my face, What do you want! You want me to bring you to the hospital!? Because you need attention!?
I felt deeply guilty and flawed because I knew she didn’t want to come home to me when it was bad. She told me this herself. I was just such a bummer.
After it was discovered at 34 I called my mom. Like anyone would after a devastating diagnosis. She insisted there were never any spasms, no pain & never a visit to the ER. Before hanging up on me she said, You always were healthy. You had a healthy childhood and nothing bad ever happened to you. You have been a sick liar your entire life, desperate for attention and I am ashamed of you.
When I was a pre-teen I fractured my neck diving at the Dover, NH public pool. Mom would not take me to the hospital. I’d already developed a dissociative method to endure the spinal cord injury. Breaking my neck helped me train that even further. The method compromises my physical health.
I walked around with an undiagnosed fractured neck until it healed - badly - on it’s own. The MRI’s at age 34 confirmed this and other untreated injuries from childhood. The neurosurgeon was genuinely horrified when she called with the results. What the fuck happened to you?
I spent my life with perhaps the rarest instance of spinal cord injury known in medicine. I live in a state of agony no one should endure for a minute, let alone an entire life.
The truth of the cause of this injury is more bizarre than anyone can imagine.
Interested in more writing? Explore Gnostic OOPA on Wordpress.
She first dominated my dreams when I lived on the Midwest prairie.
Years before my spinal cord injury was diagnosed.
She was short, squat & stronger than an ox.
Her fierce features now only whispers in a few faces these days.
Her cheeks burnished apples.
Her dark eyes: hawk-like.
She wore tiny gold frame glasses with thick, smudgy lenses.
Her dusty, denim-like work clothes under an even dustier ancient leather apron.
Tiny work-boots made of cracks in leather.
Fields of corn and soybeans began at the back door of my free USDA apartment.
Sporty planes flew over their growing stalks weekly.
That shit they're spraying is poison! She appeared suddenly.
You gotta shut yer windows! If you see planes you stay inside! That shit is sand in the works you don't need girl!
I hadn't yet made the connection between my new illnesses & the fields.
I loved the horizon, and sky and watching the planes and the hypnotizing flow of the spray.
I’d find myself at her workplace.
Sunny, dry beautiful day, always.
An airplane hangar, in the middle of a field.
Chock full of projects.
Various lofts and items built down from the ceiling.
No space was wasted.
Everything from auto and plane garages, sculptures, greenhouses, rows of bottles, several kitchens, music and art studios.
Imposing laboratories.
Just everything you could imagine.
She putters around in complete control of an immense number of complex projects. She’s gruff.
She yells.
Rarely glimpsed apprentices cower and nod in deference to her.
They are always scurrying.
She has no time for fools. It is one of her mantras.
Don’t be another goddamn fool, girl.
She says in a language I don’t know.
Checking me over like an old jalopy.
Scolding, puttering.
Telling me: you've got to heal!
You have a lot of work to do!
You're rusted out!
Bad chassis!
She gives me recipes.
Just fucking do it and don’t stop, She orders.
Steep chopped ginger root and whole cranberries for several hours.
Drink the remaining liquid sweetened only with honey or maple syrup.
Boil wild rice and wild yams together.
Butter. Pepper!
Soon I feel a not-unpleasant sensation under the skin on my left shoulder.
A small snake wound in a circle.
Stirring.
Calming the live-wire undercurrent of pain.
Soon it's twin stirred in the other shoulder blade.
Easing the un-healed gashes in my energy field where my wings were hacked off.
Pain that blackened the edges of my waking life like fire on paper's edge suddenly lessened.
This analgesic effect didn't fade as long as I used variations of her recipes.
The droning & clanging furnace in the basement of my consciousness was miraculously muted.
My work expanded.
My comprehension in dreams expanded.
Well, duh, you dumb fuck. We are the library of Alexandria after all!
She once barked at me when I expressed doubt about my ability to retain the onslaught of learning.
Refresher course! You've forgotten how to drive that thing!
In time I learned my chassis was wrecked beyond anything I imagined.
I try to keep her lessons alive in my life still.
She still makes herself known.
Many other teachers have visited me before and since.
Often they are animals.
Otter is an ancient and gruff interdimensional physicist.
Owl suffers no fools and will leave if you don't listen closely.
Badger is a sacred clown constantly testing you.
My Golden People love me unconditionally.
They are always gentle, present.
They have saved my life more times than I can count.
More times, no doubt, than I am aware.
Just some of the folks who have helped me through this life.
These things are real, even if you can't see it or want to believe in it.
I may be the lunatic writing about it, but only so others may see I am speaking of them as well.
My Golden People are also your Golden People.
I learn equations are only solved with the constant that we are all interconnected.
Banish ego, false facts & longing. Usher in unbridled intuitive flow.
The longest lesson to learn, for me, was believing.
Accepting that imagination is the undercurrent between worlds.
Believing wholly in messages, visions, connections.
Acknowledge communications outside of the human language?
Grounds for insanity!
It's all in your imagination!
Mysticism is scolded in a world ruled by scams.
What a brilliant way to turn people away from their innate power.
Yet the human imagination creates paranoia, anger and discord, and these things aren't questioned in our existence!
We trust so much in these negative imaginings that wars develop over perceived slights.
But mystics and visionaries who glimpse the great universal mechanism of love are dismissed, smeared, murdered.
This is a massive inversion to our natural state of being - of LIFE!
We do not examine why we reject using our imagining/manifestation powers toward positive, loving outcomes.
Usually, when inhabiting forms, our most natural language is one of emotion passed through telepathic waves.
It is a natural energy flow. It is a GridNotAGrid of energy.
When you know who's calling and you don't have caller ID you are tuned into that natural grid.
We are able to communicate using the vibrations of air, water, skin, spirit.
Humans constantly talk with noise.
Birds do too, but less annoyingly than humans.
Animals, plants, insects and microbial species all understand the vibratory nature of communication.
Animals supplement telepathic communication with bodily expressions.
If you know an animal well, you know what I mean.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, then I guarantee you have been the butt of animals’ jokes.
We are so naïve to congratulate ourselves on teaching a dog or cat a word.
They forgive our archaic and limited language.
They live in Love, unless traumatized.
That Love is our birthright as well.
They understand it's impossible to teach most humans the original, natural language of mind and body that we long ago abandoned in favor of sentences, punctuation and endless misunderstanding.
Even humans who acknowledge our psychic communication constantly misuse and project the skills.
Humans are addicted to defending their singular perspectives.
Divisionary Illusions Rule this Gaia confusion.
You cannot assume someone received your telepathic message in any clear, conscious way.
Never assume your initial interpretation of someone's message to you is so specific.
Ego must be push-broomed to the door as fast as it rises up.
We are so emotionally cluttered,
messages are dripping with smog-bits.
Neurological gnats across our telepathic choppers.
Chem-trail strands tangled with neurons.
Hearing blown from riding over the engine for hours.
You have to leave a voicemail, email, fax or post-it.
Even then misunderstanding ensues.
The use of languages a pastime, a plaything, a toy, a frustration, a hangman's noose, a necessary evil.
Here, on Earth written language is especially cumbersome.
The ancient lyricism pounded to dust by each letter.
Some other lifeform's languages use characters as well, but each stroke indicates emotion.
A single character describing latitudes and depth of complicated emotional perspectives and consequences that human words have no descriptions for.
The most complex human emotional afflictions can be summed up in two characters or less on many planets.
The power of our imagination can create pathways to the health or illness of spirit.
As I opened myself more, the less crazy it seemed.
I see clearly that we create our reality.
We are a web of light.
You know when you're on the path.
Everything comes together.
The universe is conspiring
always
to be reunited within you.
Years before my spinal cord injury was diagnosed.
She was short, squat & stronger than an ox.
Her fierce features now only whispers in a few faces these days.
Her cheeks burnished apples.
Her dark eyes: hawk-like.
She wore tiny gold frame glasses with thick, smudgy lenses.
Her dusty, denim-like work clothes under an even dustier ancient leather apron.
Tiny work-boots made of cracks in leather.
Fields of corn and soybeans began at the back door of my free USDA apartment.
Sporty planes flew over their growing stalks weekly.
That shit they're spraying is poison! She appeared suddenly.
You gotta shut yer windows! If you see planes you stay inside! That shit is sand in the works you don't need girl!
I hadn't yet made the connection between my new illnesses & the fields.
I loved the horizon, and sky and watching the planes and the hypnotizing flow of the spray.
I’d find myself at her workplace.
Sunny, dry beautiful day, always.
An airplane hangar, in the middle of a field.
Chock full of projects.
Various lofts and items built down from the ceiling.
No space was wasted.
Everything from auto and plane garages, sculptures, greenhouses, rows of bottles, several kitchens, music and art studios.
Imposing laboratories.
Just everything you could imagine.
She putters around in complete control of an immense number of complex projects. She’s gruff.
She yells.
Rarely glimpsed apprentices cower and nod in deference to her.
They are always scurrying.
She has no time for fools. It is one of her mantras.
Don’t be another goddamn fool, girl.
She says in a language I don’t know.
Checking me over like an old jalopy.
Scolding, puttering.
Telling me: you've got to heal!
You have a lot of work to do!
You're rusted out!
Bad chassis!
She gives me recipes.
Just fucking do it and don’t stop, She orders.
Steep chopped ginger root and whole cranberries for several hours.
Drink the remaining liquid sweetened only with honey or maple syrup.
Boil wild rice and wild yams together.
Butter. Pepper!
Soon I feel a not-unpleasant sensation under the skin on my left shoulder.
A small snake wound in a circle.
Stirring.
Calming the live-wire undercurrent of pain.
Soon it's twin stirred in the other shoulder blade.
Easing the un-healed gashes in my energy field where my wings were hacked off.
Pain that blackened the edges of my waking life like fire on paper's edge suddenly lessened.
This analgesic effect didn't fade as long as I used variations of her recipes.
The droning & clanging furnace in the basement of my consciousness was miraculously muted.
My work expanded.
My comprehension in dreams expanded.
Well, duh, you dumb fuck. We are the library of Alexandria after all!
She once barked at me when I expressed doubt about my ability to retain the onslaught of learning.
Refresher course! You've forgotten how to drive that thing!
In time I learned my chassis was wrecked beyond anything I imagined.
I try to keep her lessons alive in my life still.
She still makes herself known.
Many other teachers have visited me before and since.
Often they are animals.
Otter is an ancient and gruff interdimensional physicist.
Owl suffers no fools and will leave if you don't listen closely.
Badger is a sacred clown constantly testing you.
My Golden People love me unconditionally.
They are always gentle, present.
They have saved my life more times than I can count.
More times, no doubt, than I am aware.
Just some of the folks who have helped me through this life.
These things are real, even if you can't see it or want to believe in it.
I may be the lunatic writing about it, but only so others may see I am speaking of them as well.
My Golden People are also your Golden People.
I learn equations are only solved with the constant that we are all interconnected.
Banish ego, false facts & longing. Usher in unbridled intuitive flow.
The longest lesson to learn, for me, was believing.
Accepting that imagination is the undercurrent between worlds.
Believing wholly in messages, visions, connections.
Acknowledge communications outside of the human language?
Grounds for insanity!
It's all in your imagination!
Mysticism is scolded in a world ruled by scams.
What a brilliant way to turn people away from their innate power.
Yet the human imagination creates paranoia, anger and discord, and these things aren't questioned in our existence!
We trust so much in these negative imaginings that wars develop over perceived slights.
But mystics and visionaries who glimpse the great universal mechanism of love are dismissed, smeared, murdered.
This is a massive inversion to our natural state of being - of LIFE!
We do not examine why we reject using our imagining/manifestation powers toward positive, loving outcomes.
Usually, when inhabiting forms, our most natural language is one of emotion passed through telepathic waves.
It is a natural energy flow. It is a GridNotAGrid of energy.
When you know who's calling and you don't have caller ID you are tuned into that natural grid.
We are able to communicate using the vibrations of air, water, skin, spirit.
Humans constantly talk with noise.
Birds do too, but less annoyingly than humans.
Animals, plants, insects and microbial species all understand the vibratory nature of communication.
Animals supplement telepathic communication with bodily expressions.
If you know an animal well, you know what I mean.
If you think this sounds ridiculous, then I guarantee you have been the butt of animals’ jokes.
We are so naïve to congratulate ourselves on teaching a dog or cat a word.
They forgive our archaic and limited language.
They live in Love, unless traumatized.
That Love is our birthright as well.
They understand it's impossible to teach most humans the original, natural language of mind and body that we long ago abandoned in favor of sentences, punctuation and endless misunderstanding.
Even humans who acknowledge our psychic communication constantly misuse and project the skills.
Humans are addicted to defending their singular perspectives.
Divisionary Illusions Rule this Gaia confusion.
You cannot assume someone received your telepathic message in any clear, conscious way.
Never assume your initial interpretation of someone's message to you is so specific.
Ego must be push-broomed to the door as fast as it rises up.
We are so emotionally cluttered,
messages are dripping with smog-bits.
Neurological gnats across our telepathic choppers.
Chem-trail strands tangled with neurons.
Hearing blown from riding over the engine for hours.
You have to leave a voicemail, email, fax or post-it.
Even then misunderstanding ensues.
The use of languages a pastime, a plaything, a toy, a frustration, a hangman's noose, a necessary evil.
Here, on Earth written language is especially cumbersome.
The ancient lyricism pounded to dust by each letter.
Some other lifeform's languages use characters as well, but each stroke indicates emotion.
A single character describing latitudes and depth of complicated emotional perspectives and consequences that human words have no descriptions for.
The most complex human emotional afflictions can be summed up in two characters or less on many planets.
The power of our imagination can create pathways to the health or illness of spirit.
As I opened myself more, the less crazy it seemed.
I see clearly that we create our reality.
We are a web of light.
You know when you're on the path.
Everything comes together.
The universe is conspiring
always
to be reunited within you.
Justin The Artist
Marshfield, VT: 31yrs
Attending an Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program.
Drove cross country in my RV with only 2 gears.
No reverse.
As always, failing at adulting.
22 ft. Luna broke down in a campground a few miles from campus.
Spacious, with woods and trails and a river through it.
Affordable. Which almost always mean troubled.
Constant traffic. Distant Arguments.
Feral children. Seeking. Hungry. Curious.
I was one once, desperate for connection, attention.
I avoid the shady adults and their drug/sex invitations.
I realize these kids are surrounded by the worst kind of predators.
These are the kind of people who didn't care how they hurt me as a child.
I recognize it's drugs that dim their light.
But I am still imprinted with the inversion of safety.
I can't see danger without seeing clan. Inversion of Love.
I am once again out of my depth.
Perhaps the children recognize me as just a bigger version of themselves.
They often follow me like ducklings.
SLEEPING! I'm Fucking Sleeping!
I'd yell out when they'd knock and tap my aluminum walls just after sunrise.
Jip-C overjoyed with their early morning romps: she'd let herself out.
She was my ambassador in all lands.
I teach them how to open cans, sew holes in clothing, put air in tires. Etc. Whatever comes up.
I work at a homeless shelter an hour away.
Americorps. Children's Activities Director.
I build craft tables under my awning.
Collect supplies from the Re-Store.
I leave the tables set with supplies on days I work at the shelter.
I come home to ducklings often.
Productive and curious, they always have something new to show.
There is always a mess to come home to as well.
The structure of the Americorps job & toughness of the shelter families difficult on my tender heart.
But the kids are always ready for a new creative opportunity.
They're not closed up yet and their art is their flow.
We do photography, art and building projects.
The residents change week to week.
I must accommodate their interests in order for projects to be of meaning to either of us.
Sometimes I'm just giving kids rides to school events, or a pregnant mom to the store.
I'm told this isn't okay to do on several occasions.
Fuck that.
An older group moves in, they want to make rap music.
I've had my own mini studio for years.
I bring it in and set it up.
The kids, aged 5 to 14, start making rap, country, jazz and experimental, instinctual music.
It extends over weeks as they hone and explore their sounds.
My equipment locked safely away in the shelter's office is a plus.
My camper is vulnerable. I live & work in rough places.
I have no street cred. Never have. Marshmallow.
A family with an aggressive male moves in.
He immediately targets me.
How I dress, walk & speak all fodder for relentless teasing.
I trudge on, ignore the bullshit.
But the art & fun is gone.
I've shut down.
Each lesson quantified, project reports filed.
Paperwork bullshit. Adulthood.
Meaningless bureaucracy!
Protocols I inevitably will fail to follow.
Projects and resources like bikes and playground equipment that I finagle are rejected.
Wrong resource, not vetted, on and on.
I give up on finding things for the kids to have at the shelter.
I focus on things they carry in their minds that serve creative thinking.
Recognizing recurring systems and designs.
They always connect their own dots.
Our minds are as much our power as our souls.
Anything that can be taken away from us will be, eventually.
Hadn't I learned that already, as miss hoi - polloi?
No. Not yet. More bullies and heartbreaking confusion, please.
The system is not just against these families.
It's against all of us trying to work for them.
Most of us are students, all of us are poor.
Even the sweet director struggled to take care of his family.
In spite of often amazing work with the children, I cry every night on the drive home.
Everything is so excruciatingly hard and exhausting.
But.
The campground work was dirty, muddy, freestyle.
My gruff style don't phase these kids.
They knew I am only love.
Makeshift tables outside my camper with paints, paper, Food-shelf snacks.
They make many beautiful pictures.
I teach them art tricks. Perspective. Color Wheels.
My camper's exterior becomes a growing kids art gallery.
Justin made marvelous cats and trees.
I told him he was an excellent artist.
This made him feel good.
The next day he came over and said he wasn't going to paint.
He was upset with me.
You shouldn't tell me I could be an artist. My mom says that's not a man's job.
The most famous and powerful artists have been men.
Look at Picasso. I say.
He says Picasso sucks. He could do better.
But there are lots of jobs out there.
Most artists need to work a job anyway, I say.
It's good to have a trade that pays.
Learn everything you can, I advise.
But always do some of what you love.
He decides to make art in secret, inside my camper, while the rest of us work outside.
No one ever checks on him.
Every day, a crew of four or five kids.
More when families visit their campground-ed kin.
Ride bikes, hike through the woods, swim in the river.
Justin and Josh are excellent swimmers.
At the end of summer Justin's mom left suddenly with the boys.
Warrants mentioned. Drug Charges. DWI. Running from a man. Sketchy stuff.
Stories surfaced of jail time and foster homes somewhere down south.
But all gossip from untrustworthy sources.
I try to find out how to get in touch with the kids or their mom, maybe family.
I feel a sense of urgency and danger, that it’s now or never to help these kids.
The campground junkies say that's all they know.
They can't recall how they got their information, or where I could begin to find them.
That's all family matters, they say. None of your business.
My camper is broken into repeatedly.
No one's talking though it happens in the middle of the field.
In the middle of the day.
Junkie crew wants me out.
I don't do crack and I don't fuck around.
I treat children as human beings.
I am dangerous to the status quo.
I am officially banished due to excessive use of styrofoam.
Two years later.
Getting oil changed.
Jip-C obsesses over the iguana in the waiting room.
I glance at the newspaper.
Justin and his brother are on the front page, toothless school photo grins.
Drowned, along with their little girl friend.
Ages 8, 9 and 12.
I am unable to stand.
I suspect foul play.
That night I meditate.
Ask for Justin.
Eldest brother.
Ringleader.
Artist.
What happened? My energy inquires as gently as possible.
He emerges from the dark, but still in shadows.
He is stunned, shocked. Shaking, rushed, confused. Excited.
A foot slips. No control.
Exposed tree root. Dark. Sloping rock, jagged rock.
Deep water.
Underwater. Terror.
Holding hands. Pulling hands. Losing grip.
He whispers a name.
He is distracted by something I can't see.
He has to go.
Excerpt from 'Gnostic OOPA.'
Money Isn't Worth Art.
I started by leaving little paintings and drawings in the university buildings around my town.
In the classrooms or dining areas.
I'd stick pictures and illustrations in library books I loved.
Small things I like to give away.
It takes minutes to make one.
They're all different & to me, they're all the same.
Art is not liked by everybody. That is proof of a collective wound.
One time I left one next to a college student's elbow.
She barely glanced at it and nudged it off to the floor.
Obviously I'm still not over it.
I was about 12.
After that I was too shy to try to brazenly force my art onto passing strangers.
That came later.
When it became imperative that I push my work out into the world.
Not to promote it & definitely not for personal acknowledgment.
It was the only way I could express the love in my heart.
Living in more urban areas made me bolder.
Early morning commutes on ferries, subways and buses allowed for me to tuck a picture into a worker's hands.
Unique gifts, apparently are so rare they are suspect.
I looked for people suffering, tired but invincible like me.
I looked for the ones who glowed brighter because they loved so deeply.
Because they cared and no one gets a fucking medal for caring here.
You get punished for caring.
We live in an age of Cremation of Care.
There were several thousand pieces in the world before I ever got a scanner.
Even after the scanner, I copied about 30% of my work.
I just wanted to get it all out into the world, I don't have the time or patience to archive everything.
It doesn't matter who made it, or why.
It just needs to be out there.
That's my fucking job.
It's been the same job for millions of years.
Sure, I started as a sea creature who taught my brethren to make exquisite designs with our bodies on the sandy sea floor.
Good work if you can get it.
But then I moved up into creating mating rituals, mostly as a bird, but also massive reptilians and many other creatures no longer here. Dancing and Singing tie with Art. Writing is a close second in my function.
Variations of some of those bird songs are still heard today.
I spent hundreds of thousands of years carving, painting and melting rocks & great stones. I worked with poured gold and exquisite stones.
Some of my ancient works have been discovered.
If you know my work, it's the same goddamn shit.It is rote.
That's okay. Most jobs get boring even if you love them.
This has always been important work. I was not usually a free agent. This time around real success made me physically ill.
Money Isn't Worth Art.
It's got some kind of icky goo. It infects everything. Even after I understood it made me sick, people forced me to accept money for pieces. To explain my process was to explain the memories of money perverting art. It's easier to give it away anonymously. To places that need positive frequencies glowing from the walls.
People assume I'm nuts and that's cool. It's just I'm not boasting. In reality I'm nudging. I'm almost totally sure when I speak of my memories, they are all of ours. We have multiple sources of firsthand life experiences going back millions - or more - years. I know whenever I say 'my' memories, it isn't so cut and dry. It's simply the easiest way to describe what I'm experiencing.
Along this same line of thought, the frequencies and crude sacred geometry within my trance-state art represent knowledge we all possess to our cores. The cores of our physical and energy bodies.
I forgot some symbols and vibrations have been lost and now just appear strange and weird to modern humans.
Since I was a child I remember the design, mediums, execution & how they made me feel.
At times I knew where I was seeing. I carry the memories of a slave artist who hand carved five pointed stars in stone. I kept temples beautifully painted in gold and cobalt along great trade rivers. I sang for ancient, cruel, royalty, bound in chains. These skill memories were gifted to me from Ancestors. Yes, even the fish.
Memories were taken like class notes in the Greater Akashic. All of these memories are offered to us as our own to guide our paths in life. The reason this very fact of our nature is suppressed is because it is our Sovereignty. There is a false Akashic that many turn to at the end of life. Art does not awaken their souls as it once did for all humans.
Instinct, intuition, inclinations. This is the wisdom of the very atoms.
Of every breath ever taken.
We are all the sum of a far greater hole. Tricked into slavish mundanity.
Art & Music are sacred keys back to ourselves.
Modern zeitgeist is chipping away at their nurturing properties.
Stayed at Gram’s many weekends.
Until I turned 10 she showered me with gifts and affection.
Marks of bright pink lipstick on my face that I’d rub into blushmarks.
Gram and her sister, Aunt Betty, had wicked senses of humor.
Alcohol brought out their dark, sharp blades.
But those blades were always unsheathed.
As soon as I began to develop as a woman the gifts became girdles and corsets.
Mind games I couldn't comprehend.
I didn’t mind staying with her much.
She had many books, make-up and clothes.
She allowed me solitude often.
But no matter where she lived, it carried darkness.
Not just the polished mahogany furniture and scarlet braided rugs.
Which carried odd vibrations, even long after they weren't in her possession.
Shadows hung in spots.
Coils of dark energy lingered.
The darkness wasn’t totally uncomfortable.
If I didn’t let it inside me, it was ok to just observe.
I knew this lesson of loss.
Loneliness. Fear. Hopelessness.
Familiar.
Inevitable.
Sometimes a woman moped in the room while Gram ate or read newspapers.
Sometimes shadows waited for Gram in doorways.
Gram was a master of silly.
I was about 6.
Gram had TV in her bedroom. Luxury!
We were all bundled in.
Bowls of ice cream.
Horror B-movie, 50’s or 60’s.
A satanic cult holds handsome captives in a cave.
A pit of boiling pink gooey stuff in the foreground.
The devil appears.
Chanting grows louder.
I don’t wanna watch this. I say, scrunching under the cover.
The room was dark and I didn’t want to see Gram’s neighbor right then.
I’m scared! I say.
Don’t be scared. It’s just a movie.
She’s digging the show.
Oh snuggle-up. She extends her arm and I curl into her side.
I’m scared of the devil!
The devil?
Yes!
Do you think the devil’s gonna come and get you?
Yes!
The devil’s robed minions throw the science-guy into the bubbling pit.
He screams as it devours him.
We could watch Lawrence Welk? I say hopefully.
I hated LW and his sequined bitches. There was something bad there, too.
But probably just normal human ego bullshit I was used to IRL.
You don’t need to be scared of things on TV.
It’s just TV. It can’t hurt you. It’s not real.
Let Grammy watch her picture show. She says sharply.
She is getting annoyed with me.
The devil is in the chesty girl’s face, grinning with lusty, evil intent.
I’m scared! I’m scared!
I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t be scared, Alexandria.
Her intonation suggests a treat.
Why not? I say, imagining a gift of candy or costume jewelry to ward off the devil.
Why not? Why not?
She says as she turns away from me, toward her nightstand.
Why not?
I ask again, leaning to see what she was reaching for.
She snaps back quickly, her hands in claws, her face a wolfman grimace!
Because I am the devil! She screeches and grabs me, tickling hard.
I very nearly shit myself.
Years later I am tall enough to see everything on the high shelf of her sideware.
A sideways woman’s glance catches my eye.
I study the photo, bring it to Gram.
Who is this woman? I ask.
That’s my sister Virginia. She died a long time ago, too young.
Best not to talk about it. She says.
It is her visitor.
Until I turned 10 she showered me with gifts and affection.
Marks of bright pink lipstick on my face that I’d rub into blushmarks.
Gram and her sister, Aunt Betty, had wicked senses of humor.
Alcohol brought out their dark, sharp blades.
But those blades were always unsheathed.
As soon as I began to develop as a woman the gifts became girdles and corsets.
Mind games I couldn't comprehend.
I didn’t mind staying with her much.
She had many books, make-up and clothes.
She allowed me solitude often.
But no matter where she lived, it carried darkness.
Not just the polished mahogany furniture and scarlet braided rugs.
Which carried odd vibrations, even long after they weren't in her possession.
Shadows hung in spots.
Coils of dark energy lingered.
The darkness wasn’t totally uncomfortable.
If I didn’t let it inside me, it was ok to just observe.
I knew this lesson of loss.
Loneliness. Fear. Hopelessness.
Familiar.
Inevitable.
Sometimes a woman moped in the room while Gram ate or read newspapers.
Sometimes shadows waited for Gram in doorways.
Gram was a master of silly.
I was about 6.
Gram had TV in her bedroom. Luxury!
We were all bundled in.
Bowls of ice cream.
Horror B-movie, 50’s or 60’s.
A satanic cult holds handsome captives in a cave.
A pit of boiling pink gooey stuff in the foreground.
The devil appears.
Chanting grows louder.
I don’t wanna watch this. I say, scrunching under the cover.
The room was dark and I didn’t want to see Gram’s neighbor right then.
I’m scared! I say.
Don’t be scared. It’s just a movie.
She’s digging the show.
Oh snuggle-up. She extends her arm and I curl into her side.
I’m scared of the devil!
The devil?
Yes!
Do you think the devil’s gonna come and get you?
Yes!
The devil’s robed minions throw the science-guy into the bubbling pit.
He screams as it devours him.
We could watch Lawrence Welk? I say hopefully.
I hated LW and his sequined bitches. There was something bad there, too.
But probably just normal human ego bullshit I was used to IRL.
You don’t need to be scared of things on TV.
It’s just TV. It can’t hurt you. It’s not real.
Let Grammy watch her picture show. She says sharply.
She is getting annoyed with me.
The devil is in the chesty girl’s face, grinning with lusty, evil intent.
I’m scared! I’m scared!
I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t be scared, Alexandria.
Her intonation suggests a treat.
Why not? I say, imagining a gift of candy or costume jewelry to ward off the devil.
Why not? Why not?
She says as she turns away from me, toward her nightstand.
Why not?
I ask again, leaning to see what she was reaching for.
She snaps back quickly, her hands in claws, her face a wolfman grimace!
Because I am the devil! She screeches and grabs me, tickling hard.
I very nearly shit myself.
Years later I am tall enough to see everything on the high shelf of her sideware.
A sideways woman’s glance catches my eye.
I study the photo, bring it to Gram.
Who is this woman? I ask.
That’s my sister Virginia. She died a long time ago, too young.
Best not to talk about it. She says.
It is her visitor.
Youth-at-Risk describe dream details...
Madbury, NH : 12yrs
Mom's rages were terrifying.
Painful.
Completely destructive to any sense of self.
Sense of safety is cobwebs.
Reverberations lasted days.
Shaking my cells apart.
Then I realized nothing held me there.
The door called to me.
Why shouldn't I walk away?
After the violence subsided I made my quiet escape.
Du-an lived only about a mile away.
The road, though truck-heavy, was rural.
I knew it well enough.
I knew how to walk along roads at night.
Her family's roomy weather-beaten farmhouse stood by a curve in the road.
We'd been friends a couple of years, a small group of us, boys and girls.
She was from Laos, her family building a new life, escaping the insanity of war.
Of course as kids, we were mostly ignorant of all that.
Du-an never hinted at misery beyond her annoyance with little siblings.
Whom she loved and mothered.
She was silly and boy-crazy and she liked to play little games, draw little pictures.
She was clever, patient and kind.
She taught me how to be a little more patient and kind.
Her family was surprised to have me show up at their door.
It was around 9pm.
I wasn't a common guest, and certainly not expected.
But where my mother gripped my arms was already bruising.
I asked if I could stay and take her bus to school in the morning.
They took me in.
Fed me soup.
Wrapped me in blankets.
My mother pounded on the door about 20 minutes after I'd arrived.
They ushered me into their backroom.
She demanded to know if I was there. She demanded me back.
They calmed her down, promised I'd be back home after school tomorrow.
I was in their hands.
They weren't giving me up to her in that state.
I climbed into one of the beds with Du-an.
There were three beds, each with a couple of small kids.
Du-an had older siblings in other rooms.
A box fan hummed and sent me off to sleep, feeling the warm glow from Du-an a few inches away.
This peace an echo of my yearning to be a part of the pack, to be cozy in the den.
These concepts of comfort and safety were stripped from this life early.
Eggshells.
There is no den or pack for me here.
I was pet and prey.
Hours later, roused from deep sleep.
Sense of being watched from the side of the bed.
I was in pre-OBE sleep paralysis, but didn't expect to be able to leave my body.
I tried to fall back asleep.
The first chamber of leaving the body is filled with rude, staring things.
I often must ignore such happenings.
Always it fades.
The sense persisted.
Reluctantly cracked my eyelids.
A few people gathered by me.
I slowly realized they were too tall to be the other kids in the room.
The scent of the room had changed.
Strong ginger and lemon.
peering through my eyelashes
I could see the outline of the light through the window
through one of their bodies.
Bladder release.
They murmured.
A warm hand on my belly.
A warm hand on my head.
There are balls of light.
Bells.
Sweet smoke.
I wake to an unexpected, massive period as well as urine.
Worst house-guest EVER.
Excerpt from Gnostic OOPA
Plainfield, VT: 37yrs
No one had ever seen this kind of spinal cord injury. Years of pain chalked up to hypochondria finally validated.
My fury rises when I recall the Plainfield Health Center staff reassuring me 400mg of oxy a day was fine for pregnancy. The baby will need a little weaning.
This alone was a crime.
I was barely able to function. I didn't do the research. I trusted my doctors.
The spinal cord injury and surgery triggered a series of agonizing conditions.
A fiery nightmare stealing the gift of new motherhood from me.
Stealing me away from my MFA program & career.
I'd sublimated severe pain and spasms for decades with no drugs.
The spinal cord injury so rare it went undiagnosed my entire life.
During my first pregnancy I was debilitated, paralyzed.
After many months of false diagnoses, the truth was harder to stomach.
It was a rare anomaly, only caused by severe trauma.
At the time, there were 79 known cases of Thoracic Tethered Spinal Cord.
Mine was the first to have been found decades after the trauma was incurred.
It was the first one with four inches of spinal cord chewed, ripped & torn deep into the nerve bundle. Masticated by the vertebra.
No one doubted my suffering for the first time in my life.
They threw their arsenal at it.
400 mg a day.
For several years.
About 2005-2009.
Shit made me cray-cray!
NO, Like EVEN MORE!
Turned my world dim and gray.
My rich inner mind-life was suppressed, throttled.
My art, music and writing suffered.
My dreams stopped carrying sweet interdimensional messages.
Bad drugs kill magic.
It's the way they extricated themselves, man.
Later I heard they’d been noted for their generous hillbilly heroin scripts.
I suspect I may have been getting some of the highest amount.
At least I fucking hope so.
A Doc friend told me later No one could survive on that dosage for very long.
Always underhanded with the big guns, ain't it?
It started subtly, my scripts not getting renewed on time, appointments disappearing.
I was accused of stealing files and later questioned about a missing prescription pad. I am commanded to come in for a piss test.
I still didn't get that I was slowly being set up to be let go.
I only recognized that shit wasn't right.
I couldn't piss and they ask me if I'm hiding something.
They take my blood instead.
I leave with a glucose level that, I discover months later from a Naturopath, warrants immediate hospitalization. Plainfield Health Center had it in their records and never said a thing to me.
Weeks go by.
My script doesn't show up.
I call and find they've canceled it.
You have unauthorized opioids in your system. She tells me coldly.
That's impossible I say. I take what you give me, nothing else.
You are terminated as a patient.
Why didn't you call me when you knew?
You should have called us.
But what am I supposed to do?
Not my problem. The nurse hangs up.
I find a treatment center that took me right away.
When going over the paperwork they show me the Health Center reported nothing about additional opioids.
The reason listed for my termination is the presence of cannabis.
Cannabis recommended by the Health Center Doctor.
A woman doctor who suffered from a chronic disease.
A woman doctor who used cannabis herself.
A woman doctor who gave me some suggestions as to how to acquire it locally. The cannabis use likely documented in the files they accused me of taking.
The Rehab is a processing center for women with court orders and jail time who must complete the program.
I just want to get through detox.
They wean me with methadone and in two weeks I am released, safely off the heavy opioids. I suffer the shakes and sweats for months afterward.
During my time there I discover these women and I have similar backgrounds.
In some cases, they were a little horrified by my childhood stories of rape & violence. I am among my people but I am not like my people.
All of these women turned to crime, drugs & prostitution.
I never walked those paths.Art and my Golden People saved me. They saved me as I dreamt amongst my broken sisters. They saved me as I made custom art for as many of the women that I could.
The jail-like rehab sets me off. I break every rule they have. I'm the only one there of my own free will. They hold no threat when I want to stay out and meditate in the snow, or rescue wildlife.
Don't cage me fucking in.
When I return home I realize my pain is equal with or without opioids.
Meditation and massive adjustment to lifestyle are key. Activity is meted out between long stretches of spasms and bed rest.
I learn how to manage it. I have back what I need to survive:
My dreams become real again.
No one had ever seen this kind of spinal cord injury. Years of pain chalked up to hypochondria finally validated.
My fury rises when I recall the Plainfield Health Center staff reassuring me 400mg of oxy a day was fine for pregnancy. The baby will need a little weaning.
This alone was a crime.
I was barely able to function. I didn't do the research. I trusted my doctors.
The spinal cord injury and surgery triggered a series of agonizing conditions.
A fiery nightmare stealing the gift of new motherhood from me.
Stealing me away from my MFA program & career.
I'd sublimated severe pain and spasms for decades with no drugs.
The spinal cord injury so rare it went undiagnosed my entire life.
During my first pregnancy I was debilitated, paralyzed.
After many months of false diagnoses, the truth was harder to stomach.
It was a rare anomaly, only caused by severe trauma.
At the time, there were 79 known cases of Thoracic Tethered Spinal Cord.
Mine was the first to have been found decades after the trauma was incurred.
It was the first one with four inches of spinal cord chewed, ripped & torn deep into the nerve bundle. Masticated by the vertebra.
No one doubted my suffering for the first time in my life.
They threw their arsenal at it.
400 mg a day.
For several years.
About 2005-2009.
Shit made me cray-cray!
NO, Like EVEN MORE!
Turned my world dim and gray.
My rich inner mind-life was suppressed, throttled.
My art, music and writing suffered.
My dreams stopped carrying sweet interdimensional messages.
Bad drugs kill magic.
It's the way they extricated themselves, man.
Later I heard they’d been noted for their generous hillbilly heroin scripts.
I suspect I may have been getting some of the highest amount.
At least I fucking hope so.
A Doc friend told me later No one could survive on that dosage for very long.
Always underhanded with the big guns, ain't it?
It started subtly, my scripts not getting renewed on time, appointments disappearing.
I was accused of stealing files and later questioned about a missing prescription pad. I am commanded to come in for a piss test.
I still didn't get that I was slowly being set up to be let go.
I only recognized that shit wasn't right.
I couldn't piss and they ask me if I'm hiding something.
They take my blood instead.
I leave with a glucose level that, I discover months later from a Naturopath, warrants immediate hospitalization. Plainfield Health Center had it in their records and never said a thing to me.
Weeks go by.
My script doesn't show up.
I call and find they've canceled it.
You have unauthorized opioids in your system. She tells me coldly.
That's impossible I say. I take what you give me, nothing else.
You are terminated as a patient.
Why didn't you call me when you knew?
You should have called us.
But what am I supposed to do?
Not my problem. The nurse hangs up.
I find a treatment center that took me right away.
When going over the paperwork they show me the Health Center reported nothing about additional opioids.
The reason listed for my termination is the presence of cannabis.
Cannabis recommended by the Health Center Doctor.
A woman doctor who suffered from a chronic disease.
A woman doctor who used cannabis herself.
A woman doctor who gave me some suggestions as to how to acquire it locally. The cannabis use likely documented in the files they accused me of taking.
The Rehab is a processing center for women with court orders and jail time who must complete the program.
I just want to get through detox.
They wean me with methadone and in two weeks I am released, safely off the heavy opioids. I suffer the shakes and sweats for months afterward.
During my time there I discover these women and I have similar backgrounds.
In some cases, they were a little horrified by my childhood stories of rape & violence. I am among my people but I am not like my people.
All of these women turned to crime, drugs & prostitution.
I never walked those paths.Art and my Golden People saved me. They saved me as I dreamt amongst my broken sisters. They saved me as I made custom art for as many of the women that I could.
The jail-like rehab sets me off. I break every rule they have. I'm the only one there of my own free will. They hold no threat when I want to stay out and meditate in the snow, or rescue wildlife.
Don't cage me fucking in.
When I return home I realize my pain is equal with or without opioids.
Meditation and massive adjustment to lifestyle are key. Activity is meted out between long stretches of spasms and bed rest.
I learn how to manage it. I have back what I need to survive:
My dreams become real again.
Over 444 Window Paintings distributed 2004-2016.
The Free Window Painting project helped to rehabilitate my body and spirit after surgeries...
Much Gratitude.
The Free Window Painting project helped to rehabilitate my body and spirit after surgeries...
Much Gratitude.
"I, formally Alexandria Heather, renounce all imperial slave soul contracts.
My usage of sacred geometry, in any form or direction, is a celebration of Life.
The Stars in my work are free of any co-opted meanings."
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Permission to use writing, sound, moving or still images from this site strictly required
ALL ORIGINAL WORKS COPYRIGHT ALEXANDRIA XAVIERA HEATHER now WATERS BREEDLOVE 2018
Permission to use writing, sound, moving or still images from this site strictly required
ALL ORIGINAL WORKS COPYRIGHT ALEXANDRIA XAVIERA HEATHER now WATERS BREEDLOVE 2018