What's A Nice Place Like This (Doing Around People Like Us?)
How can I even begin to tell this next part of my story? I must try to tell it, though. I know it would mean a great deal to a lot of people and I know people sense something's up when it comes to me and all of this. People stop and look at me, size me up, see something in me that I often fail to see in myself. I seem to have a certain magnetism which also works as a repellent, as any magnet should.
I began to feel a certain kind of coldness set into my body in the wintertime of 2019. Something in me broke or froze or simply shifted. I know I had invited something in, but it didn't feel like a haunting so much as a rescuing, giving in to something, giving some nameless calling a home. I felt strange charges of energy all around me, all the time, increasingly. It's the kind of thing an intelligent woman knows she's better of to remain silent about. But the problem with me is, sometimes I know I need to speak up even though I would certainly prefer to be silent. This was one of those times. In that same vein of thought, there also comes a time when you have to walk away from everything, in order to find yourself. This was also one of those times. Everything was working to a certain end. Everything was being pulled into the vortex of some kind. It was like a perfect storm.
God's wrath is actually a soothing thing to behold, as is God's grace. I have experienced both at different times, but never all at once. I felt like I was being pulled into both, in tandem. What a feeling. It seemed to me like the earth was dying, somehow. I could hear a crying out, a voice. I also heard a beast, something vicious and deadly. I let go of every needless weight inside my mind and allowed myself to succumb to this dark revery as a form of survival, I think. I felt like the only other option was to die. I hate to say that, but that's how it was for me, inside of my spirit. I can compare it to that scene in film Constantine, where he merges into the realms of hell. It wasn't quite so bad for me, but there came a point inside my mind's eye where all I could see was darkness and flames and coal burning so hot though the heat never touched me. I felt like I was observing it behind a veil or barrier of clear glass which formed around me like a diamond. I walked through but not within, somehow.
So I gave in to the sounds I could hear, calling to me. Some of those sounds were of children, too numerous to count, calling out for aid, calling from some place above me. It's at this point of this bizarre dispensation of common reality that I allowed these experiences to express themselves through my artwork. Like pulling threads upon a loom, I pulled on these feelings and thoughts and recorded them as best as I could through my paintings.
Using inks, pens, paper, markers, and paints, I opened my heart to the channels of some realm I have yet to find the words to describe but I felt my body was not my own. I was not becoming possessed so much as it felt like I was being commandeered, like something was pulling invisible strings to generate movement. I felt like a dead woman walking, thinking, no longer here, but not totally gone. It pains me to consider what this must have been like for my family, but I can recall every step towards this descent, down below to some other realm, where I felt a sense of duty settle upon my shoulders like a mantel.
What is the purpose of being an artist at all if we do not succumb to these proclivities at least once in our lives? It is the silent desire I've nurtured many years, to descend into some sort of state of surrender and though onlookers might call it a form of madness, it was nothing of the sort. It was a form of tuning in. Some use drugs to get there, some use alcohol, some use sex. I used all three at times and at other times, I used nothing at all. It was nothing based on any form of substance abuse, it was more like an inherent tendency. A tendency to drift. I drifted down, down, down.
The artwork that I am sharing in this post is a painting I created in that timeframe and the amazing thing about being an artist is the relationship I have to my artwork. I can remember the state of mind I was in when I made every single piece of art and there are thousands by now. They represent a sort of time-stamp which records everything about the moment and the experience of the moment–emotional and otherwise. They represent my records of what it means to be me. So I remember the state of mind I was in at the inception of this work. I was feeling something I had never ever felt before. The only word I have in my vocabulary to describe it is drifting.
I made this painting. Everything intensified shortly thereafter. I had given birth to something brand new, but nameless. Only I knew the name, but I knew not to tell a soul. Something completely new was afoot in this world and it was concentrated heavily upon me, my body, my family and my home. Things started to go completely crazy. Covid-19 came to Canada, where I live. And soon, everything shut down. Everything inside my mind went completely dark. It was the closing of that Biblical day, this much I know but we live in a world too numb to feel it, too sick to sense it, too distracted to see it. Well, some of us do, at least. Some, but not all. Not me.
And maybe not you, if you're here reading this post. Something drew you here. Maybe you can hear the same things I can hear, but maybe you just don't realize it.
I didn't realize it either. And then? I heard it and all hell broke loose.
This artwork proved to be somewhat prophetic and I will explain why in my text post. I don't want to overwhelm anyone. However, I will tell you this one thing. There were two realms to consider. And both of them were aware of US. It seemed absolutely imperative to hide, for a long long time. Inside a place of hiding, I learned how to control a fire which proved to be a useful skill in the battles that lie ahead of me.
We Know Where You Fucking Live
We're recording this as it happens
Those diamond bullets, storefront blood banks
Splinters and stained glass
Don't need to move a single prayer bone
Dodge bullets so loud and so low
Don't need to move a single prayer bone
Our death is still life
So what's a nice place like this
Doing 'round people like us?
So what's a nice place like this
Doing 'round people like us? ...
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