What’s Your Dark Art?

The arts of women have been called the dark arts for too long, and they are the keys to infinity.
Infinite form. Infinite being. Infinite life.
The art of far sight.
The art of inner knowing.
The art of sign-reading.
The art of deep feeling.
The art of song and circles.
The art of intuition.
The art of frequency translation.
The healing arts.
The art of kitchen witchery.
The art of communion.
The art of sacred story weaving.
The art of creation and manifestation.
And others too wild to name.

~Alison Nappi
The Wildness with Alison Nappi

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Image: Fire Dance by Julia C R Gray

Growing Yourself in Darkness

“The woman who takes the time to grow herself in darkness becomes familiar — perhaps for the first time — with the real source and containment of her psychic strength. No longer is her strength dissipated in obeying an idealized father figure, in pleasing a lover, in trying to satisfy a perpetually unsatisfied mother figure, in accommodating to a patriarchal organization or culture, in appeasing the inner witch who tells her she is worthless. No longer is her strength lost to obeying compulsions, drives, and obsessions that can slip in during the dark night of the soul and substitute for the real thing.

“And what is the real thing, the thing for which she longs? The love affair with her own spirit, the inner marriage that commits her to her destiny, the rituals of soul that feed her deepest hunger, and the sense of being pregnant with her Self, her creative essence.”

~Jill Mellick

Waves of Her

When your soul was born,
it was like a still ocean that had yet to experience
its infinite life.

Goddess then came to the shore of your soul and
gazed upon the
immaculate splendor that Her divine heart
created.

She then took off her clothes and dove into you.

Nothing on their own have your arms ever done,
the movements of your feet are caused
by the waves She stirred.

~St. Teresa of Avila

Hers is the Power

Sacred Mother of Us All

Hers is the power of the pouncing lioness, the roar of a hurricane, the swoop of an eagle, the crashing of a wave, the gentle force of the moon on the tides, the unleashing of a mighty orgasm, the contractions of labour, the spider weaving a web of gossamer silk…”

~Lucy Pearce, Burning Woman

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#SacredFeminine

#MamaEarth

My Revolution

Written by Eve Ensler
Performed by Rosario Dawson

My revolution begins in the body
It isn’t waiting anymore
My revolution does not need approval or permission
It happens because it has to happen in each neighborhood, village, city or town
at gatherings of tribes, fellow students, women at the market, on the bus
It may be gradual and soft
It may be spontaneous and loud
It may be happening already
It may be found in your closet, your drawers, your gut, your legs, your multiplying cells
in the naked mouth of taut nipples and overflowing breasts
My revolution is swelling from the insatiable drumming between my legs
My revolution is willing to die for this
My revolution is ready to live big
My revolution is overthrowing the state
Of mind called patriarchy
My revolution will not be choreographed although it begins with a few familiar steps.
My revolution is not violent but it does not shy away from the dangerous edges where fierce displays of resistance tumble into something new

My revolution is in this body
In these hips atrophied by misogyny
In this jaw wired mute by hunger and atrocity
My revolution is
Connection not consumption
Passion not profit
Orgasm not ownership
My revolution is of the earth and will come from her
For her, because of her
It understands that every time we frack or drill
Or burn or violate the layers of her sacredness
we violate the soul of our future
My revolution is not ashamed to press my body down
On her mud floor in front
Banyan, Cypress, Pine, Kalyaan, Oak, Chestnut, Mulberry
Redwood, Sycamore trees
To bow shamelessly to shocking yellow birds and rose blue setting skies, heart exploding purple bouganvillea and aqua sea
My revolution gladly kisses the feet of mothers and nurses and servers and cleaners and nannies
And healers and all who are life and give life
My revolution is on its knees
On my knees to every holy thing
And to those who carry empire-made burdens in and on their heads and backs and
hearts
My revolution demands abandon
Expects the original
Relies on trouble makers, anarchists, poets, shamans, seers, sexual explorers
Tricksters, mystic travelers, tightrope walkers and those who go too far and feel
too much,
My revolution shows up unexpectedly
Its not naïve but believes in miracles
Cannot be categorized targeted branded
Or even located
Offers prophecy not prescription
Is determined by mystery and ecstatic joy
Requires listening
Is not centralized though we all know where we’re going
It happens in stages and all at once
It happens where you live and everywhere
It understands that divisions are diversions
It requires sitting still and staring deep into my eyes
Go ahead
Love.

A Love Story

She finds herself in a place that makes no sense. The people around her do things, mean things, thoughtless things all the time. Why did they act this way? Where is the Love? She knew in her heart that Love was key – the juice of the Universe. But she couldn’t find much love here. Just confusion and fear and pain.

Spirit Bear 🐻 came to her and comforted her in this crazy place. Bear stayed with her for years, protecting and comforting her whenever things in this crazy place got too painful and confusing. But gradually, over time she got sucked into the confusion around her. She made the mistake of thinking that the adults around her knew what they were doing and she started trying to do what they did, act how they acted. Bear was still there close, but she simply lost touch somehow. 🐻 Bear slowly faded from view.

After years in this place, she acted like she belonged. She was still so confused but she pretended that she knew what to do. She forgot about Bear. And she forgot about the power of Love. She became caught up in vying for power and status and money.

But one day she looked around and saw how empty her life was. The power and the status and the money didn’t fix anything or make this place any less horrible, any less confusing. What was the point of all this?

She began searching for “the point”. First at church, then in meditation and spiritual books  and healing modalities. 🐻 Spirit Bear drew closer then, but she didn’t really notice. She was too busy searching for “the point.”

One day in the midst of meditation, a beautiful, ethereal light being 🌟 came to her and showered her with love, so much love. She was left shaken and wide awake. Oh yes! Love was the point! She remembered now. She connected with this beautiful star being many times and felt better. She began to write , filling journals with thoughts and feelings about  her life  and all her questions about this crazy world. But sadly over time, she got distracted and pulled back into the chaos and craziness of the world again. She stopped writing. She stopped connecting with her star being. She forgot.

This remembering and forgetting happened again and again to her through years of living in this crazy place.

Then the dreams came. She dreamt of another life as a Native American woman who lost her love and wandered grieving until she was healed by Mama Earth 🌎.  In this other life, Mama Earth taught her to open up and love again.

She dreamt of this other life again and again. She LIVED an entire other life in her dreams!

The dreams shook her to her core. And they loosened the grip the crazy world had over her. She wanted to know more about this dream woman and her life. She learned how to explore dreamspace so she could explore this other life, this other reality. And her Spirit Bear soon showed up there in dreamspace.

She wept when she saw 🐻 Bear again. She held on and melted into Bear’s fierce softness. She began consciously calling Bear to her every day. And she began taking her troubles and questions into dreamspace. There she found answers – specific answers that fit for her. She began to slowly unravel her confusion and get glimpses of “the point”, her point.

She began to 🖌 paint and dance 💃 just for the joy of it. And the more she did those things, the more she felt like herself – her real self. She began to sing 🎶, first humming then joyfully making up little melodies that she sang to herself. She remembered how much she had loved painting and dancing and singing when she first came to this place. She remembered. And she began to love again.

And one day while she was happily playing with paint, her star being returned showering her with love – Big Love that cleared away even more confusion. And she could remember who she was and what mattered when she first came to this crazy place. She remembered her point.

Image: Goldi Goddess by Nancy L

Judy Chicago – Just Create

The Dinner Party (detail). Ishtar place setting

THIS

What a great article about the creative process. And what a #BadassWoman!

When Judy Chicago’s piece, The Dinner Party, was first shown 40 years ago. It was maligned by most art critics. Revolutionary art usually is. But Judy simply kept following her vision, kept creating. And the rest of the world eventually caught up to her.

Now in her 70’s, Judy Chicago is still a take no prisoners kind of artist. I’m in awe.

I believe in art that is connected to real human feeling, that extends itself beyond the limits of the art world to embrace all people who are striving for alternatives in an increasingly dehumanized world. I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.

~Judy Chicago, 1979

Read The NY Times article here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/t-magazine/judy-chicago-dinner-party.html

“… She wants everyone to see her art and to understand it, so that it might change them and the world.

And it has. Once your eye is trained to see Chicago’s imprint, it is everywhere, and unmistakable. It’s in Petra Collins’s menstruation-positive T-shirts; in the forthcoming installation on Sunset Boulevard in L.A. by Zoe Buckman of a huge uterus drawn in neon tubing crowned with boxing gloves; in the pink “pussy hats” that are worn in opposition to Trump’s election. Images like these — symbolically overt, politically and anatomically in-your-face, forcing a public confrontation with sexism — are all descended from Chicago’s imagination…” ~Sasha Weiss, NY Times

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