it is a conversation i have been having for awhile now my tea party with demons like those numbers on the clock 1234… the dream seemed to be telling me i am on the right path headed in the right direction & totally should keep on keeping on… an otherworldly pat on the back.
the last art journal page about my dream of wrestling demons. i am slow slow slow at getting these posted as i do not have internet & am feuding with my neighbor who was letting me use hers. okay, feuding is a bit heavy–it’s more that i just feel like a heel using her internet after i threw her out of my house. but i did make her a jar of solstice kimchi to thank her for her kindness of sharing said internet with me.
meanwhile, lots of demons being wrestled & epiphanies being had!
in the dream it was a lonely house on a hill shrouded in darkness foreboding terrifying until i was forced to enter to save us all from a greater danger… the house was beautiful on the inside …but haunted… a specter rose up threateningly behind my companion i wrestled it to the ground only to realize it was just a child “tell me why you have so much anger?” i asked the child & the pain was released.
so this is a dream i had. it was pretty profound & felt really meaningful. i laid in bed pondering it. what do i do with this? am i supposed to help other people exorcise their demons? or is it just another pat on the back from the universe for doing all the work to wrestle my own? of course, i am still wrestling my demons. case in point, my inking today is heavily borrowed from the artist david mack because i am going through a thing where i think my own work sucks & what is the point? today, while on a walk, i started asking my frowning face–“why so stressed? what is there really to be stressed about?” and for a moment i let myself smile again. but i can find reasons to be sad & even woke up this morning to a dream of my telling someone that sometimes i just don’t have a smile inside me….
i analyzed my dreams this morning & got an unanimous answer my dreams say, “fuck you” fuck you & the horse you rode in on just whatever dude whatever ever ever …ever fuck off for real like totally.
this one goes out to my ex-husband. my second ex-husband, who won’t stay out of my subconscious for some reason. i guess my subconscious just wants to make doubly tripply sure i do not get back together with him–again. thanks for watching out for me, subconscious!
even in my nightmares i wonder at the pain i feel of losing someone i have already let go of…. i said goodbye to him but in my dreams when he says goodbye it hurts like a thousand knives a dream i have too often his cold eyes looking away his ears deaf to my pleas his touch a forbidden never again & i feel such profound dispair even though when awake i do just fine without him….
i’m trying to figure out why i keep having this dream. in my experience, when i have the same dream over & over, my subconscious is dead set on letting me know something. so why do i have dreams of dusty leaving me even though i have buried him a thousand times now?
so i had a dream this morning about my teenage heartthrob of choice, adam ant. he was at my house…the kids were away…it was the perfect recipe for mischief. why was he at my house? i don’t remember that part of the dream. i do remember him coming on strong. but i wasn’t in the mood & he was being annoying so annoying that i took him by the shoulders & said to him, “i would be the best you have ever had, but you would just remind me of my ex-husband.” because he already reminding me of my ex-husband clingy & annoying but i consented to a kiss…i knew i was a good kisser, but i was having my doubts about him i went in all gentle & sexy only to get viciously probed by a pointy little tongue so i stopped, pushed his tongue back in his mouth & told him “knock it off.” but he didn’t…so the kissing stopped then the kids came home so i figured that was that i offered to show him the posters i had of him from when i was a kid. he was game i found the posters, but only one was of him, the rest had changed to me posters of me i said, “the posters have changed–like they would if i were dreaming.” then he came at me with a back rub…the foreplay technique that has, historically, relaxed me into many a tight spot…. so i said, “fine.” & started figuring out where we could sneak off to. he asked if my bed was clean & i said, “i gave birth in that bed!” i asked him if he had protection, & he just shrugged i was a bit worried about where he has been i knew i had condoms but i didn’t tell him that i did start working out a cover story to tell the kids & readying a room for us….
if you made it this far, that’s where i was woken up by feisty morning minions. i have heard said that no one is interested in your dreams…but this one was so empowering & entertaining for me, that i just had to share. seemingly laden with messages. i haven’t quite worked it all out yet, but the dream seems to be all about me.
ps. the image is from an old journal page showing 20-something me & my therapist. lately i am really missing making comics. i might be headed back to comics…..
it was the early nineties when i had the dream. i had been in therapy for awhile terrified of the dark & miserably unhappy but one day it lifted and like a light switch i was happy & no longer afraid–of anything it was around this time i had the dream was it before? was it after? are the two things related at all?
the dream was disturbing a crazy-ass dream where i was a mighty warrior a tiger and other clans would send warriors to fight me i would mercilessly slaughter them sometimes though the other clans would send me young girls to be with as a way of collecting my seed….
fucked up, right? that’s a fucked up dream for a 21 year old girl in iowa. i have been thinking about it a lot lately. wondering if the dream & my becoming happy & brave, have anything to do with each other. a past life remembering healing a present life hurting.
in the dream, i was represented as a tiger–but i was human. recently, googling like crazy, all i have been able to figure out is that tiger is representative of warriors and the such in china. so i started reading up on china’s history to see if i can figure out anything about this dream…but i find myself more drawn to the mongols, of course.
i keep looking to so-called professionals & friends, but as usual, no one ever answers my emails. so i guess i’m on my own. my own master the answer to my own question.
as well as the very first postcard being sent out to a patron!!
oh! & all of these illustrations remind me that today is the spring equinox balance between day & night…balance between light & dark…balance between rest & change. wake up, it’s time to grow happy ostara!
love is trying to find me i dream it in the night love is on its way it’s just that the phone reception is bad & i keep dialing the wrong number but love is determined & sends me messages any way it can so i check the mailbox with religious fevor i watch the sky for smoke signals i check the leg of every wayward dove because love love will find me like a dandelion wish on the wind.
i like to throw y’all a curve ball every once in awhile. let my inner romantic take the wheel. she deserves a turn. i mean, my demons wreak havoc with my art journal. of course, some would say that love is just another demon. maybe maybe but by now it’s pretty clear i dig my demons.
this self-portrait is another rip-off of a gustav klimt. i changed the color scheme but kept the hairdo. i’m not sure i can pull it off, but thought it was close enough to the real thing.
the one who wronged me the one who betrayed me the one i still love i laid at his feet to seek absolution for my sins against him i held his cold feet in my hands i bathed his cold feet with my hair with my kisses he reached out to me still believing he loved me but in all the wrong ways …nevermind i seek forgiveness realizing that his sins against me are a black mark on his soul his own soul to save the only sins i need to worry about are my own my own sins forgiven i am free.
the previous post i wrote in my bedside notebook just before falling asleep. this post i wrote upon waking. only while posting them here did i realize both are about sins & forgiveness…maybe that full blood moon shining on my catholic shadows?
this one is written about the dream i had before i woke up this morning. one of a re-occurring theme of my seeming to beseech my ex-husband for love & attention while he is cold & distant. but this one took on the flavor of mary magdalene bathing jesus’s feet. which i found to be awesome in its symbolism (speaking of which…i once had a sex dream about jesus in which he got up & left after he finished but before i did, leaving me frustrated–to return to his flock of women–if i remember right…)
it seems like i have been trying to decipher the re-occurring dream theme about my ex-husband for years. however, i think this is it. i think i have to let my sins against him be forgiven and not concern myself with his sins against me. i mean, they are his sins. he has to live with that. i have to live with my own. so maybe its time i let them go.
thank goodness my subconscious finally decided to go with the mary magdalene theme so i could figure out what it wanted to tell me all these years. though my ex-husband would enjoy it way too much to perceive himself as a jesus figure. he always loves it when someone tells him he looks like jesus (the blue-eyed version)–which happens way too often. fuck, what more would a narcissist want than to identify himself as the savior of mankind?
my shadow man
my thing of nightmares
my samhain visitor
i give you my heart
but you want my soul
i fight for my life
while accepting my death
my birdman lover
i am your
lonely
plaything
a half-dead
essence
a half-living
carcass
not knowing
whether to welcome you
or to fear you
if i should
hold you
or
let you go.
i keep thinking about this dream i had. it felt very strong. my subconscious loves to talk to me through my dreams. this seemed like a message.
especially as it came the night of the witch’s new year.
the time of year when the veil between the living & the dead is at its most flimsy.
i think it has everything to do with relationships. with myself. with men. with the world around me.
i do not remember an ankh in the dream, but for some reason i feel compelled to put the egyptian key of life in the inkings i have done about my dream.
i want to play with it more.
both as a message for me to heed as well as a potential story.
hmmm…my blackbird man….
also, this is the last page of my current journal. i have now done almost three hundred self-portraits since last october.
i made one page for all of my art journal self-portraits in my attempt to stream-line my art & website.
i hope my site is looking better & making sense.
he came to me in a dream
ready to end
my misery
with talons
like razors
a creature from–
well…
nightmares
a feathered man
tall dark & handsome
my sure
demise
but to my credit
i fought
for my
wretched
life
even resorting to
my
feminine
wiles.
a little something different.
maybe too much halloween candy, but i had a vivid dream last night about a big blackbird-man who came to finish me off. except he was also sexy. i think i have a pretty conflicted view of men.
speaking of….
so who remembers clan of the cave bear? my brain often references the idea in it that ayla is guarded by her spirit animal, the cave bear who scarred her. she is thereby deemed to have too strong of an energy for most men to mate with her and make a child with her.
i think of the grizzly bear as one of my main spirit guides. i feel her energy in me & feel i am protected by her.
i have found that my strength makes dating tricky. which i think is weird…but it seems to be true.
until (at least) this point in my life i have chosen physically small men. feminine men. men who do not seem threatening to me…. yes, i chose them. if i wait to be chosen, it is a long wait. however, most of the men i choose then turn me upside down–& not in a good way. most of them seem threatened by me. most of them try to dominate & degrade me.
so i’m thinking maybe i should be looking for a romantic interest that has–at least–the grizzly bear spirit i have?
i dunno.
just brainstorming here. it’s not like i have suitors lining up at my door to choose from.