Blog Archives

Splatter Happens

2/21/2013

Splatter Happens...

2oo8 rocked and rolled my little world and my family. Just after her sixteenth birthday in February, my daughter Lily was involved in a horrendous car accident from which she suffered terrible injuries. Her brother and I were devastated by the event. The three of us have always been very close, all the more since their father moved out. The following month, our home flooded, destroying the kids’ bedrooms. At the same time, an individual whom I had believed to be a spiritual woman and friend approached me to rent a space together that would house both her massage therapy and my art and tarot. After a few months, the loss several thousand dollars and some precious illusions, I was invited to leave, one of the reasons given; splattered paint. In my pain and defensiveness, I uttered, “I’m an artist; splatter happens.” And then, I drew the picture.

Other drawings followed, spawned from the challenging experiences of those months. The works have been therapy, literally, and have been therapeutic to those I’ve shared them with. Barely veiled references to Jung’s ‘shadow aspect’ and the phenomenon of projection, along with the esoteric chakras and auras are illustrated. Splatter Girl, as the character has come to be called, has taken on a life of her own, joining ranks with my other ids and alter egos; Fool and Rue.

1 Comment

Gratian and Other Holy Ghosts

2/21/2013

0 Comments

Gratian and Other Holy Ghosts

I hear voices. I’ve never written that plain. I hear voices, and see glimpses and feel the wispy touch of Spirit- and every shred of my works owe a debt of gratitude to this phenomenon. Every word and phrase I smith, every elfin countenance I draw is sourced from this font.

Inspiration is literally the breathing in of Spirit. If I have created beauty through my faerie tales, the credit is Spirit’s.

One such calls himself Gratian. He has appeared in my dreams and spoken audibly and capably in my waking. I quote him directly, and feel the need to give glory to the old monk. He lived in the twelfth century, a brilliant catholic juror. He compiled the Decretum, or the Concordia Discordantium Canonum. I am honored to be his conduit, and as he has taught me, Love is Honor.

I write this with trepidation. The benign tarot cards have caused a bit of an uproar among individuals self-righteous and evangelical of my small community. I waited as long as I could. My children are quite grown, my personal status free, so, the time of truth and gratitude is presented.

I thank God every day for the wonder of creativity, and the joy of expression.
As of this moment, I am outing myself. All that I am, and all that I create, I owe to the Grace of Spirit.

0 Comments

Charlevoix

2/21/2013

0 Comments

People who live in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan will lift their left hand to show you where they hearken from. I live in Charlevoix, a lovely little resort town cradled between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix, and graced with its own natural harbor, Round Lake.

It is an idyllic and beautiful place, endowed with three sublime seasons(with no Spring to speak well of; pocked gray snow, gray skies, horizontal gray sleet and mud. Those who can, escape to warmer climates during the unspring.) Our Autumn is a celebration of vibrant red, orange, and yellow with skies so vividly blue, they will take your breath away. Winter here is the quintessential wonderland, pristine and exquisite. Our summers are our coup, our glory, and our joy. With the yearly migration of ‘fudgies’ or ‘cone-suckers’; our usually affectionate terms for the tourists that flow into our small town from downstate and Chicago and other more southern locals. Their destination: ‘Up North’.

This is where I grew up.

The population of this burg is almost entirely Caucasian, conservative and Christian. If the townsfolk have been tolerant of me, my art and tarot and my liberal politics and esoteric world view, it is because I understand the necessary evil of keeping up appearances. Discretion is of paramount importance. Every family had their secrets, and methods for hiding and deceit. My family was no different, and yet as different as we could be. We hid well our mother’s psychosis and our brand of dysfunction.

That is all about to change. With the publication of the books and the launching of this website, much forbidden truth has been (and will be) revealed. As a child, I made up stories about faeries and mermaids and gnomes to entertain and distract my three younger brothers. As a young mother, I carefully toed the line for the sake of my children. Jake and Lily are now grown. My children are creative, defiant, free spirited individuals. They are supportive of me and my work, and my desire to stand in the light and speak my truth.

The three of us lived together in a funky chalet in the countryside near Charlevoix with our Jack Russell terrier and an array of pets. We enjoyed visits from wildlife, good friends and good uncles. The chalet is now the House of Rue and my art studio. I continue to be inspired by the magical beauty of nature, and the nature of Love.

0 Comments

Faith

2/20/2013

0 Comments

Faith

I find myself on a cusp; the Fool again, dangling over the precipice, and the one luxury I can no longer afford is faith. This realization has come as a shock. I’ve gotten to this moment of epiphany on blind faith, and now I am bereft. How else could I listen to the disincarnate voice of a monk, how else could I write what I write, love whom I love? How else could I love at all? This, it seems, is the disparity.

I hear the voice of Gratian because in the truth of the moment, he fills me, sensory and extrasensory. I write what I write because it comes to me and comes through me and I accept the words, and accept myself and my process. These are not matters of faith, and when I pretend they are they become diminished and I become diminished. And then there is love, there is only love, before and after all. I love my children beyond biology. They have taught me about true love, and the entity that it is. I have marvelous friends, inclusive of my brothers, whom I love. And then there is Marty, and I am learning I have much to learn about love. Loving Marty is like swimming. It is what you do when you find yourself submerged, and maybe you start paddling and gasping out of a primal instinct. Then, maybe joy happens and all chakras are lit and spinning and you do flips and somersaults and simply lay in sublime repose and surrender and faith has nothing to do with it. At times, I try to control and qualify and define our relationship to align with the standard, and then I get over it. My love for Marty surpasses understanding. The truth of us has nothing to do with what we choose to believe.
I can no longer subscribe to a belief system. Belief requires faith and faith requires self deception. The Fool cannot be deceived in her simplicity. A Magician’s trickery is lost on an imbecile because magic requires the audience to have both judgment and expectation.
Faith expects answers. The Fool is a fountain of questions. The journey of the Fool, is in fact, the Quest, and the question is the end and the beginning in itself. The need for faith and the answers it promises to provide puts blinders on our point of view and inhibits our participation.

Skepticism is a belief system as useless to me as any other. It requires precepts and concepts that muddy the moment, as do all religions. The conclusions drawn by skeptics and scholars are flawed by the very need to summarize and state the evident proclamation. It has been decreed that the world is flat, and then that it is round and the center of the universe. Reality is flexible and convolute. Faith is a means of false security, an unreliable fortress. The fervent are perilous. Their need to persuade is the seed of strife. Faith is born of doubt and doubt is loveless, and therefore godless.

All I know is God is Love, exceeding conceptualization. At this juncture, I’ve nothing to prove, no need to convince. I accept the moment of Love not as a concept but as an essence beyond contrivance.

The monk said; “Your prayer is your answer, your question is your solution.” The statement made no sense to me at the time, nor does it now. I no longer care. I quest, I love. I thank the sun for rising in splendor and arching across my day knowing its deception, and I love it all the more. So be it.

0 Comments

Faeries, Mermaids and other Mythic Beasties

2/16/2013

1 Comment

Faeries, Mermaids, and Other Mythic Beasties: it is my belief that they are all of the Realm of Faerie; the merfolk, dragons, sylphs, gnomes, satyrs and the rest and they collectively fulfill the human heart’s cry for Myth. It began when we began, back in the caves, in the womb of Mother Earth, under the watch of Father Sun. It began with our witness of fire, water and wind. Our intimate relationship with the elements birthed mythology, and mythology birthed humanity. It began with our first question, and the sound of that first question voiced, reverberates still.

I have been told these denizens are imaginary, yet they have been my companions and muses since childhood. I wander there freely, into the realm of Faerie and fraternize and frolic with the sylphs and undines, the gnomes of gnosis and the salamanders of fire. They inhabit my tarot deck, and your poker deck, and the psychology books. They live in my faerie tales, my art, my dreams and my imagination. I could live without them, although I would not relish a life void of wonder and spirit

They are elemental: Earth, Wind, Fire & Water. They bring meaning to the mundane and music to the dance of life. Their symbolic value lends a layer of experience that enlivens and enlightens the curious and the questing. To me, living with an awareness of the mythic aspects of our being is comparable to a perfect meal; delectable and sublime, as opposed to a concoction of multivitamin sludge, or, if I may, making exquisite love compared to sex. Both may provide us with our physical requirements, but only one exhilarates us, mind, body and soul.

Our exclamations: "Fabulous!" and "Fantastic!" are from the fables and fantasies of our collective story. The storytellers are the keepers of the chronicles of the human spirit. They entertain and enchant us and sometimes the tales resonate deep within our hearts and remind us of whom we are, and how we might live.

1 Comment

Splatter Happens

Gratian and Other Holy Ghosts

Charlevoix

Faith

Faeries, Mermaids and other Mythic Beasties

Author

Archives

Categories

Schedule a FaceTime Tarot Reading with Kim Richelle, or a face to face, heart to heart at my studio.
Charlevoix, MI 49720 / 231-675-0379 / [email protected]

Splatter Happens

Gratian and Other Holy Ghosts

Charlevoix

Faith

Faeries, Mermaids and other Mythic Beasties

Author

Archives

Categories

Schedule a FaceTime Tarot Reading with Kim Richelle, or a face to face, heart to heart at my studio.Charlevoix, MI 49720 / 231-675-0379 / [email protected]

Schedule a FaceTime Tarot Reading with Kim Richelle, or a face to face, heart to heart at my studio.
Charlevoix, MI 49720 / 231-675-0379 / [email protected]