The Scent of Identity

                              

Riding down the road today in the sunshine I was suddenly amazed at how good I felt despite major obstacles in my life.  Was it the sun and blue sky following a day of stormy clouds and half an inch of March snow?  Was it the hope of spring following a very long, bleak winter?  Was it the thought of my blue and white blooming hyacinths* trapped in my livingroom and kitchen, forced to bring the smell of spring to my rooms, waiting for me there?  Or......and this I prefer.....was it the perfume I tried on at Dillard's floating from my wrist, creating an atmosphere of elegant black dresses, gold jewelry and a handsome partner walking beside me through a twilight summer garden toward the lights and the music?  I don't know, but it was probably a combination of all these factors, including the perfume, that made me feel free and oddly lovely.   

I do love perfume, discretely applied.  One should have to search a little to find it, and it should be a search at close range.  It should never announce one's presence; rather a person should notice it when leaning over or brushing up against the one wearing perfume.  A hint of pleasure, rather than a shower of indulgence. 

I once had a friend kidnap my perfume, a scent not well known but packed with oak moss.  It faintly irritated me because this perfume was my mother's discovery passed down to me, a perfume my friend would have never found without my revealing the name.  Not a commonly worn or popular perfume, this scent was part of my identity at the time, and my friend just up and bought it, sprayed it all over herself and assumed it as hers even in my presence.  Alas, I moved on to other fragrances but continue to wear that particular perfume from time to time even now.  The perfume outlasted the friendship, as is often the case. 

Scent has a profound effect on emotions, and we have scent identities.  That which lures us comes from where we have been and where we want to go; flowers, barks, water and earth we have smelled; foods cooked by our mamas; the smell of linens upon which we slept as children; plants that inhabit our homes and gardens; good experiences and bad in the presence of backdrop smells.  Antiseptic smells in hospitals evoke in me the terror of a four year old losing her daddy, and carnations cloud me with sadness taking me back to granny's death.  Lavender transports me to a happy home I once had, and coffee and nutbread baking takes me to the home I love today.  

And my perfume takes me to places of fantacy I have known and am yet to know.  I think I will buy the perfume I tested today because it wore well and remains on my wrist hours after being applied.  I won't tell you what it is, however, because I discovered it, it is mine and I don't graciously share my perfume or identity.

* Legend says that Mohammad said that if he only had two loaves of bread he would sell one to by hyacinths because hyacinths would feed his soul.    

Cleaning Out Closets

Give away her gowns,
Give away her shoes;
She has no more use
For her fragrant gowns;
Take them all down,
Blue, green, blue,
Lilac, pink, blue,
From their padded hangers;
She will dance no more
In her narrow shoes;
Sweep her narrow shoes
From the closet floor.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Spring Wishes

What do you wish for in the sunlight of a new Spring?  Make your wish and blow real hard!!!  It might come true.

Pigment Studio

                   

I got a new desk for my make-shift studio.  This is where I am painting with pigment rather than pixels.  There is something incredibly warm about holding a brush and using real life paint; it is sensually satisfying.  The equipment is just so visually pleasing to me.  But I remain in love with pixel painting, too, because of the speed and creative potential.  

Wax Rosebuds

I do not paint artificial flowers, and now I know why - in that way one has known something forever but without words to explain.     

I have a friend who says that monsters live amongst us and look just like people.  I have come to agree with this, and I believe that the "monster" is not something that is there, rather something missing.  Scientists would tell you that one in every 25 persons is a psychopath, a person lacking a conscience (think about that next time you go to a group event).  Some who study this phenomenon believe that psychopaths lack souls.  I agree. 

To explain the dangerous nature of superficially charming psychopaths (people who do not feel genuine remorse though they may feign it for affect) and the way decent people are taken in, Robert Hare in Without Conscience quotes from William March's The Bad Seed (1954):

"Good people are rarely suspicious: they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing; usually they accept the undramatic solution as the correct one, and let matters rest there.  Then too, the normal are inclined to visualize the [psychopath] as one who's as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could well get . . . These monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters; they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself - just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be, than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled."

A wax rosebud, perfect in shape and color, taking on the identity of a delicate rosebud, but without scent or bruise on the petal...charming, smiling, flattering, proclaiming virtue, but, void of empathy and always comparing itself to the real thing and always falling short...knowing it does not have a soul and taking pleasure in destroying what it cannot have. 

I do not paint wax rosebuds because I have a soul.  Originality makes up for any imperfection, and, after all, there can be great beauty in imperfection.  

The Star Maiden's Magic

            

A Bushman tale is as thus:

Star Maidens came from the heavens to milk the cows for a struggling farmer at night and returned by morning to the heavens. The farmer stopped the last Star Maiden to climb the ladder back to heaven and asked her to be his wife. She agreed on one condition. She asked the farmer to promise never to open a basket that she would place in the corner of the room because then she would have to leave. He agreed, she placed her basket in the corner and their life together began.

The farmer prospered with the hard work of the Star Maiden, and his land produced in abundance. 

Years later while the Star Maiden was away from home the farmer was looking for something. Despite remembering the Star Maiden’s admonition and his promise, on a whim he opened the basket. It was empty. He got a good laugh.

When the Star Maiden returned home she knew what had happened. With sorrow in her voice she told the farmer that she would have to leave, not because he opened the basket and broke his promise, but because, upon looking into her most precious possession, he found nothing there.

When night came, the Star Maiden took her basket and sadly climbed the ladder back to the heavens, carrying with her magic the farmer could not see.

Eternal Roses

The Rose that here on earth is now perceived by me,

Has blossomed thus in God from all eternity.

~ Angelus Silesius (1624 – 1677)

Mystical Longing

                         

St. Mary Magdalene has long been my favorite saint, but I have had a hard time putting into words why she so touches my heart.  Is it that I identify with her life experience?  Is it because she was loyal while being maligned by the early church fathers?  Is it because she loved without doubt, shame or apology?  I don't know, but something I recently read shed some light on her appeal for me.    

In an article entitled Love and Longing:  The Feminine Mysteries of Love author Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee points out the dual nature of love, masculine and feminine.  He believes the masculine side of love is "I love you" while love's feminine side is "I am waiting for you; I am longing for you."  And he, along with the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing,  believes that the feminine voice of love has a significant role in the receptive, mystical journey of longing.  That nameless, oft quoted author of The Cloud of Unknowing put it simply:

"Your whole life must be one of longing."

And Vaughan-Lee believes that for Christianity, Mary Magdalene embodies this longing:

"After the crucifixion she stood at the empty sepulchre, where he had been buried, weeping. And when Jesus, risen from the dead, came and spoke to her, saying "Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" she first mistook him for a gardener until he called her by name, "Mary," and then she "turned herself and said 'Rabboni,' which is to say, Master."

This meeting between Mary Magdalene and Christ depicted over and over again in art (noli-me-tangere) is perhaps the sweetest, most poignant interaction Christ had with another human being while on earth.  It is a tender human story of intimacy, longing and joy veiled with unfulfilled desire.   It is sensuous and convincing.  Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Christ not because of her power and authority, but because of her longing.  She was there because she longed; without it, she would have been asleep with all the others.  As Vaughan-Lee says "it is this inner feminine attitude of the heart, of longing and devotion that she embodies, that opens the lover to the transcendent mystery of love in which suffering and death are the doorway to a higher state of consciousness. The lover waits weeping for the Beloved to reveal His true nature."

We live in an inpatient world; we demand instant gratification and fulfillment; we disavow our feminine natures and apologize even to our psychologists for any evidence of passivity that manifests itself in our relationships.  We resolve to assert rather than accept our unfulfilled desires for intimacy.  We seek to overcome, deny or  correct our longings, shamed by our modesty.  But have we lost some transcendent mystery of the human heart in dismissing the value of longing?  Have we hidden in fear from the best parts of ourselves - those parts that might show us truth and set us free?    Vaughan-Lee says:

 "We are conditioned to avoid pain, but for the mystic the pain of the heart is the thread that leads us, the song of the soul that uncovers us. Meister Eckhart said, 'God is the sigh in the soul,' and this sigh, this sorrow, is a most precious poison. How love heals us from the sufferings we inflict upon ourself is always a mystery. Love cannot be understood by the mind just as it cannot be contained by the ego. Love is the power that opens and transforms us, that intoxicates and bewilders us. Love leads us deeper, away from the prison of our limited self to the freedom and wholeness of our divine nature. In the words of the Sufi saint Jâmî, "Never turn away from love, not even love in a human form, for love alone will free you from yourself."

Very Mixed Media

This is an experiment.  An acrylic portrait I just began was scanned and digital painting added.  So it's a mixed acrylic and digital painting.  I am playing with different concepts to determine what works best.  For this project I plan to do one digital portrait from scratch since I am a bit weary with the general attitude that painting is not possible with Photoshop (use Photoshop, and, in art circles, you are considered a photographer, not a painter when, in fact, you may be both).  I am struggling with texture.  Though I have Corel Painter with many texture options, I have this stubborn attitude that texture can be created in Photoshop.   I am working on it and will keep you posted.

Painting with a brush and a mouse produces different sensations.  I love both and can honestly say that I enjoy painting with a mouse as much, in a different way, as using a brush.  Most people who paint digitally do so with a pad, but I don't.  I like the directness of actually maneuvering the mouse like a paintbrush.  The primary advantage to painting in Photoshop is the fact that you have all color options in the rainbow readily available.

Pleasant Lies

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

                                                                                                       H. L. Mencken