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Medusa - 24"x36", acrylic on canvass by Tammy Vitale
Medusa – 24″x36″, acrylic on canvass by Tammy Vitale

Here is an amazing post that pretty much explains what I’ve been trying to say the past week, but says it way better:

This past 2 weeks, the energy has seen a lot of us deep-diving. 
Diving down into the depths of ourselves – our feelings, our thoughts, our beliefs, our patterns, our life journey. 
Soul diving.
It’s as if an electric current is pulsing through your body, wiring and firing you to awaken, awaken, awaken. 
More and more and more.  
To shed and cleanse, to release and intend.
Peace comes, clarity comes, followed by challenge, distraction, emotion, disorientation,restlessness
A feeling that things must be going wrong, or need to be changed and quickly.
Yet you do not have the energy to make the changes in the timescale you feel you need to. 
This is electricity, moving through your energy field and the field of the collective.

detail, Medusa, by Tammy Vitale.  words for generations to follow to wonder about.
detail, Medusa, by Tammy Vitale. words for generations to follow to wonder about.
This is the electrified living of these times, bringing us all to clearing.
It can be relentless – it can make you mad, bring you to sadness, and then, it can elevate you into a moment of blinding clarity. 
And yet the waves of inner-change keep coming…
Are you feeling it?   A lot of folks I know are, so it isn’t just me.  Wide open.  VERY interesting.
So I had great intentions of making something new for today, but I worked this morning longer than usual because there was a communal gathering and breaking of bread afterwards.  Then hubby and I had to go grocery shopping.  You know, the mundane things that need to keep happening even in the face of things like the energy of the above description.  And by the time we were home it was dark and my body doesn’t do well with dark – it looks out the window and says:  hey!  it’s dark.  Time to sleep.  I hung out on the computer instead.
detail Medusa - did you know that traditionally Pegasus was born from Medusa's blood?  Medusa was framed you know.
detail Medusa – did you know that traditionally Pegasus was born from Medusa’s blood? Medusa was framed you know.

I actually have a spirit doll waiting in the bead room, and some holiday sewing that I better think hard about, and more pieces to make for raku this coming Friday – that’s going to be a fast push to fire – so tomorrow morning it’s into the studio and no excuses.

Meanwhile, here’s a poem that’s interesting, from the 90s where most of what I’ve been sharing comes from.  It’s based on an actual dream – at least the part about the cat and the fish.  The picture of Medusa that I have used for this post took me two years to complete.  It sat mocking me for a long time until daughter bought me some red paint and said, “Here, Ma, this is what is needs.”  And she was right and I finished it.  It has words randomly in it.  One is “rumble strips”.  That was also from daughter.  We laughed and spoke of some time in the far future when we were dead and my paintings were famous and people would make up

detail, Medusa - the finny fish - I can still see that dream in my mind's eye
detail, Medusa – the finny fish – I can still see that dream in my mind’s eye

stories about those words, which were, in actuality simply pulled out of the air for fun.  Such is art.

 

Medusa – Reprise

I

I am the chosen one
who will re-vision the world

who knew that writing it down
would make it hard and unyielding

My voice is water
and the wearing down has already begun.

 

II

smell of crushed herbs
wreath of healing amidst
dark night’s sweating dreams

there is blood here
on forgotten ribbons snaking
like streamers that could herald spring
but do not.

The wound is raw
the edges serrated, torn and tinged

How to cut it out and still
still remain alive.

 

III.

In the dream the yellow cat with six eyes
longs to be touched
taken from the darkness where it lives
beside the cartoon house
with rainbow bricks.

The river is rising.  It has crested the old pathway
and the house may soon crumble.

But the cat loves the finny fish
flashing turquoise and blue in the meadow’s pond
and will not leave.

 

IV.

The rumors were all wrong.
It isn’t stone.  Never was.
Illusion has always been my specialty:

dark onto dark makes
light, the double negative
black owl eyes
reflecting white
as the moon escapes
from thick storm clouds .

 

The halo tells
of more rain.

 

V.

There will be no front page report of this
but tonight 100 women will share the same dream.

 

VI.

In the cycle of seven upon seven upon seven
four more times
the ocean’s fingers have flattened sharp edges
smoothed away  visible lines.

(This is the true story.)

 

Open your eyes
see what you are become

Move if you wish
but first you must open your eyes

There is so much to see.

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