Break (it) Down

The Prophet             by Kahlil Gibran

And a woman spoke, saying Tell us of Pain.

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over the fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen,

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseeen’

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Mariposa 1994

Break (it) Down

I have been thinking about the tension of opposites.  Engaging with the world in a time of turmoil has flung me into the tension of opposites.  I am beginning to see how this experience, if not consciously broken down, leads to a breakdown.  The last time I experienced it I gave into the grief for a very long time.  This time I am stepping back from the world when needed, for self care and reflection.   Sometimes I have to get to the point of spinning my wheels (and flailing my arms) before I realize it is time to step back.  Painting has a great deal to do with stepping back, for my approach to creative work includes hours spent in meditation, gathering information, shifting and understanding.  The painting is only the tangible record of it.  Painting is the material world, the body of work.  The rest is spirit.  

Journey 1995

   

Love for the world creates a desire to enter the world.  That, and the realization that it is not possible to retreat from life.  It follows you and pulls you back.  The more “alone” you make yourself the more your senses adapt and hear the smallest heartbeat, the tiniest call.  You feel the pulse of the world as acutely as if you were standing in the center of it.  It has lead me to a very conscious decision to reconnect.  One could say I picked a fine time.  I know I am not the only one.  This love can be so easily transformed into grief with the day to day experience of witnessing the world we love.  My grief has turned into action, but that has thrown me into a world of activity that is also motivated by fear and anger.  The fear, grief and anger are all so related they end up on the same team.  My conditioned response is frustration, inarticulately communicated to friends and acquaintances… leading to more frustration, of course, and ultimately frustration with myself.   

Untitled 1995

Jung’s theory on the tension of opposites concludes if one stays in the discomfort of this tension a third thing arises.  A “quantum leap”  of thinking and being, ultimately of consciousness.  It cannot be predicted because it is new, born out of opposites.  Try to force it would be like trying to determine the personality and destiny of your unborn child.  Sometimes we have a “feeling” about these things, sometimes even visions.  But in these bodies, in this world, we still have to wait and see.  How can I remain with my love for the world and my grief without breaking in half.  It seems only with the qualities of joy and hope, which are not always my natural states.  For me joy and hope have to be worked at, earned through understanding.  It is not just an intellectual understanding, it is a whole body and spirit experience, my definition of faith.

Faith 1995

I go into the world and am pulled by the tensions.  I act and react, often in ways I regret, and then return to my inner world where I can quietly break it down.  This is a conscious act, brought about by the same conditions an emotional breakdown would be.  I am approaching it these days as “beating it [a breakdown] to the punch.”   Taken to the point of a breakdown, I am able to break down the opposites and see them more clearly.  In this understanding I find myself in a more open and honest state, where trust, not in a determinist future, but in the vast universe of the present, can grow.

Juggernaut 1995

I found these older paintings of mine to be surprisingly effective for illustrating the tension of opposites that I am so aware of today.  Something to revisit in my work this year....  Perhaps my paintings will see the third thing before my conscious mind can grasp it.

Night Vision

In the earliest hours of morning our thoughts connect 

 two worlds.  Dreams open doors into a fluid world. In daylight the thick shell of the world hides from 

us from the truth we seek. 

We forget the stars are still there. 

This is my story of remembering.  It is one of many, for when we are not forgetting, we are remembering.  And each story tries to remember, but in the telling it falls short.  So the Storyteller is born again.

In the middle of November I was not sleeping well.  One particularly windy night I lay in bed, staring into the darkness and listening to the forest howl outside my window.  As I drifted between waking and sleeping a vision began to form, one I did not welcome.  I saw a darkness surround all beings, enveloping the earth.  It was thick, a cloud of deep thick charcoal fog.  I entered into it and saw with my heart its fullness.  Suffering.  So much suffering.  It was not just suffering to come, it was suffering that had been and it was suffering that is.  It was all existing in one place and one time.  I saw it with my entire being and I lay in bed weeping.

It was 3 in the morning and I was sobbing, trying not to wake Dale.  I lay there for an hour.  All beings, humans, animals, trees and the earth itself all wept with me.

Untitled Work in Progress

This was a pretty dark place, even for me.

After an hour I knew I had to get out of bed and go into the woods. I woke Dale.  He was concerned when he saw that I was crying. I told him. He said, “Take a flashlight.”

At first I didn’t turn on the flashlight.  I wasn’t in a hurry, so I thought I could just step slowly and carefully, letting my vision adjust to this very dark night.  It was a Wisconsin November.  So there were dry brittle leaves everywhere, and, on a windy night like this, they tend to pile up.  So, my first fright came when I stepped into a pile of leaves that wasn’t there the night before.  My foot lifted the leaves, taken up by the wind, farther than I would have imagined. I was surrounded by the sound of rustling leaves and my pounding heart.  In the blackness I stood frozen, hearing movement all around, and I decided I wasn’t so opposed to the flashlight after all.

The Wind

At that point it occurred to me that I would rather see a creature of the night before stepping into its space, so the light stayed on as I carefully made my way to a special spot in the forest of pines.  It is a place where a large tree has lain fallen for years, so much so that younger trees grow through it.  Animals take shelter in it.  Moss grows on it.  I have always loved this spot.  When I got there it took me awhile to find a comfortable seat.  The woods feel ominous at night. I chose to have my back against a young tree, something to lean on, and it gave me a small sense of protection. 

The wind was still blowing fitfully, shaking the trees and loosening their dead.  Before turing off my flashlight I scanned my perimeter for potential Widow Makers, or in this case Widower Makers.  Then, with a touch of my thumb, total darkness.

House of the Woods

Oh how hard it was to keep that light off.  A breaking branch a few feet from me was enough to make me freeze.  For what seemed like hours, but was more likely 30 minutes, I sat frozen.  My eyes were wide open, but, at first, I saw nothing.  Slowly I began to see.  There seemed to be a substance to the air, as if every single molecule was coming out of hiding.  The air, the trees, the leaves and I were all tiny dots vibrating in and out of my sight.  Looking up I saw a falling star.  In this light the trees are the negative space, and the distant stars are the positive space.  For a moment I was neither light nor dark, I was only perception, as everything around me changed from one to the other.

Molecules

For an hour at least my thoughts bounced back and forth between wonder and terror.  Of course I could calmly remind myself the biggest danger that night was a coyote.  But a noisy rustle in the black space around me made me imagine more.  Believe it or not, this was the first moment I recognized a connection between my choice to sit in the woods and the story of Siddhartha.  As the account of his becoming the Buddha is told, Siddhartha despaired at the suffering in the world.  His search for an answer led him to sit under a Bodhi tree, meditating outdoors for seven days and seven nights.  My 2 hours in the cold on a fallen tree paled in comparison to his 168 hours. I laughed at all the times I sat on a comfortable cushion in my heated home to meditate.  Nature is essential to awakening us to this life, and we humans so often hide from it.  In a terrible separation from the earth I had forgotten the lessons it has to teach me.  In my darkest moment, I remembered, and I stepped outside.  To be inside of our deepest consciousness we have to be outside in the Natural World, not inside of the Manmade World.  To the degree to which we the Modern Humans have violently torn ourselves from our connection to nature, we have suffered.

I swear I remember there being a moment in the story of enlightenment where a giant cat approaches Siddhartha.  So, I thought, maybe I needn’t be quite so fearful.  A lion or tiger would be bad. Back to fear. Forgetting.

Deep Sleeper - Intermediary

Of course the point wasn’t Lions and Tigers and Bears.  We do have occasional bears and wolves and even the rare cougar sighting in this part of the State. I knew there was a reason I was out there in the cold and it wasn’t to try to guess which wild beast would eat me for dinner.  I could fear the wind, the animals, even the possibility of a human in the woods, probably most dangerous of all.  I had to let it all go. The most frightening part of being alone in the darkness in the woods was also the most awakening.  Remembering. 

I began to look each fear squarely in its face and release it.  I soon found myself remembering them all, from paralyzing terrors to the less obvious ones. The ones that linger for days, muted and pale but persistent in their nagging.  People who had frightened me, I saw their fear.  People that had hurt me, I saw their pain.  People I had frightened and people I had hurt, I saw my blindness.  I saw fear and pain passed on from parent to child, from master to slave, from teacher to student.  Acts of violence replacing the wisdom of old with inherited pain and terror.  Victim becomes perpetrator and the lamb becomes the hungry beast at the door. There was no bad, no good, no dark, no light. Only attaching and letting go.  With each passing fear I felt an infinite lightness that cannot be expressed with words, although LOVE is a good one to try.  This was a special kind of night vision.  Seeing through the dark.    

Artic Spirits

It was at this point I realized the woods were becoming more and more visible in the earliest light of the day.  As I had passed through the darkest hour of the morning I had seen through at least some of my blindness.  As the trees became solid, once again I could connect each sound with its source.  I looked up at the sky.  Not a single star in my sight.  I would have to go on memory.  Remembering.  I got up, a little stiff, and walked toward the house.  I would put on some coffee and try to talk about this.  The things the darkness commands us to know. Fears are only passing moments, but we give them strength when we try to suppress them.  In their suppression they are squeezed and wiggled into our souls and the passing darkness takes a solid heavy form.  This heavy load is so light in its release.  Walking back to my warm house I knew I would struggle to find the words to tell this story. And in the telling they would fall short. And the storyteller is born again.  

Dreams and Visions - paintings in their raw states

I have made two decisions this month.

One is to leave paintings in their raw state.

The Other is to share all of my visions, even the ones I have been quiet about.

I don't turn on a lightbulb. I see in the darkness and find my way through it.

What i see in the dark, i can't see in the light. Not yet. Go deep, wake up. One day you will do both. 

We are in Kali time. I am Usha. My time is not here yet, but I am preparing for it.

In Kali time the darkness makes the others remember. We are not smaller than the one controlling the story. We control our story. We heal and are unafraid of the darkness.

The governments of the world call it post-colonial. We ARE living in a Neo-colonial world

My ancestors came to me in a dream. They were refugees from a war with no winners. 

They were seeking shelter in my cellar.

I asked the smaller man in front of the group, 

"How did you get in?"

he said,

"We always find a way in."

I was afraid I could not care for them and I left them.

They left me.  For many years they were hidden in darkness and unknown to me.

I promised to stop hiding from the darkness of the world, 

as I promised to not let my grief for the world blind me.

I promised to walk out into the darkness and face every fear.

They are coming back to me.

Ancestors - India

To speak of Ancestors of to speak of the past in its human form.   

Dad leaving India

An Ancestor Cape I finished this week

All my life I’ve thought about India.  Before I was born my father left on a ship.  It set his life on a course that took him further and further away from his birthplace.  And all my life, even before I knew it, I have been drawing and painting, and crafting a path back.  

Miniature Painting: The Victory of Ali Quli Khan on the river Gomti-Akbarnama 

When I was a very small child I drew meticulous miniature drawings, with battle scenes and leafy trees, looking like something out of the Mughal Empire, without the skilled hand of a Court Painter.  It was like that all through my childhood, sometimes just a shape or a pattern of curves, or a color palette, would bring a little India back into my present day life.  When I began to recognize this it seemed a bit like magic, as if the voices of the past were whispering in my ear.  Very possibly the books about India that were scattered throughout the house, as well as a family trip right after my tenth birthday had more to do with these visual tendencies; either way my interest in Ancestors was sparked.  By the time I was a graduate student in the arts I focused a great deal of study on Indian history and art, even taking a Hindi summer course with UWMadison’s own Virendra Ji, where I flailed through the intensive study of a language that felt surprisingly foreign to me. 

I find it ironic now, reflecting on my personal quest in the nineties, when I was so focused on India Past.  Simultaneously millions of young Indians were pursuing new careers, moving to cities like Chennai and Mumbai, and looking towards a American ideal of the self made man as a new way of seeing themselves and their futures.  While they were casting away Old India I was catching it in my net and spreading it out on notebooks and canvases, creating a visual incantation of a past I had so little connection to, apart from the blood in my veins.  What we were all doing was putting holes in the walls that blocked out the light of our imaginations.  For me the light filtered bits of a past where I imagined I belonged, and for the millions of young Indians at the end of the 20th century,  a yet to be imagined future.  I wonder now if we had torn down the wall completely would we have found each other standing hesitantly on the other side?

My painting: Mughal's Climb 1996 

At the time, focused on All Things Indian, I was forging a path back through the terrain of weeds and heavy brush that had grown in my father’s footsteps.  He had left it all behind a generation earlier and my idealistic quest for cultural belonging both amused and annoyed him.  I was poking holes in the veneer of Being an American - something he had worked so hard and long to afford us.  But right under the surface of the veneer was a richer history that my restless fingers picked away at.  Of course the holes I created were small and only offered a tiny glimpse of the full picture.  They were almost harmless, like tiny moth holes in a wool sweater.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t unravel the mystery of my own past enough to understand my place in the present.  In Virendra’s Hindi class I realized I had less in common with the Indian kids than the Caucasians.  But the reality, that I belonged to neither gnawed at me enough to make me continue picking and poking, until my whole world looked like Swiss Cheese.

Layered Print, one of many I made in the 90's

With all those holes in my psyche it was time to start the process of REPAIR.  And so began a lifetime cycle of tear and repair , that has revealed to me who I am as much as it has made me.  

Layers, Labyrinths and Ancestors

Mughals Dream  1996

I've been so busy sewing cloth lately I can't find time to write, but I have thoughts floating through my mind that threaten to leave me if I don't give them my full attention.  Thoughts can be fickle and needy that way.  But perhaps they are just realistic, most anything ignored fails to thrive.  

I have a photo shoot scheduled and I want lots of new pieces of Ancestry Cloth.  The photos will be taken in the woods where my father's ashes were spread.  For me this is a gesture of respect and honor, was well as a beckoning for energy from Dad, who now exists in the Ancestor realm. 

  

Innocent and Kind  1994

                              

Ancestry Cloth 2016

As I sew I think about layers.  I have painted in layers for years.  These layers represent time and memory and the limits of both.  How we view things from the present changes the image of the past. It is impossible to see everything at once, so we pick and choose the details to focus on and those to cover with new experience.  Which brings me to patterns, because it is our patterns, of thought, of language, of noticing, that determine the final image.

While I'm sewing and cutting Ancestry Cloth I realize I am doing the very same thing, but (at the moment) in abstractions.  Because I am creating these patterns and layers of abstract shapes my mind is free to take them to places unrestricted by a storyline.  They are simply layers and patterns, the ancestors talking to me and me talking back.

Ancestry Cloth, back view 2016

I have also been noticing my stitches spiraling into labyrinths.  So I think about labyrinths. There's the trap of the labyrinth in the story of the Minotaur.  But there's also those in the Buddhist Stupas, a spiral walk intended to center your mind.  These are the labyrinths that intrigue me most.  This stitching centers my mind in a way that makes me think at times I can almost articulate the emotion of this work.  

This emotion feels a lot like caring, and it is possible that it is love.

Adinkra  2014

"Love is the only Engine of Survival"  L. Cohen  (from "The Future")

Ancestor Dress 2016

The Journey

It's one of many overused phrases in our culture, that, once full of possibility, have become slogans that sell everything. (especially cars)  But... nevertheless... I have to start this post with these words:

It is not the destination.

It IS the Journey.

Here I am.  50 years old.  Still figuring out what painting means to me.  Well, not in every sense.  Not in the deep down in my gut way, the way it has pulled me deep down into my interior... in that sense I've always known.  But understanding the relationship between me and painting and the world, that's another story.

I finished another painting this morning.  I thought it was finished a few days ago, but I was wrong.  That happens a lot. 

Here's what it looked like two days ago:

Not too different, but not quite right.  Quite right is a very understated emotional moment when I have pulled out everything the painting is able to give me.  I just know it, if I'm paying attention.  Paying attention to what?  Paying attention to the painting, while equally paying attention to my gut. By that I mean a feeling deep inside.  A deep feeling that is truthful, not "nice" not "pretty" not what I necessarily "want" to hear.  

I believe Truth is something you feel.  It's a heavy and quiet feeling that slows down my breathing and centers me.  I know it and I trust it.  The more I practice this the more I have no need to react to anyone else's "truth" and, therefore, I find it easier to be in the world without being swallowed up by the world.

This is why I paint.

I looked back at the photos I took of this painting in it's many stages of development.  As it evolved it had many looks, and some are probably more appealing visually that the final product.  Luckily for me I have no longer set my sights on painting for profit.  I'm not worried about what other people want, what would be prettier, more pleasing and more trendy.  What I'm worried about is pulling something out of a painting. Something that is inside of me, something that is in the air around me. Something in between me and all the forces outside of this body and mind I reside in.

One

This is how it started.  A grid and a wall and couple of cats and a man.  He's reaching for a tree.  And that tree, reaching out of the ground, reaching, like the man.  And walls, rooms, spaces... keeping everything separate and trapped and safe.  And a ceiling that has stopped the tree from reaching any further.  It might look pretty, but it's got to be resolved, because I know there's a problem that needs to be solved, a question to answer.

Two

How I get to that answer is to just keep going.  In the beginning I just let myself act on intuition.  To look, respond, look again and respond again.  And on and on again.  I'm in this state of consciousness that is everything but literal, linear and verbal.  I can look back on it and tell you what I did (in this case I defined what I was seeing with black lines)  but at the time I probably couldn't explain it.  Just doing.  With paint

Three

By day three I realize there's something bigger than all the little parts.  I try to pull that out, with shadows.  At this point I thought it might be figure, just the head and shoulders.  A larger version of the little man, keeping everything else contained within itself.  The grid has become an animate living thing, which still has elements of the grid inside of itself.

Four

And then that being, be it a man, a woman, god, mind... whatever that was it has been swallowed up by the parts again, but this time the grid has become an organic web.  This was a really pretty part of the journey.  I wish I had taken a better photo.  I think in the future I will set up a good camera with a tripod and be ready to capture these stages in a good high res file... just in case I want to print it up really large and enjoy this part.  It is a beautiful place.  I liked being there.

Five

Day five, the image takes a radical turn.  No longer moving through the larger plane of the world, a path has been chosen.  The original character, the "subject" of this painting, has entered a new and protected space.  The space, inside of himself, is isolated but bright.  He's no longer swallowed up by the structure of the grid, nor the constant movement of the web.  He has a focus and stillness that was lost.  He is ready for transformation from within.

Six

In day six he begins to see the web that he is.  His own little cocoon begins to form a body and he is no longer a small little man but a little piece of something else that is just being born.  His body becomes part of a pattern, of something larger, something that is not yet itself.  I lost focus for a little while here and indulged in all the other busy things happening in the painting.  All the other busy things are just similar stories unfolding, all at once.  Every living thing that is born on this planet starts out like the first single cell organism to divide and, within itself, discover the endless nature of life.  I felt like I may have taken a giant step backwards, getting all caught up in simple forms when I thought I was already past that.  This part of the painting was a struggle.

Seven

The struggle is not to be avoided.  I seem to have to learn this over and over.  I want to curl up under a blanket and turn on Netflix and think about fake little worlds and dramas that are easy and entertaining. Metaphorically I have done this many times.  And literally.  But this painting keeps telling me this, "Come back,  attend.  The movement and the stillness and the looking and the thinking keep it going, keep it evolving and this is why you paint." 

That little red man wants to stop, he wants to hide and he wants to sleep, but he keeps reaching and he becomes a pattern on the wing of a butterfly.  The butterfly needs him to let go, in order to break out of its chrysalis.  It doesn't need him to hold on and be "strong."  It needs him to change with the other changes that are happening all around him.  Not to be frozen in time, not to be afraid, not to be lazy, stubborn or proud.  Not to follow and not to lead, just to evolve.

Eight

He doesn't let go, he is unable to.

Nine

And I realize that this story has been told, it has been pulled out of me.  The butterfly is frozen because the man could not let go and this is not a happy ending.  But it is not really an ending.  It a painting and it is one of many, I hope.  It is a lesson and I like lessons.  

And that is why I paint.

And our foolish man blows his trumpet triumphantly,
thinking he has won when he has actually killed the forming butterfly.
The butterfly is now a ghostly shell in which he is trapped. 

To be continued...

I'm back... writing about art

I finished this painting today, stopping at a point that I would have not been able to leave alone in the past.

I've been thinking about getting back into the habit of writing about art lately.  I've probably been thinking about it for more than two months, but it took me that long to turn that impulse into action and those thought into words.

When I paint I have a pretty constant flow of thoughts, many that transform themselves into images, colors, textures and patterns on the canvas.  The rest are left dangling in my head, and I often feel like the process is not complete until I clarify it.  It doesn't really need to be verbalized to the world, but why not?  If anyone wants to read it, that's great.  If no one wants to read it, it's basically my own personal art journal on the internet.  

So.  I'm back.

This new painting is my way of processing the recent (and not so recent) events of the world.  The constant conflict, the divisions based on ideology and political affiliation, the wars, the inequality, the lack of understanding, the lack of dialogue, the anger, hate, fear....

The dualistic thinking that has led humans to cannibalize their own selves.

And the compassion, the way some still stay connected, the love that remains, the bridges, the palms held open and the hearts that strive to stay there too.  

I've been wondering if the human family is like a viscous dog, filled with fear, attacking and devouring it's own tail.

I think, but I'm not 100% sure, this painting will be titled "Cannibal"

I like that it's not obvious.  It is vague and a little confusing and ambiguous in content.   

It's how I feel.

I sincerely believe we are all connected.  What to do about it is a mystery to me.  I'm just trying hard to open my heart and keep it open.  At the moment that's hard enough.  Maybe it is enough.  Maybe not.  

The jury seems to be deliberating.

What does this all have to do with painting?  I paint to figure this out, to articulate my innermost feelings and ideas to myself.  I don't think my thoughts are going to be clear to the viewer.  I think it's ok for every viewer to look and come up with their own meaning.   I like to think some vital force in the image, in the colors and the compostion and the feelings that arise from them will communicate something, something close to what I'm experiencing when I'm painting it.  I'm more and more comfortable with that.  Is it possible to misinterpret art?  I am trying to accept this is something I don't have to feel responsible for.  Letting it go is a part of the process.

After painting on canvas today I sat down and continued a few ideas on paper in a simpler and more lyrical way.
Working on illustrations alongside larger more complex and evolved work comes naturally to me.  

All I know for sure is I have to keep painting, and I think writing about it a bit helps me to make a little sense out of it all.  Just enought to keep focused and stay with the ideas that arise out of the work I do on canvas.

And if you read this far... well... welcome back to my art blog :)

Sentience

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or experience subjectively.   Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as "quailia"). In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that requires respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights, because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

Our lives at this time in history may introduce another "definition" or area to consider in the investigation of Sentience.  This is the area of "Sentient Potential" a field of study dedicated to the very important questions we may be facing in the not too distant future regarding future techonologies in brain-machine interface. 

I just happened upon the Sentient Potential Website while browsing the internet in my quest for understanding my recent obsession with the concept of Sentience.  In the website the term "Sentient Potential" is defined as:  "the potential evolution, development, and expansion of all intelligence and awareness, a concept that goes beyond “human potential” to encompass the entirety of living and aware beings." 

This new discovery on the internet has me thinking about this vision that has sprung from my subconscious in the past 6 months to become the focus of my work at this time.  The connection between nature and technology has once again entered into the concepts I am working out in images.  (see "The Magical Mystery Stones: June 2013 archives: Magical Mystery Stones )

Mind, nature and technology... the Sentient Worlds that will unfold in the ongoing stories of The Sentient Beings.  Stay tuned.....

From Dreaming to Dancing

More Jackal... she is Dancing Jackal, after a long journey via magic arrow.   
During the long and reckless journey she is pierced by the arrow
 and has to land in a canyon where there is no escape. 
Dancing Jackal does not have the patience and reserve that Dreaming Jackal has, 
but she shines like the moon.

       

          While trapped in the canyon, with only a few hours of sunlight, 
           Dreaming Jackal noticed the light of the moon during the dark night, 
and became greedy for more.
This makes Dreaming Jackal a servant of the moon.

      

She tried to jump through the moon, but the moon jumped through her.

After the moon jumped through Jackal she glowed all night and hid in a cave all day.
Now she is  trapped in darkness all day long.

Having suffered many days in darkness Jackal became frustrated with the the silence,
and learned to play the rhythms of the moon.

I hope you are enjoying the story of the Sentient Beings.  This story has no beginning and no end, so you can join in at anytime.

These are drawings from my sketchbook; some will be made available as prints on Society6 

at Dawn Patel Art: http://society6.com/dawnpatel

You can also follow the story of Jackal on facebook or Instagram, where I post as I go along.