Magic Time

 
Dusk - I live in the most beautiful place on earth.

I walked at dusk to a spot on the top of the hill - overlook to Horseshoe Mound. Bunnies emerge from the woods and stand stark still - then turn fluff tails and run wild eyed into the lush blue green underbrush. Storm brewing - muggy - but the brisk breeze blows off the day's dust and the buggy gnats. Jitterbug Perfume scented air - fading May Mother's day lilacs, pre-June bridal wreath dropping snow-petals to the damp earth, honey locust blossoms, dogwood. Snoopy the Afghan hound takes a walk with Grant - the wood turner.

Dusk and another late spring storm brewing over the Grant Wood-ed view down the Galena valley - neighbors low conversation murmurs up to me but I only catch a word or two - they are so far below. Maxfield Parrish deepish aqua sky and pinky yellow clouds. Yes, there is a storm brewing and now the scattered cooling raindrops come dropping slow.

And I do live in the most beautiful place on earth!!! I know this and I am grateful to have had just this one perfect moment before dark, before I am old, to breath in the perfumed air at twilight. Loveliness in every direction, knowing nothing more perfect ever existed - turning around slowly taking in every detail. And then - my eyes adjust to the woods gloom and see a young doe up the path - gazing calmly directly into my eyes. Both knowing we are in the most gorgeous and perfect place and moment ever imagined.

Blessed to have lived and witnessed magic time.

"Call it nostalgia, I don't mind
Standing on that windswept hillside...
In that magic time"

 ~ Van Morrison Magic Time

"Abduction of Persephone" diptych

charcoal on prepared board, section 1 is 30 × 30″ for 33 Contemporary Gallery, Chicago, and section 2 is 30 x 19" and to be exhibited in Turin, Italy in the spring and summer of 2012

The still life elements are inspired by the sixteenth century Mira-Calligraphiae Monumenta

Based on a poem by
Edna St. Vincent Millay –

Prayer to Persephone

Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee:
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”

the essential message of the poem—the idea of a queen of life and death so gracious that she sees every frightened child—even ones that won’t always admit they need help—as worthy of her time and affection.

The abduction of the goddess Persephone and the mythological “reason for the seasons”

The maiden Persephone is picking narcissus flowers in a field and the earth suddenly opens before her and Hades, god of the underworld, rides up on his chariot and abducts her. The story of Persephone is also the story of her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest. When she learns of Persephone’s disappearance, she does what any mother would do: search high and low for her, and when she cannot find any trace of her, is wracked with grief. She takes out her anger on the mortal world over which she presides and causes winter to come over the land. It is said by The Fates that whoever consumes food or drink in the underworld is doomed to spend eternity there. Upon eating six pomegranate seeds, Persephone unknowingly binds herself to the realm of Hades and must stay one month in the underworld for each seed she has eaten. Ascalaphus was an underworld daemon who managed the orchards of Hades. When he reported to the god that Persephone had tasted of the pomegranate seed, the angry Demeter buried him beneath a rock. Later Ascalaphus was released from this prison, but the goddess transformed him into a screech-owl. Because of her mother’s status, Persephone is allowed to live half of the year on earth with her. Demeter rejoices to be reunited with her child and spring returns to the land.
Like all great myths, this one transcends time and cultures and speaks to the depths of human existence. It also strikes a deep chord in my life at the present moment. I thoroughly understand Demeter’s grieving and desperate point of view, as a mother of young adults who have starting their leave-taking. Many times as my children have raged and pushed me away in the throes of their coming of age, I have had to remind myself that this is normal; this is what they must do. I try not to take the battles personally, and I see that they are going through the painful process of expressing and finding their authentic selves. They must push me away; and I must allow it. At some point we are called to the journey, to become the heroine in our own lives and take a bite of what life has to offer.

Panthea Daily Study

White lilies and panthea moth. Charcoal and white pastel on Mylar drafting film, 16 x 12", in vintage frame. The white lily was the signature flower for Oscar Wilde, and I also consider it my own signature flower. I’ve used it as a logo since I started my career as an artist, and also have used the lily often in the Black Butterfly muse series. I love the symbolism of peace and purity.

Wilde writes of lilies in his poem “Panthea.” Wilde’s beliefs were Pantheistic, characterized by oneness with nature. The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan ('all') and theos ('God'). Thus pantheism means 'All is God'.
Pantheism is the religious belief that Nature is divine (God) and we humans are part of the One, interconnected whole. It is in realizing our connection to the One Universe (Nature, God, Brahman, Tao, Space) that we find truth, spiritual fulfillment and solace. Pantheists usually deny the existence of a personal God (theism) and creationism (a separate God who created the world from nothing).

Many philosophers, scientists, poets and artists have identified themselves with pantheism since antiquity. Spinoza (Ethics, 1673), Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oscar Wilde, Henri Matisse and Albert Einstein are some famous pantheists.

There is a moth by the same name, and I like the idea of the dusky moth with the white flower.

From "Panthea" by Oscar Wilde

Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight,-
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.

For sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse of passion-youth's first fiery glow,-
Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love, and eyes
to see!

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale
Like water bubbling from a silver jar,
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,
That high in heaven she hung so far
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,-
Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late
and laboring moon.

White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,
The fallen snow of petals where the breeze
Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam
Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavor
Enough for thee, dost thou desire more?
Alas! the Gods will give naught else from their
eternal store….

Still I Rise ~ Daily Drawing

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” ~ Maya Angelou

Black Butterfly series, miniature portrait of poet and author Maya Angelou. Charcoal and white pastel on Mylar drafting film with digital print poem underlay, in vintage tabletop swing frame. Image size 9 x 7"



Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Roses and Rue

From the Black Butterfly series.

Mini portrait of Oscar Wilde – image size 10×8” Charcoal and white pastel pencil on Mylar film. A copy of an early draft of Roses and Rue, in Wilde’s own hand, shows through the translucent Mylar.

Roses and Rue

by Oscar Wilde, for actress Lillie Langtry

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love’s song,
We are parted too long

Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird’s throat
With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes after.

You were always afraid of a shower,
Just like a flower:
I remember you started and ran
When the rain began.

I remember I never could catch you,
For no one could match you,
You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,
Little wings to your feet.

I remember your hair – did I tie it?
For it always ran riot -
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:
These things are old.

I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;

And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From the shoulders rose.

And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face-
Had a small tear left a stain?
Or was it the rain?

On your hand as it waved adieu
There were veins of blue;
In your voice as it said good-bye
Was a petulant cry,

“You have only wasted your life.”
(Ah, that was the knife!)
When I rushed through the garden gate
It was all too late.

Could we live it over again,
Were it worth the pain,
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead!

Well, if my heart must break,
Dear love, for your sake,
It will break in music, I know,
Poets’ hearts break so.

But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God’s heaven and hell.


Scenes from the 1978 mini series "Lillie" Francesca Annis as Lillie Langtry
Peter Egan as Oscar Wilde, music "Oscillate Wildly" by The Smiths