Wednesday, 29 August 2018

Black Dog - Departure.

Moving Away from a Depressive State of Mind: What lessons can be learnt or lost.

The Black Dog – Departure.

In the past few years, I have been working on a series called The Black Dog. I have been rather surprised by these pieces of work not only because of the random order that they have appeared, but also they arrive when they damn well feel like it, often when I’m planning on painting something entirely different! I still have one of the Black Dog paintings that I’ve been unable to finish, it’s sitting on the top of the wine rack in my studio and looks accusingly at me every time I pass it by. One day, the energy will open to me again and I’ll finish it but I have completed two other pieces in the lull.

One of these pieces wasn’t a painting but a pastel. I wasn’t planning on creating a Black Dog painting, I wasn’t even thinking of this series but somehow I managed to marry the series with another painting obsession of mine, the Red Riding Hood.

Black Dog - Departure. Trac Davies ©

Here we see a black wolf rather than a black dog and its face is rather expressive. It sits with its back to the viewer but in between two trees, partially hidden by the closest tree to us. Although the wolf has its back to us, he turns and faces the viewer sorrowfully. The departing figure is walking away from the viewer and totally hidden in a cloak of red, the tail of the cloak reaches a large bole in the tree where a white owl sits watching the figure as she departs. A fox sleeps in the base of that same tree, which is illuminated on one side by a full moon. The scene lit by this same moon, shows that it is winter, there are no leaves on the trees or on the ground. In the background there is a stark, bare and gloomy forest this contrasts with the foreground of the piece. The picture is dark, which depicts that the woman has been dealing with ”a dark night of the soul” and although she’s leaving this state and starting to heal, she’s not in the light of day just yet.

Departure is when we finally face that it’s time to leave behind a certain mental state and go into the black of the unknown, leaving the black dog and all that it represents behind. The woman, doesn’t look back as she is leaving. She is cloaked and she will be highly visible wearing a cloak such as hers but she is but also protected. When one leaves a certain in depressive state behind, we wear a persona that is both of our true selves and not at the same time. Our innermost self is protected by this highly visible person that we become and we develop this outer person to distract others away from the healing but more vulnerable self. As yet, she is not ready to show her innermost private soul to the outside world and perhaps she never will be, maybe the persona becomes the person that she is most comfortable with.

The woman walks into the depths of the black night, she does this without looking back, only the moonlight illuminates her way. This light renders everything in black and white and shades of grey so although her way at first may appear obvious, the grey areas put everything she sees and experiences in doubt. We do not see her face, again due to protection of the inner psyche but also because she’s taking no notice of the observer whatsoever. Once we proceed with such deep healing work, bystanders almost cease to exist. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, healing work such as this is so deep, it takes all of our energy to start walking along this path. At first, when we are trying to untangle ourselves from the confusion of deep gloom of our muddled mind, which here I have depicted with the dark and gloomy forest, we are very self-aware that the world appears to be watching our struggles and this can sometimes exacerbate the struggle. However, once untangled from all those negative emotions, we don’t look back but we do go into our inner self so our deepest thought processes and to what our heart holds most dearest. This state of being can be triggered by both external and internal forces but we have to really want to go through this because facing ourselves is one of the hardest things we ever have to endure. Facing our anger, fear, sadness and toxicity takes inner strength and in all honesty, we usually need a boot up the arse to get us moving. In addition, we have to be ready to take heed of this boot and listen to it and our innermost self in the first place.

The tail of the cloak surrounds the bole of the foremost tree in which resides a white owl, symbolising both wisdom and purity of mind. Once we take heed of the external and internal forces that push us to move away from the gloomy forest, it’s wise to keep moving forwards. The owl, is self explanatory, inner wisdom watches our progress and ensures that we keep moving forward, however fast this is. Progress is all that matters, the speed at which we move forwards isn’t really relevant. Being able to move forwards after being caught in the snares and thickets of our own mind is the main thing.

The fox is also evident. Depression is a wily beast to deal with and so we too need wile and much courage on this journey. When struggling in the thicket of the forest with our black dog, the fox would have been awake so as to help us thwart it. However, now it sleeps but you can see from its posture that it can soon be roused again if needed.

Finally we arrive at the black dog, which in this case is a wolf! Wolves are known to be fabulous predators but they will shy away from humans unless they have no choice and are starving hungry, even then they would prefer other prey. This black wolf has been part of the woman’s psyche for a very long time, this is why it is now a wolf rather than a dog. It has had no choice but to be a predatory beast because she hasn’t been able to either leash it or paradoxically, set it free, thus it had been predating on her exhausted mind. The wolf sits with its back to us because this is not about the viewer or their state of mind. There is additionally a tree is between the departing figure and the wolf because she has started the journey away from depression, thus now she can’t really see where it is and what it was. This is true in depression, the journey away means that often we forget what we became at that time and so miss the opportunity to learn from it. The wolf turns to face the viewer rather than the departing figure. When somebody is in the darkest throes of depression, in many cases this is all bystanders and acquaintances see. They do not see the person inside and continue not to for some time afterwards and in some cases never see the real person. Thus we can be a totally different person with new and good perspectives, we could no longer be depressed but others will not always see this, they will just see what you were in the past. Thus the wolf looks only at you, because this is your perception of that person which has been judged on past behaviour.

In truth, depression can be our best teacher about ourselves if we let it be and treat it right but if we don’t start progressively moving forwards, it can turn on us. When we finally have the courage to walk away, if we are not careful we end up walking away from the lessons that we have learnt. Our black dog should be our teacher and can be an old friend if we treat it right. Our black dog is part of us. Here the figure in the cloak walks away without a backward glance. Although this is the right thing to do and the only course of action that she should take, her dog will always be with her, denying it the privilege of accompanying her from time to time will only make it more difficult to deal with if she comes across it again.

Therefore, you can’t truly suppress it, lock it away or leave it behind. Your black dog is part of you and her wolf is sad because she is denying herself these feelings that shouldn’t overwhelm her but are still part of her and need to be dealt with on a daily basis, even if it is to touch base from time to time.

Once we walk away from a depressive state, it’s good and the right thing and is also part of a huge mystery because we don’t really know what we’ll find there. To deny everything that has gone before can backfire. To let your black dog accompany you but leashed is the better alternative. Yet this is a deeper part of learning that many miss. It takes years to learn to love your black dog and snuggle with it but once you do THIS is when the healing truly starts.

Tuesday, 24 July 2018

Black Dog series - No Possible Escape.

No Possible Escape - For When we are Forced to Face Ourselves.

The Black Dog series are something that I have been working on periodically since late 2015. I started out painting these in oils and have one or two in semi-completed stages. Sometimes when I am in the midst of creating a piece the energy sometimes goes, and I dislike that because I could be in full energy-flow then all of a sudden find that for some reason I just can't finish a piece. In general I do tend to pick these up again much later but it can take years sometimes for the re-connection to be made. Thus, so often things are not in sequence as I feel they should be.

Recently, I created a Black Dog pastel piece, although this was more like a Black Wolf. One day, I decided that I was going to have another bash at pastels and to my surprise, ended up creating another Black Wolf or Dog. Maybe this is in the eye of the beholder but I do tend to see the Wolf with these pastel pieces rather than the Dog.

Black Dog - No Possible Escape. Trac Davies ©

This in some cases might seem self-explanatory. Here we have a scene that shows a woman hugging a dead tree, her face is turned away from the Wolf, who is wearing her cloak They are in a desert, hot sun, barren spaces with no shade or water.

Depression is one of those conditions, especially at the start of suffering, where people will turn and run and they will hide. They will hide not only from the outside world but from themselves. We all have a cloak or a mask to do just this and at some stages of our lives most of us do hide behind something else. Thus the cloak depicts our personality, it comforts us, protects us and we feel that we can function behind it whilst hiding our true face.

Yet the most important person we are usually hiding from is ourselves. We have all heard of the parable where the lost children of Israel wandered in the desert for a very long time. The yard-arm was 40 days and 40 nights, which basically meant that nobody knew just how long the time was that they were lost but it was a very long time.

Wandering in the emotional desert is something that people with depression tend to do when they are trying to get themselves back on even keel again. However, the longer we are lost in our own personal desert, the more we have to face something about ourselves that we would rather not.

Isolation, illness, bereavement, change of circumstances, moving house to a different area, moving to a new country, all of these things are examples of the 40 days and nights of isolation or lost years. They may last just a short while whilst we readjust to a new circumstance or loss but they may last for numerous years. The longer we stay in this state of mind, the more barren the desert becomes and the further away from ourselves we wander. So, instead of finding the respite and healing we need, this might just have the opposite effect. It depends on how we view it, because when life can be at its worst, where there is no respite from ourselves, when there is no internal shade, food or water, where we feel vulnerable and alone, it is then where we can find the real internal healing that we need.

The woman is in a shift, she looks drab and hangs onto a dead tree, she is hanging onto a dead life but it no longer serves her. She faces away because she doesn't want to look at the wolf. The tree has become just another cloak to hide behind but as this life dies, it becomes blacker and more rotten. This can make her very ill for she's hanging onto something that has died and it is internally killing her. In addition, this past self or life isn't hiding her because she has outgrown it so she is very noticeable. The sun beats down, there is not respite, she has to turn and face the fact that her life as she knew it is now over but she won't.

You see, the wolf who wears her cloak and is sitting patiently waiting for the woman to acknowledge its presence is part her own self. In nature, the predatory wolf tends to cut down the elderly and sick when they hunt and it is no difference here. Our Black Wolf will hunt and attempt to destroy those parts of ourselves that are sick or we have outgrown. However, as she is holding on for dear life to a life that no longer serves her, she has now become toxic to herself more than she has to anybody else and she is hurting herself. She has put herself further into the 40 days and nights more than the original situation did.

Eventually, she will have to turn and face herself, her wolf or her dog, is snarling because at present she won't. She is too busy being in denial that her old life is dead. All this does is make her black wolf-self attack her and sometimes just with the knowledge of its presence alone. It is there, she knows it is there but denies it, she also denies things have changed and so she attacks herself with her own denial and because of her denial the wolf-side of her grows angrier and larger.

Here she finally has to turn to face who she is, there is nowhere else to run, there is no hiding place as the tree will wither and die along with her old life. If only she could turn and embrace the life she now has in front of her, if she could hold her black dog in her arms and accept who she is, what she is, what she has now and what has past or gone, then there would be healing and respite.

Until she does, she will be caught in this stalemate and the longer she holds onto the past life or past selves, the harder it will be for her to face herself and her new life, but she will, because she has to. There is no other option.

PostScript.

In my haste to write this, I had forgotten a very important part of this piece of art. The wolf in the red cloak is snagged by the hood on the dead tree. So therefore, the wolf or black dog can't leave until the woman hugging the tree lets go of her dead life. Once she turns to face the wolf, letting go of the tree, thus accepting her new life, she will also let go of the wolf. In accepting our new selves we also let go of the depression, because it's only because we have not accepted a new life or way of being, that we have not let go of a dead life, that the wolf is still there. In holding on, we hold onto this state of mind.

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Trac Davies©

Monday, 16 July 2018

Hereditary, How can we Define Uniqueness?

Hereditary, What makes us unique, out inside world or our outer one?

Before I started this piece of work, I was going through a huge artistic block. I get these from time to time but this time, rather than it being me getting in the way of myself, as I so often do, it was more about circumstances that at the time were beyond my control and affected me on a deeply personal level. Usually I can paint throughout these types of things and was able to for a while but one day, I reached the studio and found that I just couldn’t pick up a brush. Whatever I did wouldn’t work, nothing helped, not even the abstract side freed me so I knew that I had to walk away for a while and do something else.

I wrote instead, getting a huge amount done and whilst I was typing away I wondered how I could get into the rhythm of painting. One morning I woke up and decided not to use either brush or palette knives but to use my fingertips and the results are now here.

Hereditary - Trac Davies©

Hereditary is about who we are. Our finger and foot prints develop in the womb, they are unique, and they develop in the way they do due to the composition of the mother’s amniotic fluid, where we are and our movements. No two individuals share them, not even identical twins so these are totally specific to us. I have never met two people that are exactly the same, it just isn’t possible and fingerprints and also those of the feet are unique, they can identify us, you can’t take a print of the soul but you can of fingerprints or feet.

When I started this painting, I started with just one colour on each finger or thumb tip, as I progressed, I started using different colours and there are prints that have four or five different colours mixed up. This is indicative that although our fingerprints are unique, they are unchanged but our ideals, ways of life, emotions, feelings, wants and needs, and intellectual capacity are ever-changing. I am not the same Tracy as I was in my youth, my young adulthood, earlier this year or even a day ago, I change but I’m still the same person that I used to be at the same time.

We are all unique and special but although our fingerprints are unchanging we cannot be defined by them. What defines a human being is what they do, what they think and how they generally are - to others as well as themselves. Although our unique fingerprints are fixed we are not, we shouldn't be because we do not grow unless we change. Our own special identity is totally unique but so is the growth that comes from changing how we feel and what we think.

Without growth we stagnate but this growth and our ideas or ways of being should never take away our uniqueness, these things can only add to it thus enhance who we are and we should only be defined by our character, not by our outer self.

Wednesday, 11 April 2018

The Gateway.

The Gateway, Lives within Lives and how to find Inner Calm.

When I paint for others, I try to reflect something that reflects the life of the person or people. The couple that requested this commission did so some time ago and this is an earlier painting. At the time, they lived in more than one world; they were extremely busy but when they could, they have as much calm time as possible.

The Gateway- Trac Davies©

Here we see a sunrise over a choppy sea, but the waves stop at an archway and within that archway the environment is very different, depicting two different lives. Here it is tranquil, the sea within is calm and a mountain resides within. A full-moon has risen but a solar eclipse is taking place, which shows important change and beauty. A female being stands, with wings outstretched on this mountain - I have left the viewer to decide what she is and which way she is facing as people see this part of the painting differently, as I do on a daily basis. The mountain reflects of different elements of Gaia and this mountain is reflected by the sea.

However, when one turns the painting around to look at the reflection, it is seen differently. What looks like a fish in the upright position is actually another rising sun elsewhere and the being on top of the mountain is different, being masculine for a start, indicating balance between the two people.

The upright view of the painting feels calm, despite the outer choppy seas and the solar eclipse but the reverse is different, although it is reflected in the calm sea, viewers feel the being has an entirely different energy, which is not as calm.

This painting reflects worlds within worlds, with its different energy forms and this reflects the lives of the lovely couple that commissioned me to paint The Gateway.

When I painted this, the couple in question were living two lives, for they were living in both the UK and France and were back and forth over the water many times over the year. They both yearned for calm, because their lives were frantically busy and still are, although more settled.

I find that this holds true for many people, what appears on the surface to be one life is often a myriad of different lives within one life. In addition, people do generally try to go forwards into the future, but as the figure on-top of the mountain shows, whichever way she is facing it can show forwards or back. As we look forwards, so we look back, whether this is of a conscious decision to view that past or not. Whatever we decide to do, we go by past experiences, often this shore us along the way, helps us with our decisions in the future, such as with this couple, they have no fear, they face the future with bravery and will decide whatever is right for them, nothing will hold them back from what needs to be done.

This holds true even now, for things have changed for them many times over the years since I painted this, the decisions that they have made, over those years, have been right for them at the time. Nobody said it was going to be easy and it hasn't been but the ways forwards have been right and true. That is all that many of us want over our own lifetime, integrity, honesty, truth and living a life that is right for you and it is by doing this, that inner calm can be found.

For Hayley and Jon. It'll be reyt!

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Trac Davies - Artist ©

Thursday, 30 November 2017

Waking The Witch

Waking The Witch - How Mankind has used different scriptures to destroy both women & the men that stood with them and why certain authorities appear to be doing so again.

When I was 27, I went to live in the shadow of the great Pendle Hill. I was at that time, pregnant with my first child and we had moved up to the north of England for my husband, who was looking for work. He is originally from Manchester but I am from Dorset in the south. I found the north a very different place to that of the south. For a start it was very cold and damp, and in the winter, it got darker a lot earlier. I am a woman who needs a lot of light and warmth, so I struggled with these differences.

We moved to a little village called Grindleton, which at that time was in Lancashire. This area is stunningly beautiful, I loved the Pendle Hill but I was finding the changes between north and south and the isolation along with the pregnancy difficult so we didn't stay there for long and we moved back south for the latter stages of my pregnancy and subsequent birth of our son. Until now I didn't really think of the Pendle hill but after 24 years I have realised that I have somehow retained a connection to that hauntingly beautiful and eerie place.

Waking the Witch - Trac Davies©

This piece is an energy painting, it started with the hair and at first, I thought it was going to be an abstract like Freefall but as it started to take shape under my astonished eyes, I realised what and where it was. This is where I started to panic, as we have no photographs of the Pendle Hill itself. I do like to get things right, I could feel and see the energy within it, but was the shape right? was everything in the right place? Did it correspond to what it really looked like? I started browsing through the internet but nothing really seemed to look right and then I had a brainwave, I contacted one of our old friends who used to haunt the snooker table in the pub there and of course, he had the perfect photo, one that was taken in the garden of our house at the time and kindly gave me a copy.

The Pendle Hill - Photograph credited to Mr. Brian White.

There is an echo in and around the Pendle Hill, that has been left by its past, it can be still felt by sensitives and despite its beauty, there are times when you can feel and hears the echos of yesteryear and these echos haunt and leave reverberations. Of course, I am talking about the trials of the Pendle witches in 1612.

I feel very moved to write about Waking the Witch but have been sitting on writing this blog for quite some time. Creative blocks come and go with many artists, I knew that I had to write this but the time wasn't right, despite the horrifying facts that in supposedly civilised societies such as our own and that of the USA, women were and still are being treated as things again, rather than human beings. I think that part of me was paralysed by horror as I watched basic human rights being overturned by an arrogant and insufferable administration that had no care for anyone but for themselves and what, they considered, as their right to take exactly they wanted from women, many who had little to begin with. This horror becomes sheer anger where women, women like any other, support the patriarchal principles, some depraved such as rape culture and child abuse and others such as basic health rights and responsibilities that should continue to be fulfilled but are taken away. These are necessary such as terminations for pregnancies that have gone wrong, birth control pills and feminine care. Women are now having to fight battles for basic health care and gender rights that that have been hard won over the years and taken away in one foul swoop and to rub salt into the wounds there are other women that are supporting this war on themselves!

I can now hear certain people grumbling about what this has to do with me, I am English, I live in France but I can sadly say that this horror has turned to sheer terror as I am now watching these awful actions have implications elsewhere, France and the possible lowering the age of sexual consent is one of these things that I talk about. This law if it is passed will make it easier for paedophiles to not only get out of jail, but also escape punishment. The consideration of this law being overturned was prompted by a case over here of a rape of an 11 year old girl. The courts judged this as not rape, because she was frozen in terror so did not respond or fight back, so it was considered as consent. The roar of outrage can be heard all over France but it appears to be falling on deaf ears. The girl was only 11, he was 28. There has, since then been a case of a 31 year old mathematics teacher being given a suspended sentence for sleeping with a 14 year old.

And, the disgruntled reader might add, what has the war against the world's women (and subsequently children); got to do with the events of Pendle hill in Lancashire England, 1612, what has child abuse got to do with any of it? Consider Jennet Device, the nine year old daughter of one of the Pendle witches. There appears to be no record of where she stayed in the four months before the trial of her mother and other members of her family. She who accused her own mother of practising witchcraft and consorting with demons, she who picked out other members of the party and appeared to have been coached on what to say. Consider her innocence, her pliable mind, her understanding of the world and her place in it and reflect on how she was the key witness, her testimony was paramount to conviction and hanging of her mother and other members of the family along with friends and enemies alike. In addition, she would have watched the hanging which in truth was slow strangulation. Even in the seventeenth century, before this trial children were never used as key witnesses because they were not judged to be reliable enough but the law changed after this trial. Abuse can come in many forms, it doesn't have to be sexual to do an enormous amount of damage.

We women have always had these battles, we have always had a fight on our hands for not only our reproductive rights and the rights of our children, but the right to live our lives as we see fit. In Pendle 12 went on trial in, 1 was acquitted, 1 died in prison, 10 were found guilty, eight were women and two were men.

I have included the links that I have read about the Assizes trial in Lancaster. These people were most likely to be cunning women and men, which was a risky business in those days, for it was seen as witchcraft by the law at that time. In addition, often there were skirmishes for control between practicing families over any given area, which tended to bring the practice of cunning medicine to those authorities in question. It started with a pedler, called John Law, who was approached by the teenager Alizon Device. She in the family was a begger. She asked for some pins from him, he was reluctant to hand them over to her because pins were expensive but mainly because they were used in certain spells such as healing and curing warts. He refused to open his pack and walked away from her.

As he walked away, she cursed him as he left. He then fell to the floor suffered a stroke and was carried to an inn and at first nothing was reported. However, his son took her to see him and she, being convinced of her own abilities and being scared, begged his forgiveness. His son subsequently reported Alizon Device for trying to kill his father by witchcraft, she and then some members of her family were arrested and taken to Lancaster castle, which served as a prison before trial. Alizon Device was convinced of her own guilt, she was sure her curse nearly killed this man.

In addition to this situation in 1612, all justice's of peace at that time were told to compile a list of people that didn't attend church to receive communion. On Good Friday, the 10 April 1612, there was a party at Malkin Tower held by Elisabeth Southerners, otherwise known as Old Mother Demdike, a well known cunning woman of this area and Alizon Device's grandmother. For this event, James Device stole a neighbour's sheep to feed everyone there. This was reported and everyone at the party was arrested, not only because of the stolen sheep but because everyone should by law, attend church. This event led to the start of a trial many belonging to warring and competing families. This was a trial of murder, child-murder, a plot to blow up Lancaster castle, theft, extortion, enchantment and cannibalism. This trial was set in a divided country where the Catholic church had been dissolved, where many people in Lancashire practised Catholic mass in secret because they had to for the Catholic religion is was now illegal and punishable by death. Throw into this unwholesome mix that King James I had already had people trying to kidnap and murder him, one of these attempts being the gunpowder plot where the catholic dissenters tried to blow up both King and parliament. At that time many of the dissenters were said to have fled to Lancashire, where the Catholic religion was not only tolerated but practised, albeit in secret. The Protestant King James I, also feared that he was being plotted against by witches, any suspicion of witchcraft was grasped by the more political and ambitious justice's of peace such as Roger Nowell, who led the entire inquest.

I'm not going to go into depth about the trial itself but am now going to discuss the painting and how it relates to the events of the time and how everything that I have spoken about relates to this painting. Waking the Witch is predominantly an energy painting, what I have painted is the energy of this place and the wildness of the Pendle hill is something that is included. When you stand and look upon the Pendle hill, you feel a yearning when the wind blows through your hair but I could still feel the fear in the air. For all it's haunting beauty, I was inexplicably on edge in Grindleton a lot of the time. Of course I was pregnant so hormones probably played a part but there was always a underlying unease that I could never account for. There is both angel and a dark figure in the energy painting of the hill. All energies here are balanced, you cannot have good without bad, there is no beauty without ugliness a place holds energy and this can be felt as both good and bad. Conscious beings already have the ability to do very good things but they can also do bad things too. Thus the painting holds the angel, who also could double as a Goddess and a man that comes from the very depths of the hills, casting his energy before him and he appears to be somewhat demonic. Energy is energy, we are the ones that have the ability to use it as such for good or bad purposes but places retain echos which reverberate long after events have been played out.

There's also a witch that can be seen facing us, she appears to be bending over, is she praying, walking with a stick or using a wand? She appears to be looking defiantly at the viewer but paradoxically, towards the end of the hill too. The defiance of women at this time was better off if it was turned away from the authorities, I can imagine that the anger at this time was immense but it was still safer to look ahead and play the old and unaware woman whilst defiantly keeping your true wits about you and keeping these hidden from those who watch. There's also a dragon, a protector of the hill. These are mythical creatures that have been viewed as both good and evil, it all depends on the person that views them. The dragon is a protector of the area and the energy it holds. There is a strength around the Pendle hill that is eternal, I often used to look upon the hill and think of a sleeping dragon, there is also loftiness, it stands alone and powerful and it is timeless. The dragon might have been asleep when I first saw her, but now, just as the Witch is, she is waking up.

There are also other energy forms on the hill but I cover the main ones, let you see them for yourselves.

The hill is attached to the floating head of the Witch. Her hair flows freely but it's ends have been blunted, as if not cut properly or hacked at the ends, as if all growth has been cut short and stunted, some of these people had their lives cut short, for the ones left, their lives were stunted and I suspect they felt under suspicion themselves for a very long time if not their lifetimes. The Witch is old and sightless, she stares into infinity with blind eyes and appears to be saying something but nobody is listening. She is warning us about history repeating itself and the tragic consequences that follow as she floats above the hill in an almost abstract sky. Here in this sky, there are forms that are viewed in different ways on different days. One of these energy forms appears to be a young girl standing in front of the indistinct figure of a fairy, she stands before the fairy but is looking back to the sightless head of the Witch just as Jennet Device must have done, she herself was tried and found guilty herself of witchcraft and murder. The evidence was given by Edmund Robinson, who was 10. But times had changed so the case was bought before King Charles I. Under cross-examination, Edmund admitted that he fabricated the story. Even though some of the women were acquitted, four remained incarcerated and Jennet Device died in Lancaster prison. Why is she standing before an indistinct fairy? Before as legend says, fairy gold vanishes by the morning. I wonder what she was promised to jump onto a table and testify against her mother. Whatever it was, that promise would not have been fulfilled and she would not have understood the emotional consequences of what she did, which is why she looks at the Witch for the witches fate was to be her fate also.

The evil that has been done in the name of religion needs to be addressed. Most of these people's lives were imperfect in the way that they did both good and bad but from what has been since read between the lines, they were not necessarily evil people but folk that were just getting by on the little they had at the time. These people weren't saints, they had very little and lived by begging, extortion, theft and cunning medicine but they were not evil, they were ordinary people, living in extraordinary times and who suffered the consequences of not only living as they did, by using cunning medicine and in some cases, by being catholic. It beggars belief that we are now facing such times again where our supposed betters and usually richer manipulate both events and people to get what they want, being it promotion, as Roger Nowell did, the favour of King James I as everyone wanted, fame, as Thomas Potts, the clerk of the court wanted, he was also currying favour from the king and the report, concise as it is is now viewed as an exercise on brown-nosing.

But why must women and the men that have the strength to stand with them, suffer persecution like this? In the west, witchcraft is no longer viewed with suspicion as it was back in 1612, but it appears that the authorities do have a massive issue with women. America's women are very much persecuted and sexual abuse has become so rife but nobody seems to care anymore. This pattern is repeating elsewhere. The people in power must be scared of their women, why else would they persecute them and take away basic rights? We are seen by certain chauvinistic and odious men as the weaker sex, if this is true, why the persecution? Why the need to control our reproductive system and health, who we are and what we do? These men, who are often those in power, are the weaker ones, they have no real backbone. They hide behind their money and political power, they are not strong enough to view women as equals and this includes those that get a kick out of repression of all of the people. These weak and ineffectual men (and sometimes women who muscle in on that hellish ride); have always feared our reproductive power, after all, in certain societies we were once viewed as Goddesses. Repression of the female sex has been going on since time immemorial, the stronger men that know of our value and that of their own also tend to be truly powerful but there are very few men like this in the political arena and if they are, they are either downplayed or ridiculed.

It both saddens and infuriates me that we are facing persecution once again and it isn't just women who are suffering. Look at the fascism that is now ongoing, the racism that goes with this is frightening indeed and this is what the Witch is warning us, about history repeating, which it has many times over and is doing so again. I think I shall leave this with two of the wisest writers I have ever read, I am talking about Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. In Good Omens, they put it beautifully;
"Nothing wrong with witchfinding. I'd like to be a witchfinder. It's just, well, you've got to take it in turns. Today we'll all go out witchfinding, an' tomorrow we could hide, an' it'd be the witches' turn to find US....".

Remember, what goes around comes around, acceptance of other people's ways of life is the way forward, do as you will as long as you harm none. One day it could be our turn.

PostScript.

Since writing this very long blog, after the enormous and justified outcry, the age of sexual consent in France has been fixed at 15, which was what it was before. However, in certain French cities, sexual harassment has become a huge problem. I have included The Guardian's online article. Harassment has always been a problem with certain types of men, they don't learn that women are not a commodity or a toy to play with and this could well be their downfall.

With many thanks to Mr. Brian White for the use of his photograph of the Pendle hill, I can almost feel the breeze through my hair again!

Suggested reading and watching.

Links regards USA, France, Legal proceedings etc:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/09/trumps-birth-control-rule-is-discrimination-against-women-commentary.html
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/04/donald-trumps-presidency-is-an-assault-on-women/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-abortion-men_us_5886369be4b0e3a7356a7910
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/president-trump-womens-rights-abortion.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-pulls-back-obama-era-protections-women-workers-n741041
https://qz.com/1099217/the-trump-administration-isnt-just-curtailing-womens-rights-its-systematically-eroding-trust-in-women/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2017/04/25/430969/100-days-100-ways-trump-administration-harming-women-families/
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/02/usa-trumps-seven-first-steps-to-sabotage-human-rights/

https://www.thelocal.fr/20171113/france-could-set-legal-age-of-sexual-consent-at-13-after-man-acquitted-of-raping-11-year-old
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2017/09/26/01016-20170926ARTFIG00319-une-fillette-de-onze-ans-jugee-consentante-apres-une-relation-sexuelle-avec-un-adulte.php
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/27/french-teacher-handed-suspended-sentence-sleeping-14-year-old/
http://www.sudouest.fr/2017/11/27/relation-entre-un-professeur-et-une-eleve-de-14-ans-c-est-un-predateur-sexuel-3983783-4697.php

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/they-just-dont-see-us-as-human-women-speak-out-on-frances-harassment-problem

The first is a documentary that found on timeline, it covers everything and for me is a must-watch for concise & fascinating information. The others are links to reading material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MATKIhrDZSc

The Pendle Witch Child (Witchcraft Documentary) | Timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendle_witches

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-14490790

http://www.pendlewitches.co.uk/

https://www.visitlancashire.com/inspire-me/pendle-witches/the-story-of-the-lancashire-witches

And last but not least:

Good Omens. Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman.

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https://www.tumblr.com/blog/spiralrainbowtracdavies

Thursday, 20 July 2017

The Psychopomp - L'Ankou. Death and all that it Brings.

The Psychopomp - L'Ankou. Facing the unknown gives us all the creeps when it is right up-close and personal.

There are a few paintings that I have done that I have been driven to paint. Sometimes the subject matter is quite palatable but occasionally, it is downright uncomfortable, even to myself.

The Psychopomp was an image that I kept seeing over and over again, and I have actually painted vague variations of it elsewhere but hadn't realised it until I completed this painting. As the Watchtower of the North, this image was most insistent that I paint it and it was also silver. I would see this image in the mind's eye, especially at night. At first, I was seeing the face on the Northern Watchtower and there was, and still is a really uncomfortable energy with it. I was getting to the stage where my sleep was being disturbed, I'd wake up and see this and feel this strange energy, which I cannot really put into words as much as that is was flat, dead, uncomfortable and in a vacuum where most of us cannot go. I do not know why I kept getting this image and still don't but I must say, I have felt much better since I painted it!

Psychopomps are escorts to the spirit world, in mythology they come to us when we pass over and need a guide to get where we need to go. They do not judge us, this is not their task, they provide safe passage on our journey to the afterlife. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp and see suggested reading).

Psychopomps are known to be benevolent but as you will seeing, the painting was eerie and does not look that friendly. However, appearances can be deceptive and this painting is not about death itself but the FEAR that some people have of death and this is any kind of death, from the journey into the great unknown to transformational circumstances in ones life.

This painting is monotone, black, grey, white and silver paint are the only paints that I have used. The image is self - explanatory but WHY is the psychopomp like this? Usually when we imagine a psychopomp from the other side, we think of friends and family that have already passed over, we think of Angels, certain Gods and Goddesses. Yet, we can also think of the Grim Reaper, or in Brittany the Breton's version is L'Ankou and this is my version of L'Ankou. I have lifted this text from the third link in suggested reading below to describe the Ankou.

(http://www.psychopomps.org/psychopomp-guide.html).

Ankou (L'Ankou) — In Brittany, Ankou comes for the souls of those who are about to die. A true shapeshifter, he appears in many guises, including a tall, thin man with a long, hooded cloak, or as a skeleton with a scythe who often wears a broad-brimmed hat. He generally travels on foot, but sometimes comes in a carriage, which is often pulled by four black horses.

Here he is a tall, thin man but he has no hat or cloak so we see him as he is. His eyes are black pits because he looks into infinity, into depths that we cannot see. He only takes us onto the next stage, he does nothing else but escort, and his eyes are black, deep holes because there is no judgement there, they are empty. His mouth opens wider than humanely possible. When we step into the unknown, we stand on a lip or precipice and in this painting, the mouth is the way in and depict the "Jaws of Death". Everything surrounding L'Ankou is black, why we can't see a tunnel of light (which is how I perceive death); or the rainbow bridge or the pearly gates or a field of flowers is BECAUSE HE TAKES US THERE BUT HE DOES NOT GO IN. Entering the unknown is our task, not his, he guides us over, he sees we are safe but he does not come with us.

The Psychopomp is a disturbing image because death is a disturbing part of the life-death-life cycle. Some of us do not fear death, although we have no wish to leave our loved ones behind but many people do fear death because although mankind has all sorts of ideas of what must lie on the other side, none of us truly know. So what we are facing with The Psychopomp is our fear of the unknown, he or she does not judge us for this but it is there all of the same.

The same can be said for any huge and transformational change in our life, which is why many of of fight it. Usually change is welcomed but sometimes it is as huge as it is scary. I personally am on a road towards transformational change, I have no idea of what is to come and at times I am scared witless because I can't plan for anything so in this case you could say that I am facing my own personal psychopomp.

When I started painting this, one night I had to get to the toilet. It was past midnight and I have to go down a flight of stairs, into open-plan living space, then the studio and into the utility where our humble loo awaits. Thus I usually pass by my paintings and they are a welcome sight. When I saw this one for the first time in the middle of the night, I nearly didn't get to my destination and this image almost frightened me to death. However, eventually I got used to L'Ankou's presence, and this is what happens when we get older, we get used to the fact that one day we will die. We become more careful with what we do, we don't take the same risks as we would have done when we were younger, we slow down, nobody wants to race into the "Jaws of Death". Yet one day this time will come, who knows what we will face but the unknown part is only one small step of an already, very long journey.

There will be another painting to balance this one up, maybe two and I am looking forwards to painting them. Since painting The Psychopomp - L'Ankou, have have been full of happiness and love & this I feel is the next step.

Links and suggested reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankou

http://www.psychopomps.org/what-is-a-psychopomp.html

http://www.psychopomps.org/psychopomp-guide.html