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.

My work can also be viewed at:
  
http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist 
http://www.redbubble.com/people/tracdavies
http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/tracdaviesartist  
https://www.facebook.com/TracDaviesArtist

https://www.instagram.com/tracdavies/
https://twitter.com/tracdavies

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

Trac Davies - Artist © 

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.

 

The Psychopomp L'Ankou. - Trac Davies ©

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 

My work can also be viewed at:
 
http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
http://www.redbubble.com/people/tracdavies
http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/tracdaviesartist 
https://www.facebook.com/TracDaviesArtist
https://twitter.com/tracdavies
https://www.tsu.co/TracDaviesArtist


Trac Davies - Artist © 

The Black Dog - Metabolic & Abstract Dreaming

Why depression can lead to more positive things & how to access the dreaming.

The result of this painting was a total surprise, it came out of the blue and was quite unexpected.  I have already painted two other black dogs and nearly finished a third one but it wasn't until I finished this painting that I realised what it was.  

I think I have already said that often, when I paint, I let the energy move through me and do not think about what I am creating too much.  I also listen to a lot of music so this can sometimes have an affect on what I am painting at the time, I paint as I listen and it inspires me greatly.   

This painting is about the state of our sleep when we have depression and how this can affect our dreams and our lives.  
When we are down, sometimes our dreams are better than our reality & so we hide in sleep, sometimes we have nightmares instead, which makes the reality very much worse.  Yet always when we are awake, our heads are usually too full to cope.   Our issues might be included in our sleep as well as our waking state and leads to inactivity and procrastination, I have included some self-help links at the end to help kick these habits into touch.

The Black Dog - Metabolic & Abstract Dreaming - Trac Davies©

When someone suffers from depression, they will sometimes hide in sleep.  On a temporary basis, this can alleviate any suffering but only for a short-time.  If the person hides, refuses to wake up & sleeps more than he or she should, it can make things worse.  
Sleep has the benefit of getting us relaxed enough to connect with our inner self, this is what this woman has done, her dreams are colourful where she has made the connection.  The colours are vibrant and there is a smile on her child-like face.  She is innocent and in total trust as she connects with the ancient one; She who represents her own hidden wisdom.  If we can reach a state of self where we can talk to who we are inside, more often or not we can access our dreaming & find a possible way out of any one situation.  I am not saying this works with everyone or with every situation, but most of us, when we have had a really rough day, we feel better for a good nights sleep and this sometimes works with certain depressive states.

However, by hiding in sleep, this can exacerbate any situation & can lead to nightmares.  These can always be hovering on the edge of your mind when you are depressed anyway and you can invite these in when oversleeping.  This is depicted by the abstract form of the Black Dog and woman on the bottom of the painting.  The Black Dog isn't actually black, this is because it is a dream and nothing is ever as it should be in dreams of any sort.  The Black Dog is connected to the vibrant colours, I have found that if you turn everything upside-down, the key to freedom from our misery is held within the malady itself.   Our ancient self knows what we must do, and often so does our Black Dog, often the two are intertwinned and if we look carefully, we can work out where the problem might lie.
If we don't, what should be a refreshing sleep can turn into a heavy load, we all know how bad we can feel after we have over-slept and that this sort of sleep is far from refreshing. 

The answer to this is learning how to meditate, we can still access our inner-self if we can learn to still our mind.  Meditation took me years to learn and that was because I was doing it wrong.  I  have been lucky that I have been able to practise some meditation but it became a much easier process when a friend introduced me to mindful meditation. In mindful meditation, we still our minds by acknowledging other influences, inside of ourselves as well as on the outside but then we let these all go.  Often in many meditation practises, we are taught that we should totally ignore any outer or inner stimulus, refusal to acknowledge other influences can make meditation a daily battle instead of what should be a path to inner peace.  If done correctly, meditation gives the mind the rest and enables us to let go of those things that bother us, there are many different packages out there but I have included the link that helped me to learn how to do it properly.

The metabolic side to this painting is in reference to our diet.  When we are depressed, many people will eat junk food or just the wrong types of food.  What we put into ourselves will have an affect of how we are and how we feel.  The metabolic side also refers to the facts that certain foods and beverages cause sleep disturbances, so whatever we put into our mouths not only affects our mental health but the quality of our sleep.
The definition of metabolism is the chemical and physical processes within all living beings that produces, maintains and destroys materials thus producing energy within any one living organism.  

I am not going to break down the symbols and shapes that I have painted, they will mean different things to different people and symbols in our dreams can often be the key that opens the door to our own personal freedom.  Although dreams and sleep can help one recover, it is best if we can learn to get on with our lives by including practises such as meditation and a healthier life-style into our lives, it helps us to get over the hurdles our mind has set us.  At first, we are really resistant towards this, because we feel we should be able to do this all by ourselves with no outside help or, even worse, that there is nothing wrong with us.  This is when we become truly overwhelmed with everything.  The refusal to face ourselves head-on and ask ourselves what is wrong and more importantly, because sometimes we don't know the answer, what we can do it make it better, what we can do to help ourselves, is profoundly important to our well-being.  If we do not ask ourselves these questions or accept there is something wrong and something must be done about it, we can make ourselves so much worse & hinder any progress that we could make.

 
Suggested Links and Reading:

http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/02/emotions-accepting-rough-with-smooth.html

http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations  
These were the first mindful meditation I tried.  They are all guided meditations and work well and as soon as I hear the voice guiding me through, I start to relax.  These meditations help you acknowledge body, thought processes, emotions and outside stimulus and help you let go of these things after that initial acknowledgement but in a positive way.  


http://99u.com/articles/19327/get-over-yourself-how-your-ego-sabotages-your-creativity
A very good blog helping one to recognise and deal with the traps that our ego sets us from time to time.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16306/top-5-procrastination-behaviors-what-they-say-about-you.html
I am an awful procrastinator, I will find anything else to do before I do what I need to.  I have started getting out of this behaviour, reading this helped but also reading the next blog.

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/how-to-feel-great-every-morning/
These little tips do tend to help but the one that helped me over my procrastination issues was one called Eating the Toad!

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/the-important-connection-between-diet-mental-health/
Diet is always important, if you put rubbish into your system, there is a good chance that this is what you will feel.

https://sleepfoundation.org/bedroom/taste.php 
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/ss/slideshow-sleep-foods

These two links gives a breakdown of certain foods and beverages that aid  sleep or lead to sleep disturbances

There is also something called the REACH method, I have been trying to find the original website for this that was given to me by a friend.  It got me off the starting block so to speak and it a way of life rather than anything else.  It is empowering but it means you have to go into the darkness of yourself and own your stuff before getting to the light.  The original website was on an old computer, that has since died but there is a lot about this method on other websites.  If I can find the website I was given, I will update this blog with the details.


My work can also be viewed at:
 
http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
http://www.redbubble.com/people/tracdavies
http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/tracdaviesartist 
https://www.facebook.com/TracDaviesArtist
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Trac Davies - Artist ©

Star Goddess and Star God - The Dance of the Masks.

Star Goddess and Star God - How Sacred Sex changes over time to become a true, Divine Force to be reckoned with.

When I started this painting, I was experimenting with small abstracts and seeing how it would work if I tried to walk a more commercial route.  It was a truly useful experiment and what it taught me was that both myself and other people are happier with my work if I paint what I want to create rather than what I think people would buy.  However, at one stage whilst working on these paintings, I was at the point where I was finding it increasingly difficult to walk a more commercial path, so I sighed and placed another small blank canvas on my easel for another of these experiments but as I had nothing in mind, I let rip instead.  

This is often how I paint, I just let the energy and spirit within me dictate the creative flow and I often don't think too deeply on what first comes out.  The deeper thought processes part comes later when I am finishing whatever I am creating and this paradoxically takes longer because of the details I add.   What I came out with really surprised me, I started with an a few sweeps of the brush and then worked on them, adding details here and there until I was faced with another Star Goddess painting, but one with a rather human twist.   

Star Goddess & Star God - The Dance of the Masks. Trac Davies©

This painting, which came from two sets of swirls, depicts the Maiden side of the Goddess, the Lover side of the God,  lust, how we fall in love and what can happen afterwards if we don't pay attention to out inner self. It is about the human side of the divine archetypes that live within us.  I have always believed that we have a Goddess or God within and are all capable of great things because of this strength, which isn't always easily accessed but is there nonetheless.  The male is on bended knee so in proposal position and has just pulled a human heart from a magician's hat, which he is offering to the female.  Both are naked and resting on clouds, neither have heads and the female does not have arms, there is a ying and yang symbol that comes from them both and links them together in red and green.  

These figures depict our youthful masks and the dynamics which make those masks dance for and with each other.  When we are younger, in our intimate relationships, we can often spend so much time trying to figure out what the other wants that we forget the inner part of us and forget about developing our truth.  In some cases, this truth is put aside and in any type of relationship, This is where the partnership so often can go badly wrong.  


I will start with the male.  For this man, love is euphoric and when he falls for someone who he feels is perfect for him, he will give his all, this is depicted by the offering of his heart.  However, he is headless underlining the fact that he isn't thinking with his head at this present time.  The red part of the double ying and yang comes from the most intimate part of his body, representing both lust and the underlying and eternal inner drive to procreate and have children.  Love is so often about finding a person you think you will be able to settle down with and have children.  This is not true in all cases, just some.   
The heart comes from a magician's hat, which is black and white.  To many men, once you have found a woman you want to share your life with it all becomes very black and white, there are no shades of grey.  It usually is a case of; I want her, I love her, I want to settle down with her - it is often that simple.  He grips the hat close to him with his hand, not in the usual way by brim or base  but around the body of the hat for this is something that he cherishes.  Many men do not give their hearts or their all easily and will often try to negate how deeply they feel by holding onto themselves.  He may be offering his heart to her but he keeps hold of the container, and of course the container or the hat portrays himself.   
The male also has a little suggestion of a tail, he isn't sure if it will wag or not, will my offering be rejected?  A man in love is just like a dog with two tails!  
The man himself is red for passion, which corresponds to the woman's background.  The cloud he rests on is cloud 9, the ace of cups from the tarot rises from this cloud.  The ace of cups is made by both cloud and blue sky, it is associated with great love, joy, abundance, fertility and contentment.   The blue cloudy space between them represents reality, a zone that is neither one of them.  They both actually exist in this place but at present, they are honed in on each other so are basking in their lover's glow and this reflects back on to the other.  The ace of cups has risen from cloud 9 in this space of reality because their love is real.

The woman figure looks more simple but this is deceptive.  She is green for nurture with the red corresponding background to the man.  She rises from her own cloud and in fact is "in the clouds" rather than resting on it, this portrays that she is out of touch from her own truth at present.  She faces the man as if accepting the offer of his heart but she has no arms to reach towards the male and hands to take his offering.  
The green ying and yang comes from under her breast and on her upper thigh, which encompasses her reproductive organs and womb.  The colour inside this asymmetrical ying and yang is white, depicting the meeting of sperm and egg to make the great light in this world that is called life, what will derive from this is both known and unknown and it is part of life's great mystery.  
The drive to reproduce within this woman matches that of the man, but a woman always has to weigh the biological costs and benefits of bearing and rearing a child into the balance.  Therefore, there is a new ying and yang starting to grow lower down on the woman's thigh. This is because she is the principle caregiver.  Any future possible children are concieved within her, carried by her, grow within her, are nurtured by her and fed by her.   These two people need each other to make a child but the balance is stacked in her favour rather than his as far as proving any children are hers in biological terms.  
However, saying this, he can make many children with many different women and not have the worry about the emotional and physical cost that having a child gives whereas she is limited to only a few partners and cannot have as many children as he can.  The balance is there but could turn fragile so she has started to grow a new ying and yang, symbolising both inner balance and new growth for the recycling and renewal of herself and any future children and for plan B if plan A goes wrong.  The new symbol appears to join with the original ying and yang so takes everything into account. 

*NOTE: I am viewing this from a biological standpoint only.  The cost of carrying and rearing a child is enormous in any female of any one of the mammalian species where-as males are free to sow as much seed with very little BIOLOGICAL cost.  However, each species is different and the monogamous relationships that humans and some of the other species have should exist for the benefit of the vulnerable children of that partnership. Alas this is not always true, some people make any situation worse when they are together and this reduces any benefit towards the child rather than increasing it and in that case the principal caregiver and child are better off alone.*  

The woman's background is red, but if you look closely, you will see that there are many faces within that background where-as there is nothing in the green background of the male.  These are the faces of the woman concerned, of who she was, who she is and who she will be.  Some of these are well formed and easily identifiable as heads or faces but some are still forming and all of these heads are looking at the male.

As far as she is concerned the truth of the matter is that her figure was that of an outfit and part of her feels that all he wanted her for is what is on the outside.   She has realized than on reflection, this was her mask at that time.  When a man first meets a woman, he is so enamoured by what he sees, he does not always look that deeply at what exists within her.  Her mask is that of a perfect figure but there are no arms and no head.  Often, when a woman falls in love, she feels powerless in her youth to show a man what she really is inside of herself.  Part of this is because she is so in love she does not think it neccesary because she believes that he will always love and accept her for who she really is.  Yet often as she herself is in her youth, she is just finding out what these things are herself.  In many cases a woman will put aside the things that matter to her and what makes her heart beat, especially when it comes to meeting the man she feels is the love of her life and having children with him.  Therefore, crucial aspects of her life are left by the wayside as she explores this new emotional lansdscape.   

Yet as time goes by, her creative power, begins to flare again and this will eventually come out of the shadows with astonishing consequences all around.  Youth does not always give rise to reflection about who you are, not in the sense that is truly important.  Later on in life, we feel that our youthful figure, was like a dress. This was something we will have to take off to show our loved one who we are internally.  You see, we outgrow our outer dress, after children our figure changes and we also can lose a lot of the innocence and sometimes the youthful joy that we used to have because our lives change.   

I am talking about the dynamics that go into a relationship between two people over time.  Over the years I have spoken to various women that have told me that their husbands still want what once was, they want the woman they married, not the one that they have become and I do not mean just physically.  When I met my husband, I was a lot more carefree but now, there are other issues in life to contend with and there are more serious moments and less wild laugter, which I also find very sad.  In addition, in the past I could dress in a corset, shiny lycra leggings and thigh length boots to my hearts content, if I tried this now, I would look like a beached killer whale in high heels, after two children by two cesarean sections, this just ain't happening!  To a greater or lesser degree, we also lose the giggly side, many males are charmed by this and they are often bewildered why we are not the women they once married.  Why do we no longer laugh at their jokes, why are we not the "snuggle bunnies" we once were?  After all, it is simple, they give their hearts and so their lives for their wives and their family but what they fail to consider is that so have we and it is this giving of ourselves and of our sex that has wrought immense physical and emotional change.  

In traditional relationships, where the man is the main breadwinner, he would feel he has given his life to his wife and family.  This, in his eyes is all that matters.  But by giving his all, he loses the inner man and forgets what drew the woman to him in the first place.  There are no heads in his background because, once he stops thinking with his head he totally loses it.  Once this happens, he loses a side to him that made the woman smile, something that apart from her that gave him great joy and often he forgets to incorporate this back into his being once he has settled down.  
Because he was happy, so was she but now she views him, exhausted after work, sprawled in an armchair, just watching the television with no other interest and it saddens her.  Both want to rekindle what was lost but they are now different people. However, it isn't just other people that can define what we become but things that define us as well.  
Because the man has given his all, he has failed to consider that by giving up something that made him happy, he is less than he used to be, in her eyes.  This thing needs to be either bought back into the status-quo or something else needs to replace it, men often need a shed and inside that their toys to play with, if they don't have this they forget to laugh and this is why there is a well formed face at the bottom of the painting on her side, that is as miserable as can be.  She never wanted him to give up the things that made her partner, himself.  This is what she misses, his true self.  

However, on his side of things the face she now chooses to wear for the time being isn't what he first fell in love with.  It might well be her true face but it isn't what he first saw in her.  When this happens it can rock the marital boat enormously and it takes real strength, courage, determination and great love between them both to sort things out.  If it can be sorted, it generally it means the relationship will be a stronger and happier one because she is now being who she really is and if he has the thing that makes him happy, so can he but they both have to accept the other for who they really are.  Then all will be well and good, things can flourish for them and they can grow together again.

Relationships are never easy, as a couple, we give so much to the other and lose what we were and often there might be a time in a couple's progress down life's bumpy road together, where we waste time trying to be what we once were.  This is not the same as becoming or accepting who we are now.  We do not have to lose certain and essential things but there are some things, youth and beauty predominant in many cases, that are lost and have to be so that we can become what we really are at another stage in life. 


Further Reading:

Women's Psychology:

Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman.  (1992).  Clarissa Pinkola Estés Ph.D. Publisher: Rider & Co.

Burning Woman. (2016).  Lucy H. Pearce. Womancraft Publishing 

These above books are ones that I constantly re-read.  I have had many eureka moments whilst reading them.  Sometimes with the same sentence which caused one eureka moment whilst cause another when I have read it on a different day.   

 Men's Psychology:

Iron John: A Book About Men. (2001) Robert Bly. Publishers: Rider & Co; Ebury Publishing.

I will admit to knowing very little about men's psychology.  This book is a must for all modern day men, psychology has moved on from what we were taught in our youth.

Relationship Psychology:

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships: How to Get What You Want in Your Relationships. (1992). John Gray. Publishers: Harper and Collins

Evolutionary Biology and Sociobiology

Mother Nature: Natural Selection and the Female of the Species. (1999). Sarah Blaffer-Hrdy. Publisher: Chatto and Windus.

This is a singular book, which I have read a couple of times and keep meaning to pick up again.  In this book, Hrdy has argued the evolution is driven and controlled by the female of the species.  In addition, she has debunked the belief that all  mothers are the nurturing care-givers. Across history there have been mothers that have been less than caring in their approach and this book covers them all as far as I can ascertain.  I have added this book to the reading list because it covers the trade-offs that both potential and actual mothers make.

There are many other papers that have been written about the cost of child-bearing and child rearing and I know that biology will have moved on somewhat since 1999, so there will papers more relevant to the world as it is today.  I have included these links for the interest, unfortunately, I have forgotten more than I have included so any holes in the knowledge are entirely my own.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3zArAAAAYAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA370&dq=cost+and+benefit+analysis+of+childbearing+and+child+rearing+academic&ots=dH_5oEiJbP&sig=ZJKz_3ap4s6lJ6tHEHSxoiySCtU#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3153297/Haig_GeneticConflictHUmanPregnancy.pdf
http://bixby.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Sex-and-the-Birth-rate-03.99.pdf



My work can also be viewed at:

http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
http://www.redbubble.com/people/tracdavies
http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/tracdaviesartist 
https://www.facebook.com/TracDaviesArtist
https://twitter.com/tracdavies
https://www.tsu.co/TracDaviesArtist

Trac Davies - Artist ©