The Dance of the Nebulae - Society's Expectations and Inner Reality.

The Dance of the Nebulae - Different classical representations of women & what she really should be.

Recently I have covered a lot about the divine feminine, it is something that has always fascinated me and is my attempt to balance things up from my own perspective. However I personally feel that all sexes or whatever we choice to be is divine & deserves respect. I have covered this subject extensively  in my blog http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/05/the-changing-face-of-sacred-feminine.html

I have had a fascination for the wild woman aspect of the feminine since I was a little girl, it was probably another reason why I never fitted into the social norms of others because I did not hold with the fact that boys were more important or better than girls and nor did I feel they had any more rights than I did.  At 5 years old it is hard to put these feelings into words but my questions & observations were not appreciated by my teachers or other authorities that held social norms close to their mindset and hearts.

As I grew & time went by I came to the realisation that many woman in other families apart from my own seemed rather repressed in themselves.  I have always been who I am so I am far from perfect.  I make mistakes, I sometimes misunderstand a situation, I misread people or I miss the message altogether.  I try not to hurt other people but know that I have, it is usually unintentional or when I am defending myself but at times my temper has got the better of me & I have told someone exactly how I feel and have regretted it afterwards.  This is all part of growing & it occurs throughout a lifetime.  

However, as I grew I saw that many woman and girls were expected to be 'Nice Girls'.  This is a phrase that sets my teeth on edge even now, what the hell is a 'Nice Girl'?  Is a 'Nice Girl' someone who has to do what others want?  Is it what she dresses in?  Is it her behaviour & manners? 'Nice girls don't do that'; I was often told, usually with the nasty inflection on the tone of my teacher's voice that I wasn't one of those 'Nice Girls' and would never be one either.  As a youngster, I tried so hard to be that sort of girl, one that who was acceptable like the other 'Nice Girls' at school but I never did get to that stage & whatever I did was never enough.  

As a teenager I rebelled again this expectation, how dare THEY tell ME who I was supposed to be? Who did THEY think THEY were! So I would do everything in my power out of sheer devilment to be a 'Bad Girl'.  Sometimes I had a lot of fun, sometimes I ended up in deep shit, usually both at the same time but whatever the outcome of these adventures, I learnt an awful lot and it helped me balance out when true adulthood did arrive.  Yet what is adulthood?  I have always believed that we are all at a funny age, whatever age we are and sometimes when we are under severe stress, adulthood takes a long hike and we can all revert to being what we were & how we felt as young children and when that happens it often isn't pretty. 
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/02/emotions-accepting-rough-with-smooth.html

Repression of the inner wild woman can often lead to these inner conflicts that give rise to any number of confusing messages from any individual in adulthood.  Many of us have been conditioned to be 'Nice Girls' throughout our lives & this is sometimes hard to overcome, especially when boys do things like lift up your skirt and you are told as a child by teachers or their parents that they are 'just being boys' & this is what 'boys sometimes do so stop making such a fuss over nothing'.  What the hell is all that about? This leads to the belief that you are not a 'Nice Girl' & somehow it is your fault that a boy has lifted up your skirt and that boys can do the hell what they like with you whereas you have to be 'Nice' and just take this behaviour on the chin!  This is just one example of an inner conflict that arises & how it leads to bigger conflict later on in life. 

If the wild woman is repressed and has been for some time, taking bad behaviour from badly bought up 'boys' can occur throughout their lifetime. All through my life I have watched ladies from every social stratum, their inner battle to me are plastered all over their faces, although they are never aware of this.  How they struggle with their lot in life, how they squirm sorting out the cleaning at the local church when in reality going to church was their husband's need not theirs & how they died inside each time their husbands made a sexist joke & thought he was ever so witty as she would grind her teeth and 'smile'.  Forced laughter is  habitual in these circumstances but if looks could kill these men would have been 6 feet under in a flash.  Every town, city & village has situations like these, with a woman caught in up the assumptions of others, quietly dying under a social expectation that was never hers to fulfil.  Some women are content with their lot, cleaning their church & their husband's tasteless jokes so they fit their own social expectation & are happy in that role but many are not & nor should they be & most women go through these scenarios at some stage of their lives.  Some accept it, some kick up a stink until it changes and others leave.

We all pick up the conditioning that has been dished out to us and as this leads to inner conflict it is bound to flood out & over the boundaries of the human mind.  Both men and woman act as conditioning has taught them and it is a brave person that faces their own conditioning and questions what they have been taught.  As adults we choice who we become but in some cases we must break our childhood conditioning to do it and this is easier said then done.   But how does The Dance of the Nebulae relate to all of this?  I have, of course, related this to a woman's point of view.

The Dance of the Nebulae

The Dance of the Nebulae depicts the daily struggle that women have with outer and inner, as well as social  expectations.  I will start to the left of this painting, women have many mountains to climb because there is always this social expectation that they will be 'Nice Girls'. So therefore I have painted mountains in the background, with one mountain that is prominent amongst the rest.  All of these mountains represent the slippery slopes that women have to climb to be what society expects her to be but the prominent mountain is the one that is being climbed at this moment in time by the angel.  

 The angel is perfect in many ways to behold, she is what society thinks a woman should be like but you will see that her arms are wings and she has no hands at all.  This depicts how a woman sometimes feels, her hands are tied when it comes to being what she wants to be because society wants her to be a 'Nice Girl' & focus on everything else expect herself. In addition, a woman feels that she HAS to be what society feels she should be, instead of what she knows she really is.  Her nakedness in this case exposes how vulnerable this makes her feel.  She is not accepted for who she is and sometimes the ones she loves the most do most damage, despite the fact that she has given those she loves her all & shown them everything she can.  Her hair is depicted by the energy that leaves her but this is conflicted energy, torn between trying to please and wanting to be.  Women feel frazzled when they are caught in between these two horns of imperative & the energy that leaves a woman in these times can be felt by all, almost static electricity as she battles within, trying to retain equilibrium and her true self.  Her eyes are dark pits absorbing everything as she tries to find herself but these have a twinkle for this is not in vain.  The two energy swirls by her feet are her attempts to reach out to what is hers, what her true being really wants out of life.  Because she is struggling with her inner conflicts these whorls do not reach out in straight lines.  The inner search to find yourself for anybody rarely goes in a straight line, questions tangle and loop around themselves and often there is a lot of backtracking, depicting that on the surface she is going nowhere fast but inside he is making great progress for the lines of the most important of these energy swirls show that there is more activity within rather than on their surface. 

In the middle of this painting there are two energy forms that dance and sway, these depict the masculine and feminine & this is part of what the angel is contemplating.   Inside their swirls there exist different places which although connected to who they are, depicts the ability to give rise to new life that has a form different to their own.  The crescent moon depicts mystery for sexual attraction & love is often is a mysterious and at times baffling process.  In the middle of these dancing forms is Glastonbury Tor, the sun is rising and shows a figure at the top of the Tor, shadows are cast for they always are from whatever we do.  The deeper areas of sky show that the morning sky is part of the Lady of Avalon, the Goddess & mist rises from her to the moon.  This part of the painting demonstrates how everything is connected  as above so below but also reminds the viewer that the sexual act should be considered sacred.

The far right of the painting  shows a hill.  On the top is planet earth, the white lines surrounding it depicts the ozone layer but at the top there is a hole & the energies from space are seeping through.  We also see that on the edges of the ozone layer, the space energies interact, giving the layer many hues.  The layer also covers the hills, showing that we are protected from the energy that resides in space & as it is the layer itself that pushes out it depicts that at present this layer is still strong but the hole in the top is a warning that this will not last forever.  
The hill is almost an abstract version of the Tor & inside, under the different layers in a sacred space a Goddess resides.  She is the true woman that resides inside of the questing angel. She is of sacred sexuality, true passion that comes from a deep inner calling and her light is so great that not everyone can look upon it.  
The inner Goddess of all of us women has no face & needs no face as her energy is vast and eternal.  Therefore, her 'human' form is almost deformed & it is only the people with social norms that have given her breasts, to underline that she is a sexual being not a sacred one and in some religions she is viewed as not to be trusted & the downfall of mankind.  However, she is of her own sex, rather than sex just for the sake of it & has no need of a body, she just is & always has been & her beauty is raw and elemental.  She has fire on her hands and her face is one of flames and light, although if you look you can see the outline of her eyes within the white heat.  She dances in her flame & is glorified by her own energy & stands in ecstasy in deep red flame that is golden on the edges.  This represents the primal flame,  the original source for us all and it is both light and dark but it is sacred.  Sex & sexuality should always be sacred & this is often forgotten & so it stays deeply repressed, especially under the false lies of what a patriarchal society says it is.  
There is an egg which is blue & white in between these flames of primal passion that burn deep red.  This egg depicts 2 things, reproduction and subsequent birth and also transformation & rebirth.  Once a woman faces her own inner light, transformation of some kind has to occur & life can no longer be lived in the same way that it has been in the past.  Sometimes this process is fast but more often these changes ponderously occur over a longer stretch of time, accompanied by deep yearning but once self-realisation hits in, it is only a matter of time before things start moving in a completely different direction.  From the egg white light beams out for all birth is sacred, inner, outer, physical, spiritual and psychological.  The light goes up from the source of the egg, through the Goddess, passes by earth & into the dancing Nebulae that will be there long after the human race as gone.

It is this scene that gives the Angel a twinkle in her eye, she has glimpsed her true inner self & realises that she does not have to be a 'Nice Girl' she just has to be herself.  So she raises her wings in preparation to fly to this part of her as she has not considered that it is already there, inside of her.  The twinkle is self-acceptance & the knowledge that she can be herself & not have to live up to social expectations.  The whole painting is connected by light, lines and swirls and the different skies that are depicted show that under every sky, all is connected, everything.  As above, so below.

 Additional blogs that relate to this subject:
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/05/the-changing-face-of-sacred-feminine.html
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/02/emotions-accepting-rough-with-smooth.html
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/04/stages-of-changing-woman-hood.html
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2014/12/the-inner-wild-woman.html

 

My work can also be viewed at:

http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
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http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
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Trac Davies - Artist © 

The Changing Face of the Sacred Feminine

Definition of the The Sacred Feminine & its Control by Other people that are not so Sacred!

Throughout my life, I have always felt the need to promote the sacred feminine.  I do not feel that one sex is any better than the other but as I grew up I realised that the masculine in our society in some places appeared more revered than that of the feminine and so this need is to basically to balance things up from my own perspective.  Even in this day and age I still see that a vast number of different types of people that prefer male babies, revere masculine ideals, follow chauvinistic concepts such as the woman's place is in the home & that a man has a "right" to have sex with every woman when he does not.  I find this revolting, I always have done & it is difficult to accept.  This transgression against the feminine can go from mass rape & murder of women and children to abuse in religion to controlling what women wear & do.  
There have been many different reports regarding the abuse of children and women in certain religions, it is not just one religion & it is a repulsive reminder that many people use the Church for their own personal power.  The reason these people do is deplorable and never anything to do with any of the spiritual tenets.  It astonishes & horrifies me how religious organistions harbour criminals, silencing the already-scared victims & appear to whole-heartily support the offender.  This behaviour is inexcusable but still it seems to continue as if it is "normal."

Regarding what clothes women and girls wear, many people would think of the Burka worn by Muslim women which may be worn either by the woman's or by male choice.  However, this level of control is also applicable in the west & there have been some reports of girls at college being excluded for what they have worn rather than boys being taught that it is their responsibility to control their sexual urges.  A woman should be able to wear what she wants, it should not matter to the male sex because self-control is all & necessary.

It is laughable in this day and age that there are still small-minded people that cannot see this larger truth, that it is down to us as parents to teach our children this fundamental but rather basic concept.  Some of this problem can stem from some religious ideas, fundamentalism in whatever form is ugly and has nothing to do with faith and has everything to do with control over everyone else except yourself.  Sometimes conditioning comes into play, I personally do not know one man that will happily clean the toilet as this is viewed as women's work - even if both partners work, in a heterosexual relationship women do tend to clean the loo!  In addition, there are still some men in this world that believe a woman is a possession whether within or outside any form of relationship.  In some places of the world women and children are raped on a daily basis & they have no rights regarding either the rape, their bodies or the termination of any pregnancy & some die shortly afterwards.  Even Universities in the west are not safe from sexual assault and there have been many reports where sexual harassment, assault and rape has increased but has not been recorded, reported to the authorities so the crime is unpunished.

Yet "Ownership" can go the other way, In some parts of the USA there are the Purity Balls where a daughter promises her father that she will remain a virgin until she is married and her father promises her that he will protect her mind, body and soul so that she DOES remain chaste.  I do not see any teenage males at these affairs, it is all teenage girls and the fact that they are promising their fathers that they will remain chaste until after marriage is not healthy.  Again it this is all about control, nobody has the right to call their child or their sexuality a possession, she has a right to explore it under her own terms when that time is right & does Daddy also choose his daughter's husband as well?   For a young woman to grow and develop having control over their own sex life is all important.  Once she is at an age where sexual intercourse is possible it should be her choice who she sleeps with, not the boy who shows no self-control when viewing her in class or anywhere else, not a controlling & over-protective father and not anyone else.

Lightbringer Series - 
Illumination from the Depths - Rebirth Trac Davies© .

In the 1980's I became a feminist & I have watched how it has changed over the years along with the concept of what  equal rights mean.  At present there are issues because feminism, which is a basic right to equality between the sexes is parodied and placed into a stereotypical box, turned into something that it never was  & thus the culture of controlling equal rights is targeted.  However, feminism in 2015 has both more female and male supporters than in did in the 1980's & all state inequality that they have had to deal with either on a daily basis or in certain situations.  Sometimes the inequality concerns those that have certain viewpoints of what men and women should be, sometimes it is to do with abusive issues either in relationships or with bullying, sometimes it involves  transgender people.  Many are exploring Transgenderism much more openly & gender is no longer viewed as clear cut as it once appeared.  There have been children who insist from a very early age that they are not what they were born as & are unhappy if forced to remain as this sex.  In addition, many adults of both sexes do not feel the same restrictions upon their gender as they did in their own childhoods.  So feminism now covers equality for everyone, whatever sex they feel themselves to be.

Lightbringer - Trac Davies©

My point now is that we all sacred, whatever sex we choose to be and that we all deserve respect and equality.  This is something that I have discussed before but there seems to be a culture where some people are treating other people and animals as things.  This is where the true evil lies, we are not things, we are living, feeling beings, we are not here for anyone's entertainment, we are not here to be used, or told who we are and what we should be.  I feel very strongly about this, I dismiss the toxicity of those that feel people should be straight-jacketed, that they should be what they are, that they should be "normal".  who has the right to say what "normal" is, who would really know?  Those that gossip and slander others should know better than to do this, it is a deep toxic pit, a trap of their own psyche, not of anyone that they are discussing & they will drown in their own toxicity and deserve everyones pity.  

 
Please be patient, I'm rebranding. 

My work can also be viewed at:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
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http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
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Some links I have included that are examples of what I have discussed in this blog:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/exjehovahs-witness-schoolgirl-exposes-organisation-as-a-religion-that-destroys-lives-10273064.html

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canadian-student-given-detention-over-inappropriate-dress-attacks-discrimination-against-womens-bodies-in-facebook-post-10249023.html

  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stepfather-arrested-in-pregnant-10yearold-rape-case-1023http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/britains-elite-universities-dont-fully-record-allegations-of-rape-or-sexual-assault-10274020.html9112.html

  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-burns-woman-alive-for-refusing-to-engage-in-extreme-sex-act-un-says-10272832.html

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_ball
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
 http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/23/media-transgender-people-bbc-radio-one
 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/25/transgender-children-gender-identity-bigots-media

The Watchtowers - The Watchtower of the West.

The Watch Tower of the West - Or how mere mortals feel the Call or the intense pull from; *That feeling we get when we look to the west.*

 

The Watchtower of the West was the first in this series of four.  I completed this painting in July 2010 & it is the one Watchtower that most calls to me, pulling both heart and soul towards the place I have painted.  
I first envisioned this painting when completing the Flight of the Hamsters & was going to call it The Eye of the Needle.  However, when I started the painting, I kept thinking that the 'needle' looked like an elemental being & decided against calling it by its original name because it didn't fit the painting.  I realised that it reminded me of one of the Watchtowers of Paganism, thus the Watchtower of the West was born. 

In Paganism, Watchtowers are the Spirit Guardians of the four cardinal points, although some believe that they are the abodes of the Guardians.  I have included a link to Wikipedia for a further, more thorough explanation of the Watchtowers, for there are many versions of what they are but Goddesses, Gods, spirits, animals and angels have been Watchtowers for the cardinal points. 

Westwards always speaks of the sea to me, of rocky shores, of coastal paths, of arches in cliffs but there is also a feel of travel with the western watchtower.  Of journeys that have started or ended, of ones that are being undertaken, of outer and inner journeys, of the shamanic or spiritual path.  The West to me also lingers in echos of freedom and spirit.  

I have various feelings about the cardinal points, for instance the South is heat, fire, energy etc; but I have always felt the pull of attraction West.  Perhaps human beings are much like homing pigeons in that they hear or feel the magnetic fields & physically navigate towards where their heart & soul feels it should go.

The Watchtower of the West - Trac Davies© .

Every journey, whether internal or external needs a guardian but the Western Watchtower is disguised as a pinnacle of rock. This elemental being always feels female to me but that could be because I painted it & am one myself. Her "arms" are in a somewhat protective position, which is indicative of self-protection, which in any journey we need to have, but they also look like they have something in them. This "something" is the secret of success for each person that looks upon the Western Watchtower and so what she hides is secret but personal to each person. The Watchtower is camouflaged and has algae on it so to a casual observer looks like a craggy needle but her "needle's", ever-open eye sees everything but she is silent, says nothing and keeps your secrets and is watchful over you on whatever journey you are on.

This Watchtower, if one looks into the distance, faces a corresponding pinnacle.  This pinnacle will be the total opposite,  a male to her female for example, thus depicting balance & equality but it also serves another purpose.  It is a natural gateway for travellers to depart and return through.  The sea is choppy for no journey in life is ever completely smooth and if one is you can expect a rougher time of it with the return or next voyage for circumstances, like the sea are in perpetual change.  

The archway signifies different dimensions, these could be a different place or mind set, but it also signifies permanence.  When we travel to different places in body, mind and soul, we travel through permanence.  The Western Watchtower and her counterpart are indicative of this but so is the archway & the cliffs.  Different states of being are birthed from actual conditions that we live in, our body houses mind and soul but it has to experience the permanence of this world before any changes to the inner or outer states can occur.

My work can also be viewed at:

 

http://www.artfinder.com/trac-davies
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TracDaviesArtist
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http://tracdavies.deviantart.com/   
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*Taken from: Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Link to explain Watchtowers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchtower_%28magic%29
Link to explain Homing Pigeons & Magnetoreception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoception

Trac Davies - Artist ©

Enough! Seeing Things from the Other Side.

Enough!  Seeing things from the other person's point of view and realising that they are also human & are just trying to do the best they can with what they have been given.

This painting is another one that goes off the beaten track as it is my first truly surrealistic piece.  I have always had a real fascination for surrealistic art, Dali has always been a firm favourite of mine, I love the symbolism & hidden messages that I see and I have always wanted to paint surrealistic art myself.  I have had a few ideas, which have been shelved for the time being but something significant happened to a friend of mine that finally got me truly inspired and I want to relate her story & explain the painting.

Many years ago, before I moved to France I worked in Social Services as a PA for the Children and Families Division.  I worked through an Agency & had six different part-time jobs in various departments, so I saw life & the work that was being undertaken from the bottom-up & top-down.

It was here I met a good friend.  She is kind, practical, with a huge heart and very loyal, a little bossy at times but very gifted at many things.  At that time, she was a Family Worker & had been working in this area of work for over 20 years.  A Family Worker tends to work with the families that need help or assistance in some way.  She assesses parenting capacity and uses family therapy skills to discover what is needed & what she can do to help each individual family.  She liaises with social workers and other members of the social team or other departments in Social Services and provides assistance for both parents and children.  She also helps assess the situation in the home & although her work is preventative, she sometimes has to assess whether the child is at risk and whether the family needs to be referred to the Child Protection team or if the child needs to go into emergency foster care whilst the situation is being resolved.   I worked with her over 12 years ago & in the intervening years, many things have changed in social work but what I will say is this lady was the right person for this line of work, she was empathetic and genuinely cared about the people she worked with, her work was intuitive & people-based, rather than paper-work  or financially based.  

As a child in the 1970's I remember the fear of the social worker visiting your house and "taking you away".  My parents never spoke of Social Services, but I can recall that this was one of the horror stories that we were told at school by our teachers, which frightened us all witless & ensured we all behaved ourselves.  Nobody ever really explained that in general you wouldn't get a social worker banging on your door anyway, so this fear stayed in the background of my mind until I worked in Social Services myself and saw things for myself.

What I saw changed my views considerably.  I came across a team that worked well together across the area - despite any differences they might have.  I met people who genuinely cared and would get really very stressed if things were not going in the right direction for the families involved, especially the children.  In some teams, they dealt with the assessments & some of the reports on individuals that I typed up were utterly heart-rending & were worse once the Child Protection Team were involved.  I cannot repeat details and would not but some of the cases still haunt me all these years on.  I also saw the conditions that the staff had to work under, the risks that were posed to themselves, from nits to scabies, from a room full of smoke from cannabis such as skunk to hypodermic needles lying on the floor where a baby crawled, from clutter & dirt to absolute filth and rats & from threats to actual physical violence, the social work team saw it all and were accustomed to more things than their education prepared them for.

My friend had not trained as a social worker, although many referred to her because of her vast knowledge.  She has dyslexia & Social Services were not prepared to pay for assistance for her.  The test alone went from £250 & so she found my services very handy because I am rather good at deciphering what she was saying.  She was happy in her job as a family worker although sometimes the stresses of the work got to her, she managed to cope better than most.  

However, there came a day a few years back that Social services in that area was totally restructured.  At the time, my friend was in hospital for a minor operation & had other other things going on in her personal life.  She received the forms, but groggy due to the medication and her ongoing personal circumstances meant that when she read the forms, they were not self-explanatory.  She put down her choices for what she would like to do and for some very obscure reason ended up with her third choice, which was something she had not done before and was front line work, the job description is as follows:

Family Engagement Worker.

Staff to work on the front line of Social Services gathering background  information from parents, school, doctor or hospital, nursery,  housing &  CAMHS (Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services).  All information put onto a  assessment form. Once assessment form completed, worker to arrange family meetings at 6-weekly intervals and record all this on the computer system.  Staff to fill  other additional forms regarding each case.  Once forms completed, processed & recorded onto the computer system, staff to create a weekly summary of  work progress  and visit.  This does not have to be done every week, but the primary visit has to take place within 24 hours of the original incident.  In addition, staff to cover duty reception once a week for the duration of the day.  Any calls that come in regarding the families already known  or any new family which require attention to be dealt with, up to and including the  removal of children, all of which would require recording on that day on paper, this would then have to be recorded onto the computer system.  It is obligatory for all staff to  be involved in and attend training  & staff meetings, this includes  staff systemic discussion & personal supervision. 

This summary was written by my friend, as you can see it is nothing like what she had just spent the last 30 odd years doing so it was a shock to her to be given her third choice but this wasn't the best bit.  The structure re-haul meant that nobody under management had admin staff, so all paperwork, reports, reception duties, etc were to be undertaken by the staff.  Therefore, my friend who worked part-time at 24 hours a week, & who had 19 - 25 children on her books to work with, had to do all of the admin work and as there are only so many hours in the day it was not all getting done.  Now onto the painting. 

 

Enough! - Trac Davies©

Some people that have seen this have said that on some level they can relate to this painting.  It is about the stresses and strains that pull us apart & we all have to endure in our daily lives; but I shall explain it from my friend's point of view  because many people do not really know what the social work team have to do and what they put up with. 

Although this painting is not of my friend it is indicative of someone who works in the field of social work.  The neck is strained because of the amount of contorting a person has to do to see, hear & understand all.  In addition, sometimes staff do have to put their necks on the line & the pressure this puts on a person is enormous & deeply affects the health of any one individual.   The head is bald indicative that the person has torn his or her hair out in sheer frustration, not only to do with any one case but the processes that go on and also the politics.  Office politics in social services are rife, there are many decent people there that want to do much for others but there is always at least one person in any office who are in the job for their own ends & these people do not care who they trample on their way up the "corporate ladder", client or colleague.  These are the people that do social services no favours thus adding extra strain onto the already over-pressured staff. 

The hands that pull on the mouth of this person distort the lips into a sharp downward curve, this depicts the unhappiness that is felt because of the stresses of the job.  The feminine hand was my friend's manager, who micro-managed her whole team beyond endurance.  Many people left this team because of this behaviour & because they could no longer bear the stress of being deskilled and diminished in the workplace.  The other hand is that of both other professional or of adult clients, who demanded her attention.  The child's hand also pulls and pulls most fiercely because it is the children that are felt the most.  The christening bracelet had dropped and stretched the arm into a cage, where the parents are trapped.  having children is a wonderful joyous event but when circumstance go against you, this event can become joyless and you can feel trapped in parenthood.  So here, these parents for whatever reasons have felt trapped by their baby or child, they look longingly out of the "cage" but they do not stand together and are facing opposite directions either trying to find a way out or a solution. 

Both ears are long from the effort of having to listen to everyone and have been pinned back with a tack and there is a old fashioned telephone and a smart phone earring with a mouth situated on the lobes.  You have to have your ears pinned back for ALL information at all times & so this part of the painting has been depicted as thus.  The mouths are all female because they are the ones that tend to do most of the talking & have more trust in the process.  The chin has been pulled down  by telephonic cable attached to a red phone with an egg and talking sperm at the bottom of the painting.  There is a red  fingerprint on the egg and a mouth on the sperm talking into a red telephone - red because of the urgency and danger that goes with these conversations.  Also, a lot of cases that are dealt with are historical, events repeat time and time again so before a child is born, they may well take the same steps as their parents and grandparents and indeed a manager once told me that she was now working with 3 & 4th generation families and the mistakes just kept getting repeated with each generation.  This is what is so disheartening to people working in social services thus pulling the chin down, that whatever preventative steps they take to help the children and families in need, many families never leave the abuse cycles that they live in & have been born into.

The nose has also been distorted, one nostril by a tightrope, my friend felt she was walking  tightrope everyday with her manager and some of the cases she was involved in as well.  The other nostril has been pulled by money, not only the need to earn but also by budget-cuts.  There is no money in this service now, hence why most admin staff have been cut.  There are teams that do not have a permanent office, they hot desk in whatever office they can find, there has been no permanence and so money has been a huge overwhelming factor in whatever has been dictated in so many people's lives, not only on the social team but also the resources available for the families they work with.

The hook that pulls at tears at the skin, thus making it bleed on the other side to that of the baby's hand is that of the pain that is left with dealing in cases that involve severe abuse.  Dealing with these cases can tear into you and many empathise to the point where the pain of the situation is felt.  I have portrayed this as a hook because it often comes from the most surprising of places & catches you out.  It comes out of nowhere but once it is known about, it pulls and tears at your heartstrings & the stress & pain of this shown on your face.

the vision of this person has been distorted because on one eye a family in need pull at the vision as if in a tug-of-war and on the other eye you have a social worker, a manager, a policeman & a judge.  The vision can be distorted with so many people pulling at what you have observed & it is necessary to have a  clear-sighted head at all times.  The policeman and judge are at the back of this tug-of-war because they are not always involved in every case & so join the team as and when they are needed, of course these people could be just as well a doctor or teacher or another professional that is involved with any particular case.

At the top of the painting, the sky is orange to depict the rising sun, The dawning of a situation whether for good or bad always occurs.  The head retains all conversations as the mouth depicts on the top & there is also a tack here, pinning the top of the head up, stretching the brain to accommodate all that has & is been said and what is discovered and already known about.  As the forehead is always related to the brain, it was what had to be kept in mind with each individual case & all of these things pull at both brain & attention.  

There is the amount of paperwork produced, some which was unnecessary.  A book that was a lifetime's worth of knowledge also has to be kept in mind but it is pinned shut until  it is needed.  The scales relates to the justice system.  They are on fire because sometimes, despite all efforts and best intentions mistakes are made and justice is not done & sometimes tragedies occur because there are always those that somehow slip through the net.  
The figure on the swing with long white hair depicts the freedom of childhood & their pure energy.  It also depicts what had to be observed and KNOWN so that a child's freedom is right and just and not in any way abused.  The woman with the fiery hair is a woman that has undergone abuse, she sits perched right on the edge because often in this line of work adults come along that sometimes need to be talked away from the edge and helped down into the better reality because the pain of abuse burns very brightly and can take over a person's life.  

A door appears black and white, as many things do but is actually in shades of grey.  This head had to open these doors of knowledge to enter the real ones, nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors, not even people that work closely with a family can know everything.   However, what has to be taken into account as this door opens, is that there are children behind it, painting their world into existence with sticky finger-prints on the walls & by their presence alone and they are the most important people to help of all. 

Finally there are the tears, these I have left last because it needs to be said that many people that work within Social Services are feeling this way and the tears are pain, frustration, stress and hurt as each and every person that cares feels pulls apart & betrayed by the system they work in & that means the whole system is actually close to collapse.

 

My work can also be viewed at:
 
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Trac Davies - Artist ©

Stages of a Changing Woman-Hood.

The Star Goddess and Child. The Birth of the 4th Soul-Generation, The Celebration of the Crone as She Enters a New Dimension.

For some time I have wanted to write a blog about the Star Goddess series that I have so-far painted.  I am going to cover the aspects of the second painting, which goes by the title The Star Goddess and Child. The Birth of the 4th Soul-Generation, The Celebration of the Crone as She Enters a New Dimension, but I first have to discuss a little about the first & third paintings.  The problem I face with this is that 2 out of three of the paintings are more abstract but the second is not.  The first of the paintings flowed from my paintbrush & was created without me really thinking about it.  I love it when paintings are created like that & often the message that I want to get across seems to be understood that much easier.  

Star Goddess & Child Maintaining the Balance of the Universal Energy Flow Trac Davies© .

   A lot of my abstract work flows like this and I end up with shapes and faces that I didn't plan but were painted there anyway.  The third of the paintings was actually finished before the second.  It was another one that flowed through me and was completed fairly quickly.  

Star Goddess & Child Contemplating the Universal Tides of Passion Trac Davies© .

But the second of these paintings deserve a little more explanation rather than as a representation of the weft and weave of time, energy and inner and outer states as the first and third paintings depict.  

The second Star Goddess painting was one I have had to think about, even after I painted it, after a conversation I had with a French friend.  She liked the second Star Goddess painting & I was trying to explain to her that they were the four stages of a woman's life, she asked me if I meant generations of women in the same family but I didn't and at that time I didn't quite know how to put it across.

Star Goddess and Child. The Birth of the 4th Soul-Generation, The Celebration of the Crone as She Enters a New Dimension

At first glance this does appear to be generational, the archetype of mother, maiden & crone except there is the baby, the newborn Star Goddess in her purest state.  To me, each of these women are the same one, just at a different stage of life and each stage is transformational in its own right.  They are not related, but they are all She, the Goddess that strives to be heard in every woman at each transformative stage in her life.  

 I will start with the Star Maiden, the link here between fire, spring and the Goddess Brigid has been underlined with fire & dance.  I tend to paint wild hair to depict the divine but somewhat primal energy and the hair on the Star Maiden's head burns fiercely and almost appears that of an explosion.  Her hair burns with such intensity because it is indicative of the rising sap of the springtime plants and that of passion & natural forces that drive such desires. These elements of spring and youth resonate most strongly with this woman. I have also painted her pubic hair as fire because this stage of life is usually the most passionate for a woman.  Many women have mentioned to me that sexual intensity burns the brightest and fiercest in this era, for the maiden just really meant that of an unmarried woman who had not had children.  This is true in the sense that once children come along, a woman finds it hard to divide her energy between that of her child's needs & of her own.  Her child always comes first and a woman usually accepts her lot with resignation but with new purpose and contentment, although it is often hard for her partner if she has one, to understand why.  So for this moment, the maiden dances with joy, feeling no shame in her nudity, her passion & desire burning brightly and her energy appearing to be never-ending.  There is a look of ecstasy on her face but also one of joyful amazement as this stage of life is full of intense and wonderful surprises!  Her message is to enjoy every experience, whilst youthful energy & passion last.

 The Star Mother comes next, often many artists will paint a pregnant woman but I have painted one with a newborn child and there are many profound reasons for this.  We all know that pregnancy changes us in many ways, our body changes, our emotions are usually all over the place.  I found my brain was not in the right place at all, this is also linked with hormonal changes and I found myself drifting off a lot of the time.  However, this tenancy to reside in Lala land was truly underlined when I was pregnant with my daughter.  I now live in France but at that time, we had only been here for three months & I didn't speak French.  So, living in another country, speaking no French and learning a very different culture to that of my own was really hard but being pregnant it was almost impossible because I was 39, pregnant and I found I could not concentrate to learn the things I needed to survive in another country.  Pregnancy does change us but the birth of a child changes a woman in deeper and profound ways that can be overlooked at the time.  21 years ago I gave birth to my son, 5 months after the birth I started re-educating, which led to me taking a degree in biology.  This was a huge change for me and it has changed my life and ways of thinking enormously.  At 40 years old I had my daughter, not long after she was born I found myself going back towards creative pursuits.  Again, I was changed in a deep and profound manner.  Summing this up, when a woman has a child, new aspects of herself are also born.  At first, these aspects show themselves tentatively, a small pebble in the pool of subconscious reasoning, but once that pebble is dropped the ripples  go on forever.  So, we don't just have to consider the birth of the child, a new being but the birth of a new woman and this happens each time she has a child.  Childbirth changes a woman more-so than the pregnancy.  Here the Star Mother has no face, because she is now a mystery to herself & to others, no-one, including herself will know how the birth of her child will change her.  She also has a halo for hair because at this stage of childbirth and delivery, the woman is a true Goddess in every sense of the word but her energies are more focused on the child rather than her own personal development.  Every child born is a star child, a divine creature but so is the mother.  She has carried this morsel of life for 9 long months, she has made life with her partner, she has felt and watched it grow from within and birthed it.  There are some aspects of childbirth here that I do not feel qualified to comment on because I have had 2 Cesarean sections for my children as I can reach the third stage of labour but I can't progress beyond that point.  I do know that it must be like squeezing  a watermelon out of a keyhole & I also know that when women birth their children naturally, they tend to recover from the birthing process much faster.  It takes longer after surgery and stomach muscles are never the same again afterwards.  But the sense of overwhelming love and fierce pride that overtakes a woman's senses once she first sees her child is totally overwhelming and even though you are tired and sore, you feel part of the divine when you look upon your child & this feeling is the same whether you have naturally birthed it or had surgery.   The message from the Star Mother is to adapt, to nurture & to accept the new self as well as that of your new child.

Touching on the subject of the new Star Goddess, she is in her purest state, full of the potential of life & so shining at her brightest.  Her radiant energy reaches outwards as she connects with the living world but this state is one of total innocence and trust.  She has no preconceived ideas about what life is and her place within it, She just is.  This state of being, as many Gurus will tell you is the most difficult in life to reach but they reason that as we have already attained this state of mind, albeit in a newborn sense, we could, with practise attain it again.  Therefore, the message of this phase of life is just to be, have no preconceptions & expect nothing.  However, as any mother knows children constantly need love and attention as well as feeding, changing, bathing and burping!  We all know that babies expect this but as a newborn, whilst they are focusing on the new world around them there are none of these expectations so the message of the newly born Star Goddess can only be viewed from that point. 

The Crone

At last we reach the Star Crone, As the title suggests we are celebrating the Star Crone entering a new dimension.  She is enclosed in the oval of the piscis vesica which is part of another time & place, but as yet she has not entered the next dimension.  Her stare is almost defiant as she looks at the viewer but her head is angled slightly downwards as she prepares to leap into the cauldron of death and rebirth.  Her white hair flies freely, depicting her divine energy gained by hard work & many years of learning.  Her body and face are aged and she bears honourable scars of her life.  The cauldron in paganism always has been indicative of death and rebirth, Cerridwen is a Celtic crone Goddess that owns a sacred cauldron.  The difference between ourselves and the crone Goddess is we do not own death or birth, we are just part of the process, we do not guard it & it is not ours, only in the sense that we are all born and we all must die.  Rebirth can happen in many ways, the phases of a woman's life that I have discussed in this blog are all transformative & reincarnation has always been a deep part of pagan belief.  Not everyone believes in reincarnation, we could all be right or wrong and this is what scares people, this is why Crone Goddesses are looked upon with awe and terror, because death is a reality, we all have to face it & we do not know what lies on the other side of the cauldron's depths.  Crone Goddesses always have a sharp side but a kind hand, death is a harsh reality but for those who are suffering, it is a kindness too.  The Crone knows she does not have as much time as she used to, so there is a sharpness about her as she faces the depths of the cauldron but there is always a side to the Crone that is softer.  She has no fear, she has come this far, leaping into the void that is death is just another new adventure for her and because she can remember the spiral dance of her Maiden days, she will undertake it joyfully.


My work can also be viewed at:
 
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Trac Davies - Artist © 

 

Emotions - Accepting the rough with the smooth, facing ourselves from the depths of darkness and light.

 Emotions - Painting for Inner Peace.

 

The problem with being creative is that you hold within you the dual blessing and curse of seeing the world from a perspective that many other people just can't see or understand.  If allowed, any form of artistic endeavour can be a mine-field & can often blow up in your face, leaving the ego and heart, tattered & sore.  Art is so subjective, not everyone admires the same creations, or the thought-processes behind them, which is just as well because then there is enough room for us all to create and show our work, content in the knowledge that someone out there will have an opinion over it, whether positive or negative.

 

There is a school of thought that believe that any negative emotion is downright bad for people.  They believe we as humans should float around in clouds of good feelings & be immersed permanently in light and love.  This is actually fine, as long as one faces the darkness within, feelings that are dredged up and shaped by our own egos.  The danger is that if someone does not face their fears, anger, rejections, disappointments, failures and so on, they do not face the inner child who is having a real temper-tantrum or bawling their eyes out because they have in some way been hurt. The damage that arises from these terrible feelings can actually turn really toxic if not addressed & cause huge problems.

Shamanic Waves - Rage. -Trac Davies©

 

We all do this to a certain degree so it is a process that must be dealt with daily, bottled hurts do no good and can get blown out of proportion if allowed to.  For example, there are the disappointments we deal with at some stage in our life regarding work, promotion or a pay rise.  When it occurs, it comes as a blow but we may think to ourselves; I will deal with these feelings later but I don't have time right now. However, for some reason this task may be pushed aside, predominately because that person does not want to examine the situation and the pain that it caused.  If these negative feelings that arise from rejection are not dealt with right away, there will be growing resentment and anger regarding certain individuals from the situation, e.g. the person who DID get the promotion and the boss. Eventually this resentment may lead to a huge argument or something worse, something sly and evil that slithers from the wounded ego.  The results just may lead to the downfall of everyone, including & especially the person that felt injured in the first place and all because they didn't deal with how they felt in the first place.

 

As an artist, many aspects of our psyche really interest me, I love the sides of a person that holds goodness and beauty but I have healthy respect for our darker side.  When the dark side of people is discussed, a lot of people don't always believe that they have one. All of us do but it isn't in a evil villain sense, it does not always mean that someone wants to become a criminal mastermind or a mass-murderer.  What this means is that for a person to be balanced and whole, they cannot be a total saint, there has to be equilibrium and denying to yourself that you feel baser feelings and instincts actually can make a person really ill. 

 

Sometimes, when I have been hurt or upset, when those deep feelings threaten to overwhelm me so that I feel that may be just a little too much to handle, I paint them.  Yet I don't only paint my own feelings, I sometimes I paint the intensity of emotion of someone that is close to me, I paint their pain as it overwhelms them and sometimes overpowers me.  It is easy to be subjective of a person's anguish unless you have a connection or are close to them.  When pain hits and hits hard, it can threaten everyone in its path, rather than react to something that is really not my issue, I will paint it instead, this helps me keep my own equilibrium & stops me from being absorbed in their pain and the circumstances surrounding it.

Shamanic Waves - Betrayal. - Trac Davies©

 I usually paint these emotions in an abstract form, intense feelings are easier to get onto the canvas in that way.  I let it all out, good & bad, sunshine and rain, the whole lot, however dark & deep.  This is a process that is actually rather therapeutic but when it comes to my own emotions, sometimes painting what I have felt at the time is really hard and I struggle to convey those feelings, I hesitate about how I want to paint everything that I have felt.  When this happens, I have to walk away, think about it from both my and an abstract point of view.  it usually means there is something that I have not as yet looked at in the right way, so recreating those emotions as a painting it helps me see it all the more clearly and then once it is painted I can move on in all ways.  

Colliding Worlds - The Silent Scream. - Trac Davies©

Painting the negative, yet very powerful emotions helps me put everything into perspective, which is required for inner peace.   You cannot be at one with yourself or the peace within until you have dredged the deepest and darkest depths of your own psyche.  This takes courage but facing the negative aspects of yourself is absolutely imperative for personal growth.

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
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Trac Davies - Artist ©