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 conceived 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 necessary 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 landscape.   

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

Please be patient, I'm rebranding everything and am attempting to build a website. Thank you. 

My work can also be viewed at:

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Tracy Davies 

Art and Money - What Constitutes as Selling Out?

Commercial & Artistic Pathways - Can they Converge?

The struggle for any one artist to become known and accepted at times is not an easy one.  I will freely admit that I seem to have gone about things arse about face.  I don't know why I do this as I have done this rather a lot in my life & although I learn from my many mistakes, it is not the easiest path to tread; often because there are thickets of bewilderment surrounding me and I literally can't see the woods from the trees.  

In my defence, living in Brittany has probably exacerbated this bad habit of mine.  Setting up a bona-fide business and trying to become established are not easy tasks anyway.  Trying to do this in a country which seems to have a perverse love-hate relationship of bureaucratic red-tape, in  a very different culture & language, (some of this being legal so harder to understand); & with no real idea of how things are done, just the knowledge of someone else's hear-say is nigh-on impossible.  Yet I have ploughed through all of the above & I am still doing so.

My artwork has generally been very detailed & as a result, these paintings are more expensive than something that is simpler but I have found it really difficult to get my head around this without becoming something that I am not.  My art is used to get certain points across, I do not want to be a bland imitation of myself.

Eden; The Mermaid's Dream of Evolution Whilst Realising that she is both Goddess & Aquatic Ape.  Trac Davies ©

This year I have been very lucky because, after meeting with another major obstacle, a French friend of mine offered to telephone the relevant bodies and discuss what needs to be done.  I always feel like I am right at the start of this particular journey, even though I have been going for some years now.  This is because as yet, every attempt of mine to set up so I can become established has gone spectacularly belly-up.  I now know why this happened & this was because I have been really unwell for quite a few years & I have not been able to focus on what needed doing.  In addition, I could not concentrate on reading my beloved French books & my French language just wasn't good enough.  

Conversationally, I am usually not too bad but when dealing with authorities I freeze up.  Their level of the French language is very much higher than mine is & this comes over in their manner towards me, which puts me on guard.  I am a waffle-box in my own language but I have always been naturally wary when dealing with anyone in business, the employment office or other authorities that have to be dealt with.  It is a natural wariness of someone who hates relying on others to help with paperwork or any aspect of their lives, but we have had to go to these people because any dossier in France is very complicated and we have become mired in complex paperwork and at times, haven't been able to sort it out.  This rubs against the grain, I like to do these things myself and if I can't, I become very wary and defensive without realising it.

My friend was on the telephone for me for over an hour and set up a meeting for me, which she also attended.  I am very grateful to her & realised that as she spoke to the relevant bodies & people, I had not been asking my questions in the right manner.  This is where many of us English slip-up, there are many formalities to be observed and ways of asking things here and I just don't know them.  

All I wanted to do was set up, was it really that difficult?  Why was this not working?  I actually already had some of the answers to these questions without realising it.  When health issues raise its ugly head, quite often, concentration and memory retention become a thing of the past.  It wasn't until I had an operation this year, that I realised how ill I had become.  A good example of this is my books, everything I tried to read slipped past my eyes and I couldn't retain the information.  In conversation, somebody would ask a question and I knew that I actually did know what was being asked, but I froze because I couldn't remember what I knew or how to respond.  I have spoken to many French and English people about this and they have all said the same, if you are tired or ill, your adopted language fails dismally.  However, it is very depressing when you go through this for a few years.

To cut a (very) long story short, the issue with becoming an artist in France is like the struggle for the equity card that you have in the UK.  You can't set up without being established, but you can't become established before you set up & I have just spent the last 5 years, going around in ever-decreasing circles & becoming really ill & getting nowhere.

WIP The Breton Sea ou La Mer de Bretagne - Trac Davies©

So what is the answer to this conundrum?  If I was better off financially, the answer would be simple, but I do not have the funds that can pay taxes & social charges whether I have earned something or not.  I COULD set up, but I need cash behind me & this depressingly similar scenario gets played out all over France, setting up here is really not that easy & if you are ill-prepared, you get stung big-time and can lose everything.

I discussed this with different people and thought about it, really thought about it and then made a decision.  I am self-taught as a painter but if I retrained here, I could combine the two to set up as an auto-entrepreneur.  An artist HAS to set up as a certain tax regime with the Maison des Artistes but there are ways of getting around this for people like me that are in reality just setting up & that is to become an artisan, making things that can be used in everyday use & are not for decorative purposes alone.  Now I probably could have just cobbled something together but this also goes against the grain.  I have decided to retrain in ceramics, it is something I have always wanted to do & after doing all the necessary things that needed to be done I am waiting on a decision.  I will probably start next year in February and yes, this delays the business being set up but I do not want to just wing it and fail so I will be walking this new path, which will eventually go alongside the other one.

In trying to sort out things for this, I contacted many ceramists here because although I have a course lined up (once it has been rubber-stamped by the right bodies); I needed to talk to others and spend time with a ceramist discovering the work itself.  Whilst doing this, I was contacted by one that asked if I would like to go to an exposition, which I did.  I have been very alone here, no real contact with anyone in the art world & I am so glad I went because I met with many wonderful artists but also discovered that I can sell paintings in two markets a year without registering.  I didn't know this and so will be attending just one because I didn't discover until early October & have had to crack on and churn a lot of abstracts out and this finally returns me to the point about selling out.

Birth of a Nebula. Trac Davies©

3. Under Different Oceans.  Trac Davies©

There isn't a lot of money in the rural area that I live in, so the paintings I have been creating for this Christmas market are smaller & not as detailed as some of the earlier works because nobody has the sort of money & it is the details that take so much longer.  This has had me hurtling down avenues of thought regarding commerical lines & painting something that I am happy with, despite it not being what I usually create.  

The point is there has to be a compromise, I have had to adjust my thinking for this market and was told what would sell for €60 here would be over €200 in Nantes!  Many people just cannot afford a painting if the price is elevated, so small and simple abstract type paintings seemed to be the answer but I am still reflecting about I would do this, because after this first market which is rather like a trial run, next year I will do two larger markets.

Spatial awareness - Trac Davies©

This is a real period of both discovery on what I can & cannot do and with real inner self-discovery.   I will keep you updated on what the decision regarding the ceramics course is, if it is a No, well it will be back to the drawing board but I will keep painting & those doors will eventually open for me.

The Path of the Wandering Star - Trac Davies©

My work can also be viewed at:

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Trac Davies - Artist © 

 

Exposition - 12 Juillet 2016.

Exposition - 12 Juillet 2016, à la Mediathèque d'Allaire, Morbihan, France.

I am a great one for pontificating about my work online.  I can converse via facebook, my websites or my blogs what my work means to me & what some of it is about.  However, I am not a great one for public speaking and actually hate doing it.  I am more of a hermit than anything else & unless I have a song or a script in hand, I generally go all to pieces.

Yet I have bitten the bullet, I have an exhibition in our local Médiathèque for the whole of July, with an Art'Apéro on the 12th July.  This means that not only do I have to stand there, feeling nervous and stupid and stammer about my work, I have to do it in French.  So I will be able to go all to pieces not only in one language but two!

The 22 paintings for this event have already been chosen, I asked Brigitte & Jocelyne from the Médiathèque to come over and choose because my printer died and it was actually easier that they physically viewed all of the paintings to make their decision about what was suitable & what wasn't.

Photos were taken of the chosen paintings but I wasn't expecting a photo-shoot of myself with a the Colliding Worlds - The Silent Scream painting.  So, there I was, camera shy, looking like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards - which is normal for me, flushed and covered in cobwebs, having a photo taken for what I thought was the local magazine.  Thankfully they did this & not the press but it was a nerve-wracking experience & not one I enjoyed.

I didn't realise that this photo would be going into Ouest France as well & I do wish I looked a bit more like an artist that hadn't met the hedge!

Anyway, the Art'Apéro evening will be on the 12th July 2016, which is Tuesday, next week.  I am nervous but I am looking forwards to it.

I would like to thank both Brigitte Hascöet and Jocelyne Launay-Bacon from La Médiathèque d'Allaire for all their hard work, for everything that they have done & for putting up with me wittering away in very bad French! 

Here are the links for Ouest France & for Vivre à Allaire n°54 Avril 2016.

http://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/allaire-56350/les-peintures-de-tracy-davies-la-mediatheque-4345815

http://www.allaire.fr/?page=agenda&id_article=1348

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 © 

Over-sensitivity: What it the point of it?

 

Dealing with Grief or; When you wear your heart on your sleeve but other people just don't get it & say you must toughen up.

All of my life I have been oversensitive.  I despise being over-sensitive & always have done.  I am that soppy person that will cry over the over-sentimental, children's programmes - even the Christmas Cartoons.   I have always hated being like this, as a child the smallest slight would set me off & certain programmes were banned in my childhood home. (Lassie for example, I was impossible after I watched that).  It wasn't until I was in late teens and early twenties that I learned to hold it together.

Just recently we lost our beloved cat, Shadow the Boot.  I have often talked about Shadow, she has been a constant companion for the past 12 - 13 years & a very good friend.  I was with her when she passed & afterwards it hit me very hard, there were lots of tears & these are still falling.  Grief is strange like that, it catches you out and it doesn't matter if the dearly departed is a person or a pet, the pain is much the same.

Today I happened across an acquaintance who said yes it is sad but it is an animal!  A human fair enough but an animal?  I did not mention it again but I thought; We are animals too, we are a different species but we are animals and why should we not grieve over a beloved pet? 

My mind, like my imagination tends to bounce everywhere, when I start cogitating, I explore corners that have light or darkness in them & I started to wonder where empathy and sensitivity became such a taboo subject. 

The Changing Goddess under the Wiccan Moon.  Trac Davies© 

I have already written the blog for this above painting, but it is Shadow that inspired me to paint her contented & purring presence,  asleep on the stairs.  She was with me during my creative moments, she would spend a lot of time with me when painting & was, in the truest of ways, my Shadow.  My son became an adult with her presence, my daughter knew her all of her life and she has been a staunch friend to both me and my husband.  So, at present, I feel very sad & miss her, this is what this blog is about, the over-sensitive souls that are always being told to get on with things, to toughen up, to get real, pull yourself together or grow up.

Many a time I have had people say to me that I shouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve, well-meaning friends that feel that emotions should be contained & to a point this is right.  Nothing would get done if we all went about bursting into tears or flying into fits of rage as we went about our daily life.  In truth, we as humans bottle a lot of stuff up, if this is not redressed later on and soon after it is bottled,  it will cause problems.  

The Grief & Rage of Boudica. Trac Davies© This is a WIP

However, there comes a time in life when bottling up is not an option, where our hearts are well and truly on our sleeves as they overflow with joy or sadness.  At these times, whatever we do we cannot stop emotions flowing.  Death is one of those times, when we lose someone we love the grief we feel is hard to bear, some of us just dissolve into floods of tears.  Although uncomfortable for many people, including the wailer this is actually healthy.  I have known those that do not grieve, cannot for some reason only to find later on, all those bottled emotions come out of nowhere & hits them like a truck.  The devastation that is caused by such emotions is very destructive.  The healing process then takes longer & is harder.  Unfortunately, with these bottled emotions of loss and grief come other feelings that have also been backed up by the main emotional blockage and in truth, these can make people really ill.


So, really, to sum it all up, sometimes over-sensitivity is a bonus & getting the emotions out into the open, getting it all out of your system is healthier & we heal faster, get over out grief faster.  It doesn't stop the dull ache of loss but it does help us come to terms with things better.  

But what if we can't stop?  What if our emotion is such that we never really accept the passing of a loved one?  I know people that are still in deep grief over a loved one that has passed many years after the event.  I feel this is usually over either the circumstances of the death or other things that has backed up behind the grief, things that are unresolved in that person or for that the two people involved in that relationship.  

It usually takes a while to start accepting that a person you love has passed on, but the ache gets less as time goes by.  I do not know if you really ever get over it all but you so eventually accept it and move on with your life.  Only once you have done this can we say that we have healed as best as we can but if the grief never ends & a passing is not accepted, there is more of a problem than grief alone.

The Tears of Benzaiten. - Trac Davies©

The issue can be that emotion, any emotion is addictive so people appear to become addicted to what they are feeling because it is feeding an inner part of them that feels loss or anger, any intense emotion feeds the ego.  All emotion is addictive and the more you feel it, the more addictive it is, which is why I always say every day is beautiful and try to be as contented as I can.  Life is hard, there are no illusions about that, even for us people that feel we should be riding about on an imaginary unicorn know it, so we might as well make the best of it and feed the inner person with contentment & strive to live for this ethos everyday.  

Ascension -Trac Davies©

It is easy to take a toxic route, in our lifetime we have all done it, everyone of us has this lesson to learn and it might take different forms in different people but it is there and it is one of the traps that Ego sets us.  

Nobody is perfect, so when you find yourself telling someone who is stricken with grief to get over themselves, if you find yourself advising a person with deep depression to pull themselves together, & if you find yourself belittling someone's grief with the "only an animal" attitude; take a good hard look in the mirror.  Then take a good look at the person who, despite appearances is really trying to deal with things the best they can & then try and work out who is the person that gains the most from these little pieces of advice & who is the person that does not.
  

Shadow The Boot.

In Memory of Shadow, The Moody old Boot that crossed Rainbow bridge Tuesday, 7 July, 7h20.

http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2014/12/the-changing-goddess-under-wiccan-moon.html
http://tracdaviesartist.blogspot.fr/2015/02/emotions-accepting-rough-with-smooth.html

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Trac Davies - Artist ©