Hope is the Thing With Branches

I am the Earth these days, baked brown and tired.  The grass is wilting and turning crispy in the Sun's baleful gaze, except for today when the clouds have rolled over and there is just enough rain to crank the humidity up to "Sauna on Mercury."  We've already had record breaking temperatures in June, and there's still a good three months to get through before Autumn meanders into the spotlight, assuming it hits its cue.  You never can tell anymore. 

Heat saps my strength.  I am a child of Fall, and this time of year is always hard for me--I crave early sunsets and dragon-breath frost, long sleeves, trench coats.  The photosensitivity I mentioned in an earlier post, from my antidepressant, only makes this worse; Summer makes me tired. 

I remember, as a child, loving it--it was cooler then, and the prospect of weeks of vacation made me willing to brave the heat.  I ran barefoot over the blacktop and cherished the late evenings.  Barbecues, picnics, swimming lessons, Vacation Bible School, the ice cream man, snow cones...Summer has so much to offer children. 

Twenty years later I am parched and cracked and dizzy from the brightness.  You know that feeling when you walk out of a movie theater and the sun's so bright it hurts?  I feel like that every time I go outside, whether it's dawn or noon.  My head swims, my joints ache.  I want to hide in the cool darkness of my bedroom and hibernate through the Summer like a seasonally-dyslexic bear.

My spiritual depression, too, seems bound up in the season and the Earth.  The roadsides here are scorched in long patches where idiots flick their cigarettes out the window and the tinder-dry grass goes up like a Roman candle.  My spirit feels like those blackened stretches of Earth.  Blasted down to the roots, burned to ash, phoenix extra crispy with a side of "why bother?"

And yet:

After a forest fire the land comes back more fertile and lush than before, as the undergrowth is cleared away and weaker plants no longer compete with fire-tolerant plants for resources.  There are some trees, like the Lodgepole pine, whose seeds are only released during fire. Fires are a part of the forest ecosystem, and are integral to the overall health of the forest (when the cycle isn't screwed up by humans, at least).  Nature has in Her hands many forms of renewal, from the slow erosion of mountains to the blazing conflagration. 

My apartment bathroom is decorafted in shades of blue.  (This isn't as much of a non sequitur as it sounds, just bear with me.)  I've been changing a few things there:  new shower curtain, getting rid of a few old dust-catchers, that sort of thing.  I had been feeling the urge to paint lately (unusual for me; the tremors in my hands make it very frustrating for me to paint in any detail), so I bought a rectangular canvas, thinking I might paint some sort of blue treeish thing for the bathroom. 

The first attempt went badly.  (This is what happens when I try to wing it.)  I re-base-coated the whole thing and decided to flesh out the design with Prismacolor, one of my favorite artistic media.  I liked what I came up with--bright, pretty, sort of calm, with some freshness.  I wanted to darken the color palette just a little for the actual painting.  I sat down surrounded by colors and brushes and went to work.

Here's what's significant about this situation.  Normally when I create something, it's presentational, not representational.  It's a picture of Isis, a drawing of Green Tara, a plaque of the Goddess surrounded by food.  You can of course take all sorts of meaning from those things, but when I created them I didn't do so intending to make a symbolic artistic statement of any kind.  I let the viewer take whatever he or she wants.  That's why I've never really thought of myself as an artist; not due to a lack of talent, but a lack of intention. 

Halfway through the painting I realized there was both meaning and intention in what I was doing.  I had recently been reading old posts on Breathless Noon, and one called Hope in God in particular stuck with me, as did the idea that when you don't know what to believe, and you no longer feel you have the knowledge you once did, you can still live in the hope of the Divine.  That is what I feel I have now, maybe all I have.  I am a tree standing alone on a windswept monochromatic landscape, my soul a willowy thing, still beautiful even though its branches are fruitless and bare...all but one.  One blossom, such a little thing, remains.  It is the vibrant red of a soul on fire with passion for the Beloved.  It is the hope that the fire, kindled once, can be rekindled.  It is hope in God.

And for a moment, as I signed my name to the bottom of the canvas, I felt the tiniest spark of the old magic, as if I'd set a spell I didn't even mean to cast, gently and softly letting energy flow through blue paint and a trembling left hand, my hope...the thing with branches, the thing with petals, the thing, ultimately, with wings...fluttering away into the Summer heat, looking for Autumn, looking for rain.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Comments

[J. McNett]

You don't know how spot on you are with this post. I've never known an emotional depression, but I feel with every inch of my tired little soul that I'm going through a spiritual one. I used to hear the Divine whispering to me from even the smallest, darkest corners...now, I feel just as stretched and parched as you do. It seems as though the "religiously conscious" suffer an ironic curse -- they feel the divine's presence with twice the intensity, but they feel it twice as painfully when the divine seems to have mysteriously gone MIA.

On the plus side, your blog seems to be part of my journey back...your posts on runes have been really eye opening, too, so I'm glad I caught them at their beginning. I've never felt that runes were a part of my magic...they were always kind of frightening to me, for some reason. But your connection to your runes has made them seem so much more friendly to me, and your interpretations of their symbolism are wonderfully multi-dimensional. For the first time, the runes have felt exciting. I've been compulsively studying them, doodling them, and quizzing myslf over them for weeks now. I liked the idea behind getting a set made of ash wood, but I ended up getting a yew set from Tara Hill, via a link from your past posts. Yew felt "righter," if that makes sense to anyone but me, and I got that little divine shove that said, "ooh, get that one!" It's been a long time since my internal voice has gotten that pushy. :D

I'm glad your writing is here. It gives me inspiration in many ways to know that neither of us is really alone in this, and that maybe we're going to get through this little dry spell together, albeit from a distance apart.

<3

[Maeve]

Dianne, the painting is phenomenal. I love it. It's breathtaking. I live up here in Michigan, and contrary to popular belief, we have sweltering, humid summers too. My Autumn will come a little earlier than yours, so when I see the first leaf fall I'll send cooler wishes your way.

[Ali]

Your painting is amazing, just as a painting itself, but also because it's an image I've had in my mind for years! I even wrote a poem based on that image when I was still in college (mostly because I have no talent for the visual arts and that was the only way I knew of capturing it). It's almost eerie how closely your painting echoes that image! If you don't mind, I'd like to share the poem....

Breaking Blue

Sometimes at the end of autumn,
I strip my body and lay it down.
I watch it closely, growing colder,
sleeping beneath an empty tree.
Its skin turns a cloud-gray white,
then clears in evening to the fragile
color of porcelain sky. Quick black

cracks trace the shadows of branches
on its chest and outstretched arms,
its skin, thin blue and splitting
in veined patterns, stiff, like a breaking
sheet of ice. The heart, singular, thin
and red clings, trembles—the air moves.
My body creaks. Sometimes

at the autumn’s end, I lay my body down.
And the wind licks around my limbs
and my heart shivers, a splinter moon
that rises into winter, growing darker,
on my breast. The sky, heavier and breaking
blue, passes over, presses closer,
and falls through.

Thank you for such a beautiful painting! :)

[renee]

this is beautiful. thank you.

i, too, seek the fall.

[Danmara]

Beautiful painting! Really! Stunning!!!!

I know what you mean about the depression...but for me, winter is the worst. It's cold. It's wet. It's painful to go outside. Miserable. I stay inside all day...and generally feel like crap. Winters in northeast PA suck.

Summer is sort of stagnant...but I love the late nights and the warm nights under a sky full of stars....

Spring and fall though...the transition seasons...when you can FEEL the change in the air...that's my time. The time when life and death meet. Beltaine and Samhain. That's when I come alive.

[Lissa]

It's been a long time since something found a way to express its way out of me that way. I knew it before, but it's nice to be reminded - you're beautiful inside as well as out. Just look at the beauty that could no longer be contained. Gorgeous.

[Thalia]

You wrote:

>>Normally when I create something, it's presentational, not representational. It's a picture of Isis, a drawing of Green Tara, a plaque of the Goddess surrounded by food. You can of course take all sorts of meaning from those things, but when I created them I didn't do so intending to make a symbolic artistic statement of any kind. I let the viewer take whatever he or she wants. That's why I've never really thought of myself as an artist; not due to a lack of talent, but a lack of intention.<<

I note, that by your definition, I am not an artist either.

Here's the thing about intent. I have found that the less intent I have going into a painting, the more likely it is that the Divine will come through it. Because intent is conscious. And because the conscious level of things is not where the Divine comes through, at least in me. The more I try to figure out beforehand what it's about and what all the symbolism and intent and that crap is supposed to mean, the more it's just an exercise in pretty technique, and the less real it is, the less true it is. I have found this to be so strongly true for my work that I actively try not to think about what I'm going to do first, beyond the barest of sketches.

I find this painting really beautiful, Dianne. There is a vitality to it, of a curious sort--and by that I mean being curious, being intrigued by the world, and finding wonder in it, is part of that vitality. I wouldn't declare yourself hopelessly apathetic just yet. Also, I see a yoni in there up in the branches, for rebirth.

[Zion Mystic]

hey, there's a bit (further down) on this page (http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/newletters/news061208.html)
about summer seasonal seasonal affective disorder, maybe it'll be helpful?

[Lunetta]

Its a beautiful painting. I love the use of one color in a range of different shades. And then the added color with the flower. Its inspired me to paint something

[Heath]

The painting is, as everyone has commented, very beautiful. You sell yourself short sometimes, my sister. Keep letting it flow. Maybe that spark isn't God/dess gone and now returning, but your AWARENESS returning that She/He was and is and always will be there... It's our freewill (i.e. perception/awareness) that changes becomes masked/altered/injured, that allows us to experience the Divine within and without, above and below, and to the side, across the street (next to a Starbucks), etc.
Blessed Be.

[Melissa]

Ok, not to blow smoke up your ass, but I TRULY love this painting! I think you found your way out of your depression girlie! lol Have a great weekend!

[malory]

I think I'm you're exact opposite. I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, and while I love the fall, the sun energizes me. Once day light savings ends I turn into a depressed, hungry bear for the winter.

[J]

I have just discovered your blog so I apologize if you have mentioned this already...

A lot of people engaged in Earth-aware and "wholistic" paths tend to eschew and poopoo "Western" medicine and especially psychiatric drugs, which get stigmatized even in popular culture. Although of course some of those people don't think twice about swallowing 3 uppers, 2 downers, a fifth of Jack and a long hit off a mystery pipe, but that's another story... :) In any case, would you share your thoughts on how this sort of medicine fits in with your understanding of Wicca or spirituality in general?

Also - I couldn't find you on LJ other than this blog in syndication, but feel free to friend me there. :)

[J]

Secondly, and I felt this fit better in its own comment; given your tremors, have you ever considered *using* those as brushstrokes? It might work better in a more abstract expressionist mode or somesuch, but if you can't completely stop them, why not turn them to advantage?