A Deeper Letting Go (sold)
48 x 36 inches (122 x 91 cm)
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 2022
Exhibition History
2023 - Beyond Belief, St. Louis Artists’ Guild, St. Louis, MO, USA
48 x 36 inches (122 x 91 cm)
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 2022
Exhibition History
2023 - Beyond Belief, St. Louis Artists’ Guild, St. Louis, MO, USA
48 x 36 inches (122 x 91 cm)
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 2022
Exhibition History
2023 - Beyond Belief, St. Louis Artists’ Guild, St. Louis, MO, USA
I saw how part of Lisa was still in me. It was the part that I see every day in my son. My son had gone off to college, and I thought I was doing really well with the separation. I was sad but was feeling my sadness all the way through like I’ve been taught by my mentors.
Still, there was a tangled up mass of grief in my chest that didn’t track with him moving out. What became apparent was that I hadn’t fully let go of the part of his mother that was in him. He’s made up of parts of both me and her, after all. I was still holding onto her memory… part of her in him. I wasn’t even aware, and I wasn’t ready to let go. At least not ready till this moment of ceremonial vision.
I saw her come out of me as a black raven. We had a negotiation about her going to be with my son but not interfering with his life at college. She could go. She could watch over him, but she could not interfere.
Agreement set, she took flight. As she started to fly away she was quickly weighed down by black sludge connecting her to me. It was toxic goo that was entangled with me from our 17 years together. She couldn’t escape because of this old toxic connection between the two of us. I wanted her to go free, and for her to take all her own toxic sludge that belonged to her to go too.
She tried and tried but couldn’t make any forward progress. Then, I remembered I now have the knowledge and power to control my visions. I caused her in raven-form to grow in size. I was in Utah at the time and she was flying to Missouri. I enlarged her to the size of the entire state, and she pulled all her toxic sludge out of me.
It was still connected, though. There was a bond that wouldn’t release with only force. For these lingering connected strands, I used a diamond scalpel to cut the bonds. Once cut they healed over in a crust of diamond. She was free.
Free but for a single gossamer strand still connecting me to her so I know she’s keeping her agreement and not interfering.
Her life of motherhood was cut short. She never got to see him grow up. She will never get old. Her thread of life was cut short, and she’s taken a different path. Not better, not worse, but no path from motherhood to old age was available in this lifetime to her. I like to think both her young mother self and wise old woman self are here for my kiddo whenever he taps into her in times of need.
Both and more are wrapped up in every cell of his body. And the decade of drama and trauma that may have been is toxic sludge that my boy will never have to carry in him. The price is a big empty void where the notion of mother could have been.
The vision continues in Send the Kittens to Clean the Corners
Series overview: Lost Mothers and Liberated Fathers