March 26, 2006

I first read the Red Shoes in Woman that Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes two years ago.

Her words shot an arrow into my my heart that I couldn't deny. I was an artist who had quit painting. One day sitting in the high desert I dared to look into the mirror of self and asked: Am I following my souls longing, "Risking the adventure called life" that I taught my students?

A very short synopsis of CPE's story follows: A young orphaned girl was building a hand made life. She had carved an existence out of this world by her efforts, determination and hard earnest work. Her ragged red shoes came from scraps of cloth she had managed to find, dye and sew together.

By fate or fortune an rich elderly lady adopted the orphan. And burned her red shoes. The young girl was given a life of rigid conformity and greatly missed her own life even though it was hard. When confronted with buying a new pair of shoes for church the girl lied to the elderly woman and picked the red shoes that reminded her of her former life. The girl put them on and wore them to church. Shocking all she began's to dance. She couldn't stop. A week later the desire for those red shoes was to much and she put them on again. And she begin to dance until she realized she couldn't control the direction.. And danced for days until she begged to have her feet cut off. She lived her remaining days as a beggar.

CPE says: "The psychological truth in The Red Shoes is that a woman's meaningful life can be pried, threatened, robbed or seduced away from her unless she holds onto or retrieves her basic joy and wild worth. The tale calls our attention to traps and poisons we too easily take onto ourselves when we are caught in a famine of wild soul." She further explains "It is the famine of the soul that will cause her to dance madly out of control."

I have always viewed life to be enjoyed. A spiral dance of moments and making memories. Always circling inward downward into depths of the self. Denial of ones passion and joy is a gray horizon of unending disappointment. A world of living half alive craving the power behind the red shoes. The the need to create anew.

That fall I began a journey of reclamation. I was aided by a high desert Mouse, grandmothers that once were young, sisters in spirit and dirt.

Dirt matters.

Are your red shoes handmade?

It has been over a year since I updated this site. So much has happened. I moved, I fell flat on my face, encountered a tremendous learning curve, and was allergic to everything. And here I am. Something within prevails. Last summer I realized that somehow someway I could paint again. Paint without dregging the river beneath the river. I painted my rebirth.

I painted in oils for the first time in twenty years. I wanted to express that November full moon, candles lit, incense, communion - the tension between the being one and yet separate. I call it Full Moon Tonight. /font>