Art and story telling are experienced by many of us as commercial and public. We buy books, listen to audio-tapes, see movies, visit exhibitions. 'Expert' critics tell us whether something is 'good' or 'bad' or 'interesting.' Artists, if they want to earn a living at what they do, must learn to pay attention to trends and markets.
Late in my life, through training as an expressive arts psychotherapist, I learned a very different kind of story-telling; the audience being myself, meaning and power stemming from a tale that begins to tell itself. I observe in fascination as it unfolds and I see that it is telling me about myself.
This kind of story does not lend itself to editing from outside sources. My words and images, left as they are, have surprised me over the years when revisited during different stages of my life. These allegoric tales invariably shed their original skin and allow me necessary insight into this particular experience at this particular time.
These stories are loosely woven, unfinished, ready to absorb new insights and experience. Not necessarily planned that way, but where they themselves landed me.
Excerpts from THE JOURNEY
Her path ended in a sheer wall of rock. Looking around wildly for means of escape, she was distracted by a glittering velvet blanket spread on the ground nearby, on which lay a tiny baby.
When she reached out to grasp the baby, she saw that the blanket was a rain puddle reflecting the starry night above her. The baby, a mirror of her own deepest longing.
Now an onyx doorway opened in the rock face behind her and she was drawn in...
Within that protected hollow of the boat, mother and child rested, closely intertwined, cosseted in soft bear-skins under watchful skies.
They struggled for a long time, battling the stark terrain, blinded by the icy wind and rain, struggling against each other to maintain their balance on the edge of the precipice.
The mother moved swiftly down the stairs, across the beach and into the sea. She reached the small boat just as her child was climbing in.
Then she pulled the child, still protesting, through their colorful garden with its shaded paths, into the safety of their home.
It is deep into this land that I now take you. A dark place where only forest dwellers find their way. Lizards lurk and snakes bide their time, plants are either poisonous or edible.
The forest dwellers know the places that water cannot reach and rock is crumbled into sand, and where fetid swamps hide from sunlight.
Baby in her arms, she stepped out onto the narrow and glittering streets of the town.People bustled around her, pouring in and out of market places and stores, to which her eyes soon were drawn. A wonderment of things filled the windows. Her breath drawn away by all that seemed available to her. Mesmerized by these displays, she found herself, after a time, at the end of the town's main street.
In the middle of the cluster of caravans, a circus ring had been drawn in the sand.Costumed figures paraded, dancing, balancing on beams,pivoting colorful spheres on their arms or foreheads. Then they saw the baby and fussed over her, which pleased the childish woman greatly.
Encircled within the distraction of this seductive band of new friends, she cried, " This is the place for me! I am quite certain!'
Excerpts from CIRCUS CHILD
Within the ring drawn in sand, Stella began to crawl, toddle and talk. She loved to swing, much as other children do, except her swings were fifty feet up in the air with the trapeze artists, above gaping crowds. The only warning her mother ever gave her was, "Stella do not step beyond the circus ring or you will get lost." She obeyed.
Stella's mother sewed all the circus costumes now, and whenever fabric was left over she sewed costumes for Stella.
She clothed her in flamboyant skirts, boleros and bonnets, and twirled her around in front of a large mirror, until Stella became dizzy and fell over.
Then one day she rouged Stella's cheeks with rose color. "There! Now you have a healthy glow", her mother said. Stella liked to see her mother happy.She liked to please her mother. One day when Stella was twirled around and came to a stop facing the mirror, she was surprised to see a strange child she did not recognize, until she realized that somewhere deep inside this other child, was herself. She tried to smile but her mouth didn't move easily anymore. She didn't know if her mouth smiled or if her painted lips only looked as if they were smiling. Stella continued to do what she was told, but a strange feeling grew inside her, one that she could not place.
On a winter's night the traveling circus troupe camped in an empty pasture, the caravans standing silent in a white field of snow. Stella slept. She missed the urgent call of snowflakes on her window pane.They called to her about a life beyond the circus ring.She did stir though, and maybe dreamed, because she called out in her sleep, freeing one hand from the blankets as she tried to grasp at something imagined, in the air in front of her.
When she was a little older, out shopping with her mother, loaded own with boxes of hats and brocades, above her she heard a strangled throaty cry .Straining to look up beyond the packages burdening her, she spotted the speckled brown wingspan of a hawk and thought she had never seen anything more beautiful.
Back in the circus ring she performed acrobatics, thrown up by the clowns. High in the air she thought she caught a glimpse of something beyond the circus-ring-drawn-in-sand. But just as quickly the crowd stood up and applauded. When she tumbled down into a waiting clown's arms she could no longer recall what she thought she had seen.
Then on a summer's night when when the large work-horses pulled the line of caravans along to the next town, Stella and her mother slept on their caravan bunks, a window open to a welcome breeze.
Suddenly their caravan's wheel hit a large rock on the gutted old road.
it seems inevitable perhaps that Stella in her sleep was catapulted out of the window. She landed on her head at the side of the road, unconscious for a few moments. The caravans continued their journey, rolling by out of sight.
When Stella opened her eyes she was alone. Never had she been so alone, not for a single solitary second. Never had she experienced this silence. She closed her eyes and then opened them again. This place seemed to be nowhere except in-between. With her eyes closed again she knew only that she had been torn from herself in a way that she didn't understand. It was even hard to know who this person was that held her quaking heart and the aching hollow in her throat.
Sinking to her knees she clung to the thought of tomorrow. A wave of exhaustion replaced her terror and she lay down on her side. Tomorrow she would find the road and follow it into the next town, where surely she would find her circus family.
Morning came and the mist diffused in a soft glow that held more wonder for her than any of the bright circus lights. A ripe pear slaked her thirst. Between long grasses she saw the path that the circus caravans had taken. This path she stepped onto to follow their journey into the next town. The hawk circling above saw only the vast forest surrounding her.
By late morning her pace was slowing and the tress had thinned giving way to open patches of grassland. The road was easier to see now.
In a meadow she saw a dappled mare lazily chewing on the grass. At first she thought it was a circus horse and her eyes eagerly scanned the large field for signs that they might have tarried here awhile. But even when she realized this was not so, the idea of having a horse to travel more swiftly on, pleased her.
She knew horses and approached the creature with no hesitation. Clicking and whistling she encouraged it to eat some pear from her hand, and then led it to a fallen tree trunk so that she could mount it. The horse seemed surprised at this, rearing onto its hind legs, but she held tightly to its mane and slapped its flank with a thin branch pulled from a nearby tree.She steered the horse toward the path. The mare pranced a little but seemed familiar with this road. Stella began singing out a circus tune as she prodded it along.
When Stella was a grown woman she would remember this day and the path not taken.At the very moment that her hand was about to jerk the horse's mane toward this road, it reared up so suddenly that she clung to its back. More swiftly than she had ever known a horse to move, it hurtled up the mountain on the smaller unmarked trail.
Meadowland gave way to forest and the path began to climb. The mare trotted and then began to gallop, seeming to enjoy the coolness of pine-filled air.Stella too enjoyed this swift movement between patches of sunlight and pine-tree shade, remembering to keep a close eye on the path, which by and by came to a fork. She pulled on the horse's mane to slow it down, and saw that one path was well-worn with marks of wheels, hooves and boot prints. Encouraged that other travelers had passed by here, she knew that a town was nearing, and she sang her circus song with more vigor and joy as she prodded the horse toward this path!
But the mare reared up and turned onto the smaller mountain path.Stella meant in those terrible moments, to jump or fall from the mare's back, so as not to be dragged away by it, away from the direction that would lead her back to all she knew.For days after, she wondered why she had not.
At the time this seemed to be answered by the fact that she had no choice, her arms flung around the mare's neck were glued to its body, even whilst she feared and hated it.
She had not jumped because they had become one, her body melted into the mare's body, the air pulled through its dilated nostrils seeming to feed her too.
They streaked through the forest's shadow, and then moonlight's beam, brushing tree branches, jumping streams, deep into the night, up the mountain, on THIS path...
Stella had no idea of where she was going. Strangely this thrilled her. The second night turned toward morning. Unexpected sensations filled her, this connection to a truly wild creature. There had been no circus trumpet fanfare to announce this thrilling ride, they were not circling round and round a circus ring. there were no tricks or illusions.
Near late morning they slowed on a high plain and came to rest on a soft patch of sand.The mare bowed gracefully and allowed Stella to jump lightly from its back, and then it slid down to rest on its side in the chill morning. Stella nestled closely to its body, protected from the cold by its pulsating warmth.
Just before she slept, she felt a gentle nuzzle on her neck and gazed up to look deeply into the mare's beautiful brown eyes.
She woke to the wind blowing, sand stinging her body. The horse , not bothered, grazed nearby. Stella drank from a stream and then sought shelter in a nearby cave.
Once within it she was surprised by two small lights glinting out of the darkness, and then less surprised to see a mighty lion coming toward her. She had grown up with circus lions, knew their laconic ways and arousal under the crack of their trainer's whip. As he moved slowly toward her she noticed his magnificence.
He was young and strong with a glistening coat, and muscles that undulated with each step he took. Instinctively she put her hand out to touch him. The lion curled back its upper lip and growled ominously as he began to circle her. Stella did what the lion trainers did, she moved with him and faced him as he circled her.
Stella almost believed that she had a whip in one hand, and in the other the trainer's wooden stool used to push the lions back if they came too close, and which gave the act an ominous air that a circus audience expected. But something different was happening that she didn't understand, the lion was not keeping its distance but advancing toward her, his drooling lips drawn back, revealing gigantic teeth, curved and sharp. He was crouching very low now...
In the moment it sprang toward her, she tripped over a rock and was knocked back out of the cave. A dark shadow covered her as its body descended on hers, massive paws and sharp claws reaching toward her.
As if in a dream Stella felt the mare;s strong neck and muzzle push her towards its back, onto which she somehow managed to clamber; the horse backing, rearing, whinnying as the lion snarled and pounced at them.
Then the mare turned sharply to begin galloping across the sandy plain, with the lion continuing its chase' almost pulling Stella and the mare down on several occasions. She felt its dagger-like claws scraping down the horse's side.
On they hurtled, her mouth dry with shock and fear, the sandstorm stinging and blinding her. It must have blinded the lion too, miraculously he lost them as prey, and they galloped on.
The horse jumped a ravine and then tumbled heavily onto the ground and suddenly lay quite motionless. Stella untangled herself from the mare's body coming to kneel where it bled from the wounds on its side, the blood stark and red against its pale flank. The mare breathed unevenly and quivered. In disbelief and filled with remorse, Stella lay by the mare's side a long, long while, not knowing what to do, seeing the life slowly ebb from its being.
She recognized that in the brief while she had known this splendid creature she had come to trust, love, and in the end, be saved from sure death by her. She lay with her arms cast across the mare's body, sobbing.
When she lifted her head at last, the sky masked by towering trees, was dark.
In front of her, a snake coiled loosely, gazed upon them with what seemed like patient curiosity.
Note:
I had an idea of the direction in which I wanted to take this tale, but found that I had both writer's and illustrator's block, each time I tried. I put the story away and forgot about it. Then a few years later in my own therapy, trying to describe the pain I was feeling, I compared my feeling to the despair of Stella. In that moment it occurred to me that my psyche had demanded I stop the story and images exactly where I did, because there was important work to be done in exactly that psychic space. This was a very powerful lesson for me as an expressive arts psychotherapist; personal story-telling (whatever its form) can guide you to the place you could not necessarily have found on your own, the place you need to witness and confront within your psyche, in order to begin healing.
