Salvation by Friendship; Wicked Wick of the West
The Shadowbox Memoirs, Chapter 2
I owe my salvation from that lowest low to one of the best bff’s of my life, Lisa Taylor. Getting ready for work one day in my aPodment, a note came into my Facebook Messenger from a woman I knew through mutual friends. She was looking for a roommate.
I quickly said “yes.”
I moved in immediately and as soon as I got there, Lisa let me in on her big idea. You see, the year was 2013 and we lived in Seattle. Medical Cannabis was legal, possession was decriminalized and the race was ON to establish regulations and soon to follow, shops open to the public for recreational sales. The scramble to be first in line to capitalize was in full heat and speculations were as high as a Cannabis Cup judge. Fortunes were gambled, made and lost at roller coaster speed, and my brilliant friend Lisa was ready to speculate the speculators with the most innocent, unsuspecting, weed-free paraphernalia called a Hemp Wick.
So we learned how to dip hemp wicks in our back yard, started a business, and ran around dressed up like witches with all the growers and lawyers and investors rolling the movement forward to crescendo.
The funniest thing about his little video is, Seattle is very wet and we couldn’t get the fire going for the last scene, so we had our downstairs neighbor stand there and squirt lighter fluid on the flames while we shot the video!
We ran the biz together for a couple years before I sold my half to Lisa and she is still wicking to this day. There were wonders and there were terrors, but those are stories for a future memoir. What I will say is this: I learned so much from this woman, that has made me into the person I am today, the person I want to be.
She was the oasis in the middle of a twelve year long desert, and I had no idea how much I needed that until now, as I write these words. Before I met Lisa, I didn’t know that the quality of one’s work is directly proportional to the quality of one’s rest. This is the great mystery of yin and yang. Lisa taught me how to work smarter not harder. She taught me how to receive nourishment and care. She taught me how to have conflict that heals rather than isolates. She taught me how to rest and how to play as hard as I worked, and in all of that, she taught me how to turn a good idea into cold, hard cash.
And all of this time, the StarMaps simmered in the cauldron of my belly and that is not a metaphor. I felt the undying fire in my body and it felt like a motivating thunder I couldn’t figure out how to direct. In May of 2013, I finally roared its first breath of flame. All I knew about astrology was the signs and natal points of the Sun, Moon and Rising Sign, but these I was very keen on. I had spent a couple years at this point, bringing it up in casual conversation and getting a feel for the archetypes in the personalities of the people I knew. And you must remember, this was 2013. Astrology was not popular then, like it is now.
I had never seen a wheel. I didn’t know where to go or who to ask. I just had a burning curiosity and, I had the internet. And then I found what many beginning astrologers stumble upon - Astrodienst. But still I did not find a wheel. Because first I spotted the “9000 years Ephemeris”. I remember that catching my attention because I was wonderstruck that humans had kept records of the position of the planets for that long.
And if you’re not a student of the cosmos and this is news, let that sink in for a minute. Human beings have kept and passed down data for the position of the planets in the context of the fixed stars every single day, for the past 9000 years (well, technically this includes a few hundred year jaunt into future positions). Lifetime after lifetime, generation after generation, the planetary data of our local solar system, has been observed, recorded, protected, and compiled - century upon century upon millennia upon millennia. It makes me feel, really feel in my bones, humanity - everyone alive today, all of human history, and everyone who will ever live - as a single, living organism.
And in an effort to dance with this overwhelming wonder, I created my first StarMap out of the ephemeris birthday data of my dearest friend from blues dance. Most unfortunately, we have lost touch, he is no longer on social media, and I have been unable to acquire his permission to share that strange little map. So! While writing this, I received inspiration to recreate it, with the date from the photo, which is the closest I can come to the natal chart of Evening Star Maps.
As you can see, it is doesn’t resemble a wheel in the slightest, but it does incidentally resemble the Jyotish charts. I remember this information barely skimming the surface of my logical mind, and the feeling of it, oh the feeling of it was like lava in the depths of me, burning and boiling in a wild and ancient joy. As I wrote each glyph, it rumbled. As I scratched out each number, my skin pulsed a subtle, glowing light. And as I looked upon it finished, my eyes were open and I knew that I was like god, wait no, that was the other Eve lol…
After that creation, I was still dancing, still wicking, still walking lost and stoned stupid in the dark, Seattle streets - but - I was doing all of those things a little less.
Because, I was also closing the door of my bedroom and painting. I would go into my room, shut the door, enter into its trance and not emerge until morning. At which point, I would tell Lisa - “I am painting. I’m going to become a professional painter. This is what I’m going to do with my life.” And she would say, “but you won’t even show me what you’re painting. How can you become a professional if you don’t ever show anyone your work?”
After months of this secret art making, I emerged, and with presents in hand. I had painted a symbolic, astrological landscape for Lisa’s natal chart:
And for mine:
Theses paintings mark a potent return to myself, for this was the first time I had picked up a paintbrush in a decade.
Flashback ten years to 2003. I had been painting and drawing all my life, as natural to me as breathing in and breathing out. I had taken one art class in high school and was otherwise self-taught. I thought I was a prodigy. Everyone seemed to act like I was, and I was happy to believe them. I was experiencing the most beautiful spiritual community at that time, feasting on rich, heart and soul nourishment through communion with spirit and intimate relationships. The leaders of this community, a couple we’ll call the Mendlesons, had taken me in as one of their adopted kids and I had never been happier. In truth, I had never been happy until these years. They had four kids and one of them was my best friend. Their father Levi became my teacher, mentor and father figure. He was also a professional, classically trained painter and one day, he offered us lessons.
I arrived at our first lesson thrilled to connect with Levi as a fellow, genius artist, and he promptly ripped my portfolio to shreds. I’m sure it was just good ol’ University critique programming, but given his place in my heart, the painter in me died.
Instantly.
And I forgot I was a painter. For ten years I forgot I was an artist. I found expression through dance but slowly, over time, it began to eat me alive from the inside. The duende. It felt like the angriest demon of all time, trapped in my belly, and I didn’t know why it was angry, or how it got there, or what to do about it and it tortured me ceaselessly until I sat down and painted my StarMap, Love Has No Cause.
I remember looking at it, after it came out of my hands, and just staring at it like I didn’t understand how it happened. And this is why I wouldn’t open my door, why I wouldn’t let Lisa see my work. Because my heart had been so devastated by this man’s critique, I had to recover before risking exposure to another human soul. I don’t know if she knows what an act of trust and friendship it was to show her my work that day I finally emerged. Does she know that I could never have taken another step towards this work, if I hadn’t taken that first step towards her? She was instrumental in setting me on the path of my destiny, and indeed, not long after I came out of my bedroom door, that spirit wind blew me across the country to the Carolina’s and back to my roots, ready to take the leap to become a professional artist.
Such a powerful story, thank you fo sharing. I remember when we met at red rocks, maybe around 2014 that you gave me your card that was a mini version of your Love Has No Cause painting. I was just hit with a nostalgia wave as I remembered that night but I also kept your card in my wallet for a few years after until the image had faded away. I appreciate understanding the context of this tiny painting I carried with me for so long