In Response To Mr. Dinan...

Last April, I wrote this on my Facebook page. I acknowledge that you may not have read every single post I have ever made so you may not possess all of the details I have shared over the years. It's also obvious that you don't read all my posts when you make comments that I sleep around with all the men I talk about. Anyone who reads all my posts knows this is simply not true. This should sum much of it up and I will complete a conclusion to tie it all up at the end. For the record, Thomas reads ALL my Facebook posts and knows MORE about “my men” then most anyone who just reads about my adventures.

  

“Walking down Portabello Road in London with Gay Boyfriend, he commented on how happy I was and made a few observations about me. I replied that I could never be a caged bird again. Thomas says, "A heart shaped cage is still a cage." This is so true. I need to be free. To fly. To feel the sunshine kiss my wings. To glide through moonlight in silence while the stars accent my beauty with their soft glow. To live my life. All men who love me will understand, cherish and nurture this in me.

Not every relationship is a cage. For example, my relationship with Thomas. He allows me my freedom but at the end of a long moonlight flight or a frolic in the meadow or just a night's hunt, he is always there with hot cocoa and warm arms and his kind heart. That he loves me without reservation is what makes our relationship special and nurturing. He would never put me in a cage. Instead, I get a pretty blue velvet pillow in front of the fire and his trust and love. That's what I need for me right now.

In return, though...I don't abuse his love or his kindness. I give BACK to him. I love him. I adore him. I worship him. I treat him like the sun does not rise until his gorgeous steel blue eyes open to the day...I treat him like he is the only sun in my universe and the air that I breathe. We feed each other with love and kindness.... A relationship is not nurturing if there is no reciprocation. That's what I needed to learn from douche bag. I did that for him but there was no return on my investment. He was like a huge black hole of need and want and demanding. Thomas is not a black hole. He is a dazzling star that not only absorbs my energy but feeds it back to me. And I am his sunshine...I consume his fire but then I warm him with it. And if that is not enough to make you want to stick your finger down your throat and barf at the sap then I don't know what is!!!!! LOL :) (Forgive my poetic rants...I am just a young girl in love with life and I tend to drink so fast it trickles down my chin and makes a mess at times....)”

Data points in answer to your questions:

“You're going on dates with a different guy every night while sleeping with someone else.”

Yes. I am. 

“And it seems you wish to bed them all while looking for a steady relationship. Just going by how it looks.”

No. I do not wish to bed them all.  And, if you read the above, that answers your steady relationship part.

“I would not want to date a woman whom after the dinner I pay for ( assuming he paid mind you since you go for old fashioned gentlemen, which is a very good thing ) goes home to another man waiting in your bed....”

Then I highly suggest that you do not date me. Side bar: and, yes. They ALL paid for dinner. All of them.

“Josephine's definition of "dating" is—“

My definition of dating is: an ongoing steady somewhat consistent (with respect to duration and regularity) relationship that involves sexual intimacy.  Based on that definition, I am only dating one man (Thomas) and FWB does not fall into this category as we do not have a regular schedule of dates or frequency of seeing each other. It’s sort of “ad hoc” whenever. I have not slept with ANY of the men I have gone out with this last week.I am now and only have been intimate with Thomas and FWB in the two years since my separation and divorce.

I am a single mother with no child support. I work very hard and I give 110% to my child. This means that I am home with her after work and weekends. I do not have the ability or time to “date”. Each man I meet gets my speech up front:

You will never be as important as my daughter is to me. She will always come first and I may cancel on you at the last minute if she is ill or needs me. She will always come before you. Furthermore, I allow myself one night out a month for me. One. ONE. I take one Saturday night out a month for myself.  So you have to be okay with only seeing me once a month…maybe more often if he can meet me for lunch during the work day or a quick dinner after the gym or a work meeting where I can give him an hour of my smile before I dash home.

Many men want a woman who can be more available, so it makes sense to have more than one man so I can have a rotation of sorts if needed. If I can only go out one night and Guy #1 is busy that ONE night, why should I have to stay home or do nothing? I simply move on to Guy #2. Or 3…or 4. Right now I often go out by myself but it is nice to have someone to go out with every once in a while.  I go over this with each man. French got the same speech last night. And he said, “You are an amazing mother. That is very admirable. I respect that.”  And then he talked to me for EIGHT more hours and wants to go out again a few more times before my daughter returns home from her little vacation and I go back into mom mode and back to one night out a month…

Good men understand. Good fathers “get it”. They respect my role and my decision and I am so wonderful that I am (as Ace puts it)…worth the wait just to hear me call him “sugar” in his ear.

“Yes, the first rule of the Satanic earth is not to give opinion unless asked,…”

Upon close examination, I do not see where I have asked your opinion. YOU, on the other hand, DID ask for an opinion, and it was given.  Furthermore, YOU were the one who kept playing the “stop calling me a child hating monster” card. NO one, including myself EVER called you that. Ever. We gave our opinions after you asked and you did not like what we said so you played the victim card. Whatever.

“…provided that noone else is hurt, right?”

There are no guarantees in horseshoes, war, or love. You want a measurable return on investment of your time and money, buy a blow up doll or hire a prostitute.

I am under NO obligation to fuck a man or enter into a long term relationship because he bought me dinner or spent some time talking to me.  And any man who thinks that I do owe him or gets mad if he doesn’t get “it” …. deserves to be “hurt”.

>>Off topic, yes, but entirely relevant to my right to voice my opinion and/or concern based on what actions have been done to me and again, what has been displayed on my news feed. I said what I said not out of spite, but because if I listened to her bitch about me and to me, why am I criminalized if I open MY mouth? It all started with an opinion. An honest opinion. Leave it alone.<<

This entire statement right here shows that your only agenda here was to “get back at” me.

Epic fail.

The net net of this all is:

I am a grown woman and I only am accountable to me.

I can go out with whoever I want whenever I want, however I want, as many times as I want.  If they don’t like my company or my rules or how I do things, they don’t have to ask me out again. Funny…they don’t seem to mind.

I do not lie to any of the men I go out with.   

I have not told anyone that I want or am looking for a long term, steady or exclusive relationship. As a matter of fact, if you were to look at the last text exchange with Tri Guy, you will see him asking if he was ranked number two or three out of my men (and asking how to get the top slot).

Some women get out of a bad marriage and are so insecure they immediately get right back into a bad relationship with another douche bag because they are afraid to be alone or simply incapable of being alone.

I refuse to feel any sort of obligation to be with anyone other than a man (or men) who please me, please me well, and please me OFTEN.

I am a Goddess to be worshipped and not some woman to be possessed.

That should answer all your questions. 

Sugar Skull Tattoo Symbolism - Part Three of Three

In addition to the two stories I shared, the skull has layers of symbolism attached to it when you look at its use through history. The following notes come from a variety of sources on the internets and in books and notes taken over the years.

THE SKULL

The skull has been given strong connotations in many religions and several cultures.  In dream interpretation, the skull can represent the desire to probe the secrets of the mind.

It can be a symbol of protection, strength and power. For some people who already experienced danger, it can be a symbol of overcoming death, danger or a tough time. For those people who overcome trials, it can be a symbol for a past life, now changed, never to revert. In history, it has a symbol of victory over the enemy and a warning to the people defeated in battle. A skull can be an obvious declaration of triumph.

THE SUGAR SKULL

The sugar skull is an important integral part of the Dia de los Muertos celebration. Just as the use of real skulls was a symbol of life and death to the ancient tribes during their month-long ceremonies, the sugar skull now represents the celebration of the cycle of life and death.  To me, I preferred the look of the sugar skull in that the point here is not to harbor a design that is sad or depressing or dark and evokes bad memories. I wanted something that spoke to new happiness and a new life and good memories. In the tradition of the culture, it is an homage to the little girl who died as I grew up. In that way, it is dedicated to myself. But even as it symbolizes the death of that person I once was, the blooming flowers and bright colors represent that life can begin again and grow back strong and beautiful. I also liked the idea of using the flame colored flowers in the skull’s eyes to symbolize the fire of wisdom that Valalisa was given by Baba Yaga.  If you look beside the nose you will see the tear drop shapes… those come from the story of the Skeleton Woman…the tears shed by the fisherman that nourished her soul.

Taking the tales of Skeleton Woman and Valalisa the Brave and pulling in not just the historical significance and symbolism of the skull but also of the more specific “sugar skull”, it’s now easy to see why this was such a rich and perfect basis for my design.

PHI

The symbol in the middle of the skull’s forehead is that of Phi.  This is the symbol of the Golden Ratio in mathematics. Those not familiar with the Golden Ratio can Google it for more information but essentially, I like the concept of how it ties math to art in that at least since the Renaissance, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio.

It also represents a few other things:

In physics, it is used to represent electrical potential. This speaks not just to the potential in my muscles to run, lift, and swim but also just to the idea of potential in general.  In structural engineering, it is used to represent strength.

*

In the spirit of the “flowers” usually associated with the sugar skull, I wanted to incorporate the following two molecules. I designed the piece with more flourish and leaves at the edge but those will be added in the next session around the molecules to pull it all together and the idea was for the finished piece to have the molecules look like flowers around it at first glance.

WATER

One of the molecule chains is that of water. For those who have been in the military or work with the Marines, you may be familiar with the words, “Water Is Life”.  I need to focus on drinking more water for my workouts and I wanted this as a reminder. It’s been working, too. I have been remembering to drink it more when it’s right in front of me ALL the time now J

ATP

Adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) is essentially the molecule of energy transfer within cells.  ATP transports chemical energy within the cells for metabolism. It is also required for the shortening of actin and myosin filament crossbridges required for muscle contraction. This latter process is one of the main energy requirements of animals and is essential for locomotion.  I selected this molecule because it speaks deeply to one of the things I have struggled with over the last few years. Eating. My trainer often gets concerned that I don’t eat enough for the exercise I am doing. He and I have been working on educating my brain on nutrition and why I NEED to eat to stay healthy, get stronger, fuel my body and lose weight.  While I know this academically now, I still some days struggle with things douche bag said to me that interfere with my progress. I started this mantra about a year ago, “Food is fuel. You need to eat. Food is fuel. You need to eat” to help. Because ATP symbolizes this in such a simple way yet also speaks to my athletic goals and dreams, I thought it was the perfect symbol to go with.

Sugar Skull Tattoo Symbolism - Part Two of Three

This is part two in a three part series on my most recent ink work. This particular piece is so very meaningful to me and I wanted to share the inspiration behind the piece.

The second story I share is another one from the same book. I actually read this story before the Skeleton Woman so this is the story that set the stages for the skull imagery but the Skeleton Woman was the catalyst that sparked the vision of the design. For those who have followed me in my journey, you can see why this piece spoke to me in tandem with the other.

In her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés tells the story of Valalisa and Baba Yaga, identifying much of the Goddess imagery inherent in it. This is a Russian folktale but to be honest it is found to be common through much of Eastern Europe.

Valalisa The Brave

A long time ago, a man lived in this village with his beautiful daughter, who was called Vasilisa. The girl’s mother had sadly died some years before the start of this story. But before she died, she gave Vasilisa a wonderful gift. It was a little rag doll that did not look so different from any other. The girl’s mother told Vasilisa that she should take special care of the doll. Every night she must feed it a little milk and a little biscuit, and so long as she did so, the doll would always be ready to help her – no matter how much trouble she found herself in. Vasilisa did just as her mother bid her. And every night the little rag doll sat up and drank a little milk, and ate a little biscuit before smiling at Vasilisa and then going back to sleep.

As time went by, the girl’s father decided to marry again. His second wife had two daughters of her own, neither of whom could touch Vasilisa for beauty or sweetness of character. In fact, they were jealous of Vasilisa and they hated her terribly. So long as Vasilisa’s father remained at home, the step-mother and step-sisters had to pretend that they liked her, but every now and then one of the sisters would whisper in Vasilisa’s ear:

“Just you wait until your dear papa leaves us alone with you. Then you’ll see !”

When Vasilisa had recently passed her sixteenth birthday, her father said that he had to go away on a journey that would last at least a month. Vasilisa begged him to take her with him, but he just laughed and said he was traveling on business, and the girl would find the journey tiresome and dull.

The first night after the father had left, the step-mother gathered the three girls together in the parlor and spoke like this:

“Now my dears, I have a little task for each of you. Tanya” – that was the oldest ” – go in my room please my dear and sew a button on my red dress. Katya ” – that was the youngest – ” go to the kitchen table and roll some pastry so that it’s nice and flat. And Vasilisa dear, go to Baba Yaga’s hut in the forest and ask her to lend us some fire for the hearth. Now run along sweetheart. Don’t waste any time.”

The stepmother shooed Vasilisa out of the house so fast that that she had hardly time to put on her hat and gloves. She walked forlornly to the corner of the street and took the little doll out of her coat pocket where it had been sleeping.

“Oh Little Doll,” she said. “My mother told me that if I fed and looked after you, you would be ready to help me if I was ever in trouble. Well I have fed and looked after you. And now I’m in terrible trouble. I must go to Baba Yaga. And everyone knows that she is a dreadfully wicked witch. So please tell me – what am I to do?”

And the little doll looked up at Vasilisa and said:

“Be as brave as you are beautiful. Go to Baba Yaga’s hut and no harm will come to you.”

And so Vasilisa mustered all her courage and walked down the path that led through the woods to the hut of Baba Yaga.

Valalisa begins her journey with the rising sun, and as she delves deeper into the ancient wood, she sees first a man dressed in white riding a white horse out of the forest. A bit later in the day, she hears the thundering of hooves again and a red-clad rider on a red horse flies past. As the sun is setting and Valalisa sees flickering fire in the distance, a black rider on a black horse goes past.

When she finds the witch’s home, she is afraid of the bone fence, the dancing hut, and Baba Yaga’s iron teeth and withered form, but determined to retrieve the fire her family needs, she faces down her fears and enters the Yaga’s dancing hut. Therein, she is set to cleaning the witch’s house, cooking her dinner, and completing an impossible task: Separating mildewed corn from good corn. Baba Yaga warns Valalisa that if she doesn’t complete these tasks, she will become dinner. The magic doll, gift of her mother, helps her through. Baba Yaga is surprised to find the tasks complete in the morning, but calls upon three pairs of skeletal hands to grind the good corn into meal. Valalisa is set to another day of cleaning, cooking, and yet another seemingly impossible task: Separating wheat from black grains and wild peas. Again the doll comes to her rescue. Baba Yaga does not appear pleased, but sets Valalisa to a third day of chores, and a third and even more difficult task: Separating poppy seeds from a pile of dirt. In the morning, the Yaga appears disappointed once again, but calls upon her magic hands to grind the poppy seeds into oil. As Estés tells the story, Valalisa is granted the opportunity to ask questions for the tasks she has completed, with the added warning, “too much knowledge makes one old before their time.”

She asks about the riders she saw on her journey.

“Who is the white rider?” she asks the crone, and Baba Yaga smiles fondly.

“Ah,” she says. “That is my Day.”

“And the red man on the red horse?”

“That is my Rising Sun.”

“And the man in black on the black horse, Grandmother?”

“He is my Night.”

Valalisa then falls silent, and Baba Yaga wheedles her. “Come, my child, do you have no more questions?”
The girl considers asking about the skeletal hands, but remembers the warning she was given, and instead answers thus: “No, Grandmother. You, yourself said knowing too much makes one old before her time.”

The Yaga cackles and grants Valalisa what she has traveled so far for—fire, in the form of one of the fiery skulls from Her gate on a stick. Unafraid now of the forest and emboldened with the lessons she has learned, Valalisa returns home with her fire, the fire of wisdom and power, and brings it back to the stepmother and stepsisters who had plotted against her. And by morning, under the watchful eyes of the skull, they are all burned to a crisp.

*

“Now, at first glance, Baba Yaga appears to be the villain of the story, the wicked witch who makes Valalisa toil for Her. And indeed, to a small girl cast out of her house to search for fire, the Yaga appears frightening indeed. She lives in Her dancing hut surrounded by a fence made of bones, topped with human skulls whose eyes glow with a fiery light. She demands impossible tasks be completed in order to gain Her approval. Yet, when those tasks are met, Valalisa, as the honest Seeker, is gifted with the gifts of the Crone: Wisdom and power.

The skeletal hands – the Mystery Valalisa did not ask about – also reveal Baba Yaga’s deeper mysteries. The hands reveal the alchemic power of death, the crucible in which one thing is transformed into another. In working at separating that which is useless (moldy corn, dirt) from that which is good (healthy corn, poppy seeds) Valalisa learns the all-important lesson of discernment, for that discernment must be employed before that transformation can take place. But these Mysteries are not explained to Valalisa like the riders. Death, of course, is part of the natural cycle of nature, but the deeper mystery remains with the Yaga in her dancing hut.

When we work with Baba Yaga, when we take that path into the deep forest to face the mysteries of death and emerge with the light of wisdom, we also face the wild aspects of ourselves. They may not be pretty, they may have long stringy hair and iron teeth and a wild cackle, but they also hold mysteries our more civilized day-to-day selves never think upon. Baba Yaga is not tied by social norms and mores. She flies about in yet another symbol of transformation; she wipes away the signs of her passing so you’re never sure if she’s really been there. She’s rude, she’s crude, and she lives in a hut that doesn’t have the manners to sit down and stay like we expect a house should—and you can bet she enjoys all of this. She is less concerned about what is civilized and polite than what is true.

When you find yourself in need of true wisdom, when you find yourself being too nice, too polite in the face of ongoing boundary violations, when you find yourself stagnated by the expectations of others, it might just be time to retrieve your Wild Woman (or Man.) It might be time to brave the forest and meet Baba Yaga.

I wanted to show in my story that the doll and the Baba Yaga represent the same idea, one in tiny human proportion, the other of the magnitude... yet both linked by safekeeping, and by knowing. Vasalisa in the story as I wrote it, carries... she carries the doll, she carries the laundry of the Yaga, she carries the poppy seeds, she carries the skull of consciousness. She is a quintessential dummling who is learning consciousness and has all she needs given to her time and again. The psyche appears to work this way too, offering us avenues for learning, for escape, for differentiations heightened, if we will bend to the work and not block what we have learned and what we know to be so.

The psyche appears to learn from the magnitude and from the tiny also, particularly if one does not 'throw away' what the soul knows, as the ego will ever try to lighten the load in its ramblings, uncertainties and lacks of courage. The point is, the ego will never understand, but the soul can grasp a great deal of the archetype, can learn a great deal by remaining with and with and with.

You've heard me say this often: There comes a time in life... when it is time to move from this encampment to a farther encampment. Then, we move away from ego's sights only and far more into soul's sight.
This can be a struggle, and the Vasalisa story details her oh so willing struggle, her... to me... heartbreakingly faithful trust of the tiny doll given by her mother... who in herself is also part of the Baba Yaga who keeps, preserves, watches and cares for, teaches and is bold and wise and no one to mess with.
In symbolic terms, I love the story of Vasalisa because it takes all these matters into account and as one reads and learnes the story as applied to one's life only, one begins to be near the transformative fire. How far in one wishes to jump is up to the individual. And it is true, that Baba Yaga is not one for the timid or unprepared. Remember Vasalisa is about to die; she has been harmed horribly, abandoned in a forest, has NO protector.
And yet, an archetype has relevance and resonance in every life regardless of horrifications, and in this sense Vasalisa, a child of the universe, as we all are... is a Baba in the becoming... a mother who will see so much and have dominion over herself, and teach and give to others, and who also will turn away from what is destructive to her soul and spirit.

In this case, a representation of a great woman who sees clearly, is decisive and knows the patterns of the universe.

The doll is symbolic homunculi, little life. It is the symbol of what lies buried in humans that is numinous. It is a small and glowing facsimile of the original Self. Superficially, it is just a doll. But inversely, it represents a little piece of soul that carries all the knowledge of the larger soul-Self. In the doll is the voice, in diminutive, of old La Que Sabe, The One Who Knows.”  ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There is one section in the book (which I cannot type out for you word for word as I have lent my copy to another at the moment) that goes into the symbolism of Baba Yaga giving her the fire in a skull versus some other vessel.  In essence, what she said was that this part of the story symbolized how many of us are presented with an event (or events) in life that is dangerous, causes pain or injury, and profoundly changes how we see the world and our place in it. This encounter with “Baba Yaga” in whatever form she takes is an opportunity to receive the gift of wisdom and enlightenment. The fire inside the skull represents that new knowledge.

The problem some people face with it is that the blinding light that beams from the skull’s eyes is harsh and unforgiving. While it can and does illuminate great beauty, it can also uncover terrible ugliness and horror. Some people get to the point where this light of wisdom and experience is just too much for them to bear. The pain, ugliness, horror and madness it often spotlights is just too much for a soul to take on. They end up tired and they cast away this gift of the wisdom and prefer to remain in the cool comforting darkness where it’s much easier (on the heart and the eyes) to remain blissfully ignorant of the truth about people and the world.

Sadly, these are the same people who are doomed to repeat their traumas, horrors, and mistakes because they prefer to stumble around a dark room rather than to illuminate it with that light…. because the light may show the monsters…and that’s just too scary for some. Too  overwhelming.

This story was a huge reminder to me that after I had been through everything I had experienced with douche bag, I MUST not throw away that light. I must not discard what I had paid a very painful price to learn.  I must not let that experience go to waste. As depressing as it could be to see those monsters behind the faces of men who pretend to be nice…it was worth it to illuminate each and every one of them so I could also see those who were good, honest, kind, strong, wonderful men. 

To me this story speaks to that of learning the wisdom to discern. To see. To sort. To be brave. To be able to listen to that voice of wisdom and respect the power that is given to you. And, to have the strength to not discard it when the burden becomes heavy or uncomfortable.  The flowers in the eyes will be done in the colors of fire to further symbolize that light of knowledge and illumination.

 

This story was what first started the idea of the skull design to start to coalesce in my mind and when I read the next story of the Skeleton Woman it just clicked and I KNEW that would be the focal point of my next design. In my third and final piece, I will share the rest of the smaller details and why they were done and important to the design.

Sugar Skull Tattoo Symbolism - Part One of Three

This is part one in a three part series on my most recent ink work. This particular piece is so very meaningful to me and I wanted to share the inspiration behind the piece. 
 

I have a wonderful psychologist that has been helping me through the healing process of the abuse I experienced during my marriage. He suggested I read a book about folktales and archetypes surrounding woman through the history of the world and how they grew from innocent little girls to wise old women. The following is an excerpt from that book (citation provided below):

- A Tale of the Inuit-

Skeleton Woman

She had done something of which her father disapproved, although no one any longer remembered what it was. But her father had dragged her to the cliffs and thrown her over and into the sea. There, the fish ate her flesh away and plucked out her eyes. As she lay under the sea, her skeleton turned over and over in the currents.

One day a fisherman came fishing, well, in truth many came to this bay once. But this fisherman had drifted far from his home place and did not know that the local fisherman stayed away, saying this inlet was haunted.

The fisherman's hook drifted down through the water, and caught of all places, in the bones of Skeleton Woman's rib cage. The fisherman thought, "Oh, now I've really got a big one! Now I really have one!" In his mind he was thinking of how many people this great fish would feed, how long it would last, how long he might be free from the chore of hunting. And as he struggled with this great weight on the end of the hook, the sea was stirred to a thrashing froth, and his kayak bucked and shook, for she who was beneath struggled to disentangle herself. And the more she struggled, the more she tangled in the line. No matter what she did, she was inexorably dragged upward, tugged up by the bones of her own ribs.

The hunter had turned to scoop up his net, so he did not see her bald head rise above the waves, he did not see the little coral creatures glinting in the orbs of her skull, he did not see the crustaceans on her old ivory teeth. When he turned back with his net, her entire body, such as it was, had come to the surface and was hanging from the tip of his kayak by her long front teeth.

"Agh!" cried the man, and his heart fell into his knees, his eyes hid in terror on the back of his head, and his ears blazed bright red. "Agh!" he screamed, and knocked her off the prow with his oar and began paddling like a demon toward shoreline. And not realizing she was tangled in his line, he was frightened all the more for she appeared to stand upon her toes while chasing him all the way to shore. No matter which way he zigged his kayak, she stayed right behind, and her breath rolled over the water in clouds of steam, and her arms flailed out as though to snatch him down into the depths.

"Agh!" he wailed as he ran aground. In one leap he was out of his kayak, clutching his fishing stick and running, and the coral white corpse of skeleton woman, still snagged in the fishing line, bumpety-bumped behind right after him. Over the rocks he ran, and she followed. Over the frozen tundra he ran, and she kept right up. Over the meat laid out to dry he ran, cracking it to pieces as his mukluks bore down.

Throughout it all she kept right up, in fact, she grabbed some of the frozen fish as she was dragged behind. This she began to eat, for she had not gorged in a long, long time. Finally, the man reached his snowhouse and dove right into the tunnel and on hands and knees scrabbled his way into the interior. Panting and sobbing he lay there in the dark, his heart a drum, a mighty drum. Safe at last, oh so safe, yes, safe thank the Gods, Raven, yes, thank Raven, yes, and all bountiful Sedna, safe... at...last.

Imagine when he lit his whale oil lamp, there she - it - lay in a tumble upon his snow floor, one heel over her shoulder, one knee inside her rib cage, one foot over her elbow. He could not say later what it was, perhaps the firelight softened her features, or the fact that he was a lonely man... but a feeling of some kindness came into his breathing, and slowly he reached out his grimy hands and using words softly like a mother to child, began to untangle her from the fishing line.

"Oh, na, na, na." First he untangled the toes, then the ankles. "Oh, na, na, na." On and on he worked into the night, until dressing her in furs to keep her warm, Skeleton Woman's bones were all in the order a human's should be.

He felt into his leather cuffs for his flint and used some of his hair to light a little more fire. He gazed at her from time to time as he oiled the precious wood of his fishing stick and rewound the gut line. And she in the furs uttered not a word - she did not dare - lest this hunter take her out and throw her down to the rocks and break her bones to pieces utterly.

The man became drowsy, slid under his sleeping skins, and soon was dreaming. And sometimes as humans sleep, you know, a tear escapes from the dreamer's eye; we never know what sort of dream causes this, but we know it is either a dream of sadness or longing. And this is what happened to the man.

Skeleton Woman saw the tear glisten in the firelight and she became suddenly soooo thirsty. She tinkled and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth to his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many-years-long thirst was slaked.

While lying beside him, she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum. She sat up and banged on both sides of it: Bom Bomm!.....Bom Bomm!

As she drummed, she began to sing out "Flesh, flesh, flesh! Flesh, Flesh, Flesh!" And the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. She sang for hair and good eyes and nice fat hands. She sang the divide between her legs, and breasts long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs.

And when she was all done, she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him, skin against skin. She returned the great drum, his heart, to his body, and that is how they awakened, wrapped one around the other, tangled from their night, in another way now, a good and lasting way.

The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill fortune say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well fed by the creatures she had known in her life under water. The people say that it is true and that is all they know.

*

It's important to not romanticize the relationship between Skeleton Woman and the fisherman. We each have a masculine and a feminine nature; the man in this story could just as easily be a woman. It is the task of Skeleton Woman to initiate each of us into the deeper mysteries of relationship with the largesse of life but she can only come into the temple of spirit by our explicit invitation...

In the Inuit story of Skeleton Woman, a young woman has been thrown into the sea by her father, and in time has turned into a tangle mess of bones. She is hooked by a fisherman who thinks that he has caught a great fish. When he turns back from his net into her mossy bald skull terrified he starts out paddling for his life, he hits land, running until he reaches his village. Clutching his fishing pole the whole way he hears her at his heels. When he finally dives into his snowhouse he thinks that he is safe at last. But as he lights his lamp he sees that he has brought her home with him.

The story has progressed like many fairy tales from an untenable condition; in this case a masculine energy does not honor and understand the feminine and so throws her back into the primordial matter where her reality is dramatically altered. She becomes related to the sea world of the unconscious and it changes her and in turn will change him.

Note it does not destroy her although it may look like it from the old perspective.

In the Skeleton Women story we may well consider the question, who is the artist? Is it the lonely fisherman who, although he was originally terrified, entered into relationship by putting her bones right and covering her gently with sleeping furs. Or is it Skeleton Women herself who uses his heart to re-created herself? Of course, as with ourselves, it is both of them. We are the alienated masculine principle and the crushed feminine principle who together transforms the seemingly dead end into new life. They both risk. They both in their way draw from imagination and inner vision, all apart of the artist/shamanic skill of trusting in transformation through the greater cycle beyond death.

As the fisherman gets over his fright, for some reason in the soft light, he begins to set her bones in order and wraps her in warm furs singing as he works. He crawls into his sleeping furs and falls asleep. In the night, she comes close to him to drink his one glistening tear to satisfy her many years of thirst. She then reaches into his chest taking the drum of his heart to sing on her flesh, and "all the other things that a women needs". She returns his heart, undresses him and joins him as men and women do. They spend the night together and it is said that they were prosperous and happy together all their living days.

To untangle Skeleton Woman is the path of soul and to soul; the strengthening and nurturing of heart.  To be present in the moment means to surrender: not  to abandon, give up or give away, but to trust deeply yourself, NOW.   You may try to go from the finding of accidental treasure to love making, but you really cannot skip the chase, the untangling, the tear and the fleshing out through heart. You cannot go from concept to product without passing through the maturation of your history, vision and values. To enter breath to breath, skin to skin contact with loss, pain, disappointment and failure is the path of life and also the path to meaningful artwork. It is the story of Skeleton Woman. As the fisherman begins to trust in who he is and who she may be, he invites a genuine exchange.  The fisherman is our model of entering into relation with Lady Death to find right order. To do this we must stop reacting in blind terror fueled by fears of the past and future.

In this stage in creative process we must surrender our innocence to be renewed. Sleep in fairy tales represents trusting in the deeper meaning. Things change in sleep. We can rest assured that things take care of themselves; we do not have to track and translate anything. Sleep is a practice for death, the place of no time, dreamtime. It is a return to innocence or to the deepest level of being. In the process it is a turning off of the conscious mind to be present in another way. Sleep is rebirth. You can not fall into sleep on demand but must release unto it. This stage of the story calls for letting go to what may be. Slumber, bound up with innocence, requires trust to sleep in someone's presence. It is the same in love, without surrender there is holding back and being held back. This is an important aspect of the creative process.

Authentic emotional freedom is to no longer need validation and agreement from another to be who we are. We have such profound yearnings for closeness and yet hesitate to be closer to ourselves.

As the fisherman sleeps, a tear is released from the corner of his eye. Skeleton Woman spies it, is filled with thirst, and awkwardly crawls to him to drink from the cup of his eye. What, we ask, could he be dreaming that would cause such a tear to come forth?

When one has ventured this far into relationship with the Life/Death/Life nature, the tear that is cried is the tear of passion and compassion mixed together, for oneself, and for the other. It is the hardest tear to cry and especially for men and certain kinds of "street-tough" women.

This tear of passion and compassion is most often wept after the accidental finding of treasure, after the fearful chase, after the untangling - for it is the combination of these that causes the exhaustion, the disassembling of defenses, the facing of oneself, the stripping down to the bones, the desire for both knowledge and relief. These cause a soul to peer into what the soul truly wants and to weep for loss and love of both.

As surely as Skeleton Woman was brought to the surface, now this tear, this feeling in the man, is also brought to the surface. It is an instruction in loving both self and another. Stripped now of all the bristles and hooks and shivs of the daytime world, the man draws Skeleton Woman to lie beside him, to drink and be nourished by his deepest feeling. In his new form he is able to feed the thirsty other.

This is the man healing, the man growing in understanding. He takes on his own medicine-making, he takes on the task of feeding the "deleted other." Through his tears, he begins to create.

To love another is not enough, to be "not an impediment" in the life of the other is not enough. It is not enough to be "supportive" and "there for them" and all the rest. The goal is to be knowledgeable about the ways of life and death, in one's own life and in panorama. And the only way to be a knowing man is to go to school in the bones of Skeleton Woman. She is waiting for the signal of deep feeling, the one tear that says, "I admit the wound."

The weight of our cultural media seems bent on giving us the ‘quick fix’ or the solution to our problems as fast as possible; in such a worldview it is not encouraged to take the time and sit down to ‘untangle the bones’, we are encouraged instead to look elsewhere, ‘find another relationship’ etc.  It is the ‘inability to face and untangle skeleton woman that causes many love relationships to fail.’

In the Skeleton Women story she is the disused and misused Birth/Death/Birth force. In her vital and resurrected form, she governs the intuitive and emotive ability to complete the life cycles of birthing and dying, grieving and celebration....She can tell when it is time for a place, a thing, an act, a group, or a relationship to die..." She knows of endings and beginnings of life.

The above writing was taken from a combination of the book Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and various commentaries she wrote on the folktale.

I read this on the plane to Hawaii and was very moved by the tale and the concept within. It reminded me of the wonderful men who have not been afraid to reach out and help me untangle my bones. Who have given me their compassion and heart. Who have helped me return to warm whole flesh after being discarded from the cliff by my alleged protector who was in actuality, my abuser. 

It was after reading this story and the next one I will share that I knew I must have a skull incorporated into my next piece of work. Part Two of this blog series will share the other story involving a skull that went hand in hand with this one and solidified my decision to use the symbol of the skull.