I have been devoted to my writing project, Becoming the Sacred Clown, and am proud to say I now have 60+ pages in the manuscript. As a person who has for so many years identified as a visual artist first, it’s been an emotionally scouring, humbling, and purpose-filled undertaking to step into the writer’s seat and discover my own voice within the written word realm.
This project draws out the most personal voice I have ever offered, and I have the discipline of this newsletter writing practice to thank, in part, for the birth of this work. Thank you all for continuing to read what I have to offer.
In the spirit of gratitude, I thought I’d offer you a few paragraphs from one of the most recent chapters I have drafted, Clowned by The Moon:
It’s the beginning of Pisces season, the moon is waxing gibbous somewhere in visible orbit around my pocket of a partly cloudy evening sky in NE Portland, and I’m recalling a dream vision I had over a year ago about a phenomenally reflective first quarter moon. It was a few days before Halloween 2022, and a little over two weeks prior to my father’s passing from vascular dementia and covid-related complications. He had been in hospice care at a memory care facility for nearly five months at this point. We knew he would pass sometime soon. He would try to tell me things during our visits, but he was barely taking in any fluids and his words just came out as dry grunts and unintelligible whispers. Messages from the realm just beyond the veil, I assumed. On Halloween, I went and visited him, for what would end up being the last time before he passed. Every visit felt more and more heavy in my feet and my heart as the months had progressed. I treated every visit as though it might be my last with him.
My dad and I had shared our dreams with one another over breakfast many times when I was growing up, he dreaming of being a warrior and a time traveler from other parts, and me dreaming of hills resplendent with colorful soda cans or being stunned by a skeletal witch-bride on a dark, tree-lined street. We each generally greeted our dreamworlds with enthusiasm, and that space to share was an anchor I felt lucky to have as an imaginative and curious child. So, of course I felt inclined to share my recent lunar dream vision with him on this visit. I drew a chair up to his bed, and leaned next to him, holding his pale, tired hand, and shared what I had seen…
March 4, 2024
Artemis Divine