To Venus and Part Way Back

So this is an editorial that I've been holding out on for months. We shot this back in May when the garden was perfectly Spring. It's my favorite time of the season when everything is super green and budding and has yet to seen the ravages of the Oklahoma heat. My homegirl Medeia Starfire is the photographer behind the lens this time and we shot on location at The Herban Fortress. It was a lovely, dewey afternoon as we wandered around the garden, smelling herbs, discussing modern feminism and playing with crystals . She is an artist, writer and photographer positioned in Seattle, but an Okie native to the bone. Jewels featured are heirloom vintage and Fortress Armor, which is a line of jewelry that I curate with hand - mined quartz and one of a kind custom pieces. Everything is organically grown by me and my partner. This is my home base for authoring all that I do. The epicenter, the mother ship, the lab from which I write, create, love and parent.

Mrs. Pong's Lace

Bonus material. I mean, seriously? The composition here is impeccable. This is just a sneaky of what's to come. The photographer is one of my oldest friends in the book. She's remarkable. Everything she does looks amazing. She's got that poetry in her eye. Objects move independently in her presence. I have been in a serious love affair with her since our junior year in high school. She acted in plays. She caressed the violin. She made the world beautiful and littered with violet. People and things were ALIVE. There was a pulse where a mark of stone once was. She entered with her heat, her omen. The sky cracked like an egg, leaving tiny shell pieces in the wake of discovery. But I was in love and I was not ashamed. I danced and made shapes in the air with a beautiful, dark soul. She showed me things I never knew and I loved the not knowing. I was young, immature and juvenile in the face of modern technique. Who was I kidding? I needed and wanted real structure. The thing that maybe a University gives you but I didn't want to go to college. In fact, I didn't even want to crack a book. I was better than that. I was a self-made mess. Everything that was collegiate and structured, I was not. I hated agendas. Rules. Guidelines. I just wanted to BEND. And from that impulse, I leapt! See me through this lace but don't really see me. See me through this filter but don't really assess me. I beg of you, dramatically. There is little left to decode. The proof is in the pulling.

Cherry Oh Baby

The day opened behind rose-tinted Givenchy. My mind must have hit the refresh button sometime through the night. I can read omens like cards. It's a thing I do. The veil is thinner for me with regard to the psyche, subconscious, projection and intuition. Not that mine is any better than anyone's - it isn't. Mine has the ability to penetrate solid matter. Mine has the ability to see and sense things just moments before others do. Mine has the likeability of a mirror. I am really good at helping others see things about themselves. This is not subject to opinion. When you can work like a go-between, it's something else. "Medium" is over-used. I hate catch words. Let's say "gateway" like you're moving through a psychic wormhole. Like that much better.  I don't do anything special at all. It's kind of the same thing as preparing a recipe you have made many times, when you need no guide or instructions. Turning off, tuning in, dropping out.

Anyway, before I digress too far, what I was getting at was that yesterday evening, I was feeling very sensitive and in-tune to anything red, pink, rosy, feminine, earthy, organic. Though these are themes I indulge often, like most things, they swell and regress at appropriate times, usually signaling an atmospheric change. Be it weather, personal emotion, state of the body union, moon or Venus transit. The variegated Thyme in my garden is really a survivor - it has been leafy all winter! Occasionally drifted over with a little frost, it appears to enjoy a gentle thaw. It has been turning more red and pink as the days have gotten shorter. That is photosynthesis at work there. The plant receives less sunlight and photosynthesizes less, meaning the less green pigment is made inside the cells. That's why trees turn red and orange in the fall. If you notice, it will always be the side of the plant or tree that faces directly into the setting sun that has the most color change. It's gorgeous. It's right on time with the arrival of my moon cycle first thing this morning. More symbolic than anything, and probably just to me. I wanted to start making and creating beautiful things today, as the moon's position is steadily and appropriately Pisces. Cue the imagination! Usher in creativity and drop the curtain on the waking dream state. Like a hazy, euphoric walking around kind of high. I associate the Pisces effect with dopamine. Really get into feel-good stuff, which usually requires some personal restraint and a tighter grip on control. It always seems like a good idea to take everything to the next level, with no ceiling under this influence. The lunar pull alone will do this, but when you add the menstrual muse it can ignite something quite unpredictable.