#42 - Shots Fired 💣

Ovulation - the 24th cycle - Every Phase Collection

Shots Fired

ovulation

original cyanotype (sold)
(made with the sun and water as my darkroom)

Last month's ovulatory phase piece (below) we talked about money, business exchange, and why it seems so fucking hard to sell art. 

Correction: Art that carries a point of view--thought provoking art that isn't abstracts, florals, animals, or babies. 

That conversation carried over into this month.  Restoring an old friendship with this topic (thank you Ali) led me to make a new friend who sent me this poem that I can't not share with you (thank you Esteban). 

It is ovulation, so we are loaded, aiming, and ready to fire...

”– you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

~ Charles Bukowski
“air and light and time and space,” from  The Last Night of the Earth Poems Anthology

I relate to Bukowski's thoughts on pain being that if you're in enough for long enough, you will have a tendency to say what you really mean. 

Hell, I said what I mean so much I wrote a book about it.  And I'm still writing this...

Similarly, I write every day before work & I think too many artists make art for shit reasons. They create art to get laid, get rich, or get famous. 

They use art and the art 'industry' as a mask to build a bigger house of cards or as a coping mechanism for their emptiness--similar to how some use spirituality. 

Anything that can help you see the truth and bring you closer to freedom can be used to bypass, enslave & inflate the ego.

As it has been said, yesterday's transformation is tomorrow's ego trip. 

Yet on the higher levels, it still all eventually comes out in the wash...

The best lies are often the closest to the truth. 

Why?  Because the truth carries with it the immense power of everlasting immortality because it is what's real.  People that manipulate want that solid power without the 'real' part. 

Therefore, they need people to believe in whatever manipulation they're touting to make it appear 'real'.  What is true doesn't require any selling,  marketing, or belief in it to exist.

Art is a lie that helps us realize the truth.  It helps us to see what actually exists--on all levels.   

It is the inevitable contrast in our world of lies and truth, dark and light, the unwanted and wanted.  

I learned through my experience with endometriosis that all healing begins with being authentic. 

I would come to realize later on that we can’t even recognize what it is that we really want until we experience the unwanted.  

That contrast gives birth to us feeling the joy from our own desires.

"When everything works best, it's not because you chose the writing, but because writing chose you. It's when you're mad with it.  When it's stuffed in your ears, nostrils, under your finger nails.  It's when there's no hope but that."
~Charles Bukowski

I believe that the art chooses you.  It is a calling.  More than a 'choice' I make. 

Anyone who has heard the calling of their creativity, dharma, or purpose, knows what I'm talking about. When you hear it, you know the truth, and once you know that, you have an inherent responsibility to live it. 

It's interesting, I created this piece about a week before I had those conversations with friends who sent me Bukowski's work and when I look at some of the book covers & topics there are a plethora of similarities. Not surprising though, as the art obviously chose me.

Sold to the fabulous attorney & art collector, Jamie Agnew:

However, your only power does not lie in creating. 

But by creating, you can realize who you are & the source within you, which is your true power. 

They have sold a lie to women that their power lies in their body's ability to create a pregnancy.

They've sold the lie that their power lies in their ability to end it or to have a child.

They have made men believe their power lies in being alpha (no such thing), brute strength, and being emotionless.

The truth is the opposite. Your ability to honor your body and see yourself for who you really are is where your power is. 

It is what is most rewarding & most challenging.  If everyone realized the truth though, we wouldn't live in the current world we live in, and the powers at be wouldn't exist.  Which is why the lies listed above perpetuate.

Your power lies in your ability to receive. 

If you look back in history, and even today, every lie and just about everything evil have 1 thing in common: diminishing the feminine polarity (nothing to do with gender), specifically the aspect of receiving, in both men and women.

Their end will actually be the awakened feminine in both men and women. 

If you never receive you can never truly give.

If you never receive, you can never really 'get' anything, which is why there has been such an effort to diminish the feminine throughout time. 

If no one ever really feels like they should receive (because it is selfish, etc.), they won't, and they won't give or be generous either. 

A very intelligent, covert way to control a population, don’t you think?

I believe the pendulum is about to swing hard in the other direction.  Just like free will, art can be used to start wars and end them.  I believe this spiritual war and the war of propaganda, exploiting art, and the media is ending.  

This piece and message embody the most fertile, energetic, and magnetic phase (ovulation) with the hormonal combination of high testosterone and estrogen releasing an egg, activating the communicative parts of the brain. 

Ovulation is the phase where you can feel unstoppable, people are drawn to you, and when you're healthy you feel in the flow. 

It is also one of the things that hormonal birth control takes away (hormonal birth control takes away all of the phases as well). 

There is a mental 'toughness' that happens as well due to hormonal chemistry in the brain and body, which is why when some women go on birth control, they appear to 'lose it'.  Like I did. 

Their bodies are crying out because they did on a biological level 'lose' that necessary chemistry. 

This piece serves as a metaphor of that experience, as well as the larger experience of the collective reclaiming our power. 

Next time you're in the office or at work look around-- what does it look like?  Dare to question the systems around you & your own routine. 

The calling of creativity is an invitation to take responsibility for who you are.

Who are you? 

See you in the Sounds of Freedom. 💌

P.S. I didn't use AI to write this

More info on the Ovulatory phase here
More info on cycle syncing + hormonal health: Womancode + In the flo

👉Use my code MEREDITH12117 to get 50% off your first month of Alisa Vitti’s life-changing Cycle Syncing Membership Link here

If there is a woman you know who is struggling with period pain, the foundation of how I healed myself began with reading Womancode & In The Flo by Alisa Vitti. 

There is also a complete list of resources of how I healed myself outlining the methodologies, doctors, recipes, books and more on the Resources page in the back of my book, accessible by scanning the QR code.  Plus you can experience the magic of the Augmented Reality (AR) Art adventure.