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Aphrodite-Eve

11 X 15 watercolor, 1984

spiritual trailblazers

the story of this painting


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Adita Eva 'the Very Beginning,'

the original Eve had no spouse except the serpent,

a living phallus she created for her own sexual pleasure.

Some ancient peoples regarded the Goddess and her serpent as their first parents.

Sacred icons showed the Goddess giving life to a man,

while her serpent coiled around the apple tree behind her.(1)

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The story of this painting

The child in the garden. In wonder she examines the tiny rosebud that becomes the full blown rose. Unfortunately mom or dad or someone along the way, starring at a bloodied figure on a cross, says reverently, 'child this is the rose.' The garden rose is cut from the earth, rose-blood pours out its stem as it's placed in a vase of water at the cross's bloody feet.

Every once in a while as I walk the path of my life, I'll round a corner and the child in the garden will come running joyfully back into my arms. She usually appears just after the climb has become so rugged, so difficult that I almost give up. In continuing on she finds me, welcomes me and pulls on my arm to come and rest in the beauty of her garden. When this happens I begin to reflect on the many hands that have shaped the clay of this body, painted my mind with ideas of reality, glazed my eyes and ears to the point that the music I hear and the pictures I see are ghosts of their reality, and fired me into a rigid conception of form. She has me look into the clear glassy surface of a morning glory pool, and the face I see is hers. The mask I was wearing lies at my feet.

In this painting I try to reclaim a positive image of woman as a sexual powerful being, rather than imbibing the potent potion of our culture that dreams her into being as the harbinger of original sin. Here her body emulates the curve of the earth and playfully offers a dance with beauty and grace. Her energy opens in vulnerability for she knows you may fear her, your mask grown heavy in playing your own role. Her lips suggest biting your man's tiny nipples and tickling your creativity. She'll reveal many realms for she treads in every domain and juggles with the elements, offering what seems to you only a small plate of food. Do you understand that within her mystery she held you as the universe holds this planet, nurturing and sustaining your every need. Can you let her revel in the touch of her own body and not require to possess it. Eve please come back to the garden.

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"To the Secret Rose"

Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,

Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir

And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep

Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold

The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

Of the crowned Magi; and the King whose eyes

Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise

In Druid vapor and make torches dim;

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

Who met Fand walking among flaming dew

By a grey shore where the wind never blew,

And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;

And him who drove the gods out of their bliss,

And till a hundred morns had flowered red

Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;

And the proud dreaming King who flung the crown

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods;

And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,

And sought through lands and islands numberless years,

Until he found, with laughter and tears,

A woman of so shining loveliness

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress. I, too, await . . .

W.B. Yeats(2)

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1. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p.288. Definition of Eve

2. Yeats, Mythologies, p. 145

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