The undeniable estrangement of a pisces.

Estrangement. What exactly is it?

From the very moment I was born and drew upon my first breath, I was estranged. In more ways than one, I have always experienced the sensation of ill belonging. I have never fully embraced that which so many others follow. My attention and careful eye was always looking somewhere different.

Often, I wished to be like the masses. That seemed easier in a sense. Later, and of course after much punishment to my own self, I realized it was far easier to be the lone wolf than a wolf among sheep. Sheep get rattled easily when wolves are present, and I do, honestly get that. However, with that understanding comes the next sense of knowing, if I am a wolf then where is my mate.

Some journeys, are life long feats. Those feats are the exact ones that toughen our mind, sharpen our teeth and prepare us for battles ahead. I can’t say, I wasn’t grateful. If not for these spirit hardening obstacles, one could assume, and certainly myself, I would not have made it thus far to even have the remote opportunity to write about it. It was, without question, those beatings that served as a survival tactic in my youth. Simply put, I had been put here without my mate, and I was in desperate search.

If, what I felt existed, then I was meant to find it. I knew I was searching for something. At times, I wasn’t fully sure what that ‘something’ was. I only knew I had been and was, groomed for that moment.

There were times, of course, I thought to myself that it was all a figment of my imagination. That everything I felt was nothing more than fantasy behind a silly dreamers eyes. A sleepless dream, yearning to break free and become as real as was the wooden boy, Pinocchio. I told myself I was crazy, delusional, and even insane to have such ideas. Yet, I always had something manifest right in front of me, reminding me of my path. Atleast, enough of a reminder to keep me looking, that is.

Survival tactics taught by the almighty Universe, have lasting scars. They steal the most innocent parts of you, to only chew them up and spit them at your feet. They beat upon your spirit in ways, not even a fist can do to purple flesh. There is of course the one hit you remember most.

That one horrible blow, the one that hits so hard, it sucks all the air from your lungs. And, for a moment you can’t be for certain, but it’s possible, this, is what it feels like to die. Your credible thoughts slip from your mind as quickly as did your breath. The only thing happening inside that deafening silence is the natural instinct to fight. And, it’s there in that milla second, that your spirit decides if it will try to breath or succomb. I am not even sure if the decision is conscious or merely one made for us by creator, but I can say this. That blow, is the very one that marks your soul with a heavy, burdensome, mark.

There will never be another moment I will be free of knowing what it is to have your spirit broken. As is the graceful spirit of a wild stallion set free upon this earth, to then be caught, corralled and whipped until the last of his spirit, his fight, has drained away. A spark dies out.

Hopelessness, often fills that cavernous void. It reeks such havoc. The darkness swims around you and even then it’s troublesome to locate the light. But, even then, broken and without, something calls to you. It whispers your name, beckoning you on. It knows your suffering and yet it still finds your beauty worthy enough to yet still, call to you.

I never liked my reins, nor did I like the fences. I longed to be free, but not just of these chains, free of the pain, so burned inside me. I would fight, but this time, I would fight without the fear of dying, because I had already experienced that. I fought now, for that one chance that if I were free, I might find what still called to me. My spirit, my soul, although broken, wasn’t too ugly for whatever called to me. I knew, without a compass nor a star in the sky, that I, must, find it.

Escape comes with a great price, there are sacrifices to be made and often they are ones I had wished I could have spared, but none is the sacrifice if it weren’t exactly that. As I have lived a thousand lives inside one, I have walked many miles, down desolate roads. I have twisted my way through endless labyrinths, turning this way and that until I found myself right where I started. I slept a million, sleepless and dreamless nights, under a blanket of stars, that just might would have told me their secrets, if only I had known how to read them.

I was close to giving up, I wanted to. I wanted to close the door on anything I had ever imagined to be true. I wanted to burn the book of anything I believed to be real and simply evolve into a character I had created. And, I was doing so with great effort, but yet still, I felt it. I could hear it, just ever so lightly, but it was there. The whisper, then my name, calling on me.

At first, I was confused by it. I even thought what I heard and what I needed to do, where two separate things. When in fact, they were the same exact thing.I could not fully embrace what I was, who I was because in those moments, I wasn’t fully aware, although it would come soon enough.

The power, the true strength of the flame came from whence I stated what I wanted and then let it go. This time, it was my voice he heard, whispering the call. Unbeknownst even to myself, I had beckoned the flame with undeniable power. The desire to reunite with its truest self, it’s most natural form was beyond any other. In that moment, he, my mate, my twin flame, awnsered the call.

There is nothing short of cosmic in this union. No, it’s not literal explosions of galactic partials floating around in space, but, it is something powerfully moving. So moving, that one must try, as difficult as it is and comprehend what it means for the Universe to right itself.

It is a reversal without actually reversing. It’s becoming whole when there are no pieces to fill the spaces. Our eyes, were miraculously washed clean. Birth, death and even the after all became the same. Suddenly, just as swift as was the power in which I stated my desire, the world changed, just as we did.

And, in that way, we were no longer those lone wolves, searching endlessly for the other. We were, ‘one’ complete, being. We were whole and complete, but even greater still, we were free.

There, in our greatest storms, we battled together, knowing one day we could once again, be as we were. One.

3, is nothing, when compared to forever. 11.11 ♥️

Thanks for reading.

Poetry of static

Ticking clock, running water, someone talking from another room , TV belting out babble of news, yet I hear none of it.

Instead, I hear the maddening thoughts in my head spiraling into static. They distract me from the outside world, stirring my insides like a jar of sleeping butterflies shook by the dirty hands of a toddler.

I am here, atleast my body is, yet my mind is far from here in place called Not. There isn’t much there except the growing weeds of discontent, heartache and anxiousness. There are trees of growing fear that reach high into the depths of the endless sky and a river of right or wrong that flows as swift as it does after the spring thaw.

Where do I go and from what place is there words to fill the spaces and quiet the blaring static that sounds so loudly that I want to run. I could try to run, I could attempt to fill my ears with noise, but it only stops the sickness in my belly for a brief moment.

Everything around me familiar, suddenly feels foreign and strange. My footing seems to be that of a drunken chicken as I muddle through the thick muck.

I try to find a steady place to rest but just when the world seems to still, it all falls down.

There is no reprieve for what it seems is fate, yet I am unsure of it either way. I try to open my mouth and make my voice heard, but nothing comes out except for a million moths, silencing my mind and heart.

I am silent because I have been silenced by the unending turmoil that comes with the victory of sound, and so I sit in my head. I sit among the static as if it were a juice filled wine, drunken on the distorting affects and helplessly, hopeless.

The Southern Oracle

Sixth painting from the series Southern Oracle
Oil on panel 24×36
Mandi Mk Fowler

I don’t exactly like to divulge the reasons or meaning behind a series or specific painting. In my opinion, I find it crippling to the viewer and diminishing to the work.

Several years ago I attended a concert for one of my most beloved female artists. I had listened, cherished and held close the lyrics close as if they were written specifically for me. I carried these musical treasures as if they had the ability to save me from every monster in the closet. It had been a long journey from the time I was 15 all the way to my 30s. In those years that music was exceptionally powerful and in some ways spiritual to me, because it was those words so eloquently written and sang with beautifully chilling vibration that literally held me through some very difficult years.

I felt this strange closeness to it, a connection. I was beyond excited to actually go see her live, let alone have some kind of deeply enlightening experience.

It definitely was, but not exactly in the way I hoped for. You see, it went wrong when she decided to explain every song she ever wrote, why and what she was going through. In those moments, it was like she had just belted me in the face while belching out everything I ever thought about those lyrical chords was all bunk.

Nothing, and I mean nothing was at all what I had believed it to be or mean. In one swift move she had completely ruined this savior I had clung to, this understanding kinship and spiritual meaning.

I learned then, that although it was interesting to know, I wished she had kept that to herself. The music was only subjective when I didn’t know anything other than what the universe wanted to say through it.

I was so upset that for awhile I put her music away and let everything she babbled about mull out of my brain. It took some time before I returned to it but when I did there were still a few songs that she had out right obliterated. I couldn’t hear anything other than her marriage dissolving or a stalking fan. Which I can assure you was never anything I heard when I had found refuge and solace in those albums.

Therefore, I choose to keep my deepest emotions, thoughts and secrets about my series or even individual paintings to myself for the sheer fact that if there is something hidden in them that’s meant just for you then I wouldn’t want to diminish that by telling you anything that might taint that view.

I have never wanted to paint anything that was merely static or white noise for a wall. In fact, I have strived hard to paint things I felt were moving or powerful. Some viewers might not experience that but they wouldn’t choose it because it matched a great set of French curtains or some HGTV make over. I wanted to create something that would speak without anyone saying a word.

I wanted them and hope they elicit a secret to be told only to you, the viewer and that somehow it has a bigger meaning than even the viewer would want to share.

Art should be loved with great conviction so that it never bores or tires. It should always speak to you.

If it doesn’t, then it’s just wall filler.

Sometimes, I like to share my direction but after that it’s up to the viewer to decide, and, I find that more prophetic than a set of tarot cards and a mystic reader.

The only thing anyone really needs to know is that every painting, no matter the subject matter, size or media has a piece of me in it.

Usually, it’s the tiniest of details, or hidden symbolism that no one knows but me, but nevertheless they are there. In some ways, I have often thought they took on a life of their own. They occasionally feel as if they breath in when I turn my back and I know without a shadow of a doubt that late at night, after the lights have been turned down I hear them talking amongst each other as if they are bestest of friends.

I suppose in some ways, they are.

Thank you for reading. ♥️

A poppy seed

Mandi Mk Fowler, Stained glass mosaic on wood. 2020

It’s amazing how something so tiny as a poppy seed can mull around in your thoughts like sugar in a tea pitcher, spinning around until finally it dissolves into you. One tiny little seed. One tiny little thought.

Often, as a child we discovery many things be it through books, movies or something other. It was then that something so powerful struck me unknowingly and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized how important that one line in a movie would become. It was my poppy seed, and the prophecy of something to come.

If only I had known then, that it was going to be what it became, perhaps I would have thought on it harder, but that, isn’t the law of the universe.

“Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours and my kingdom as great.”

“You have no power over me!”

These few, but precious words. It’s a reminder that in weakness I allowed a single person to take my innocence (the babe) and use it like it was theirs to keep, and although that fight lasted another fifteen years, it is finally this moment today that I have taken back what is mine. This person, has no power over me and never did.

The journey has been a labyrinth of wrong turns, obstacles and mistakes. However, it was never about those erroneous hurdles I had to face but more or yet about discovering myself.

It was about finding my own power inside me and letting my voice be heard. I have nothing to prove to anyone and nothing to lose that anyone can take.

And, although I have to remind myself constantly of those words, it is then that I remember I hold the power over me.

I have the power to be whatever I want, without barriers. In that, it’s the most freedom I have felt since I was a little girl watching that one movie over and over in the VCR until I feared it might burn up inside the machine from over play.

The universe is always listening, planting seeds and letting them grow. It’s only when those precious seeds grow, we finally see what it was all planted for.