not native fruit

Desert Sanctuary ~ my book is published!

I just wanted to let you know that I’ve self-published a mystery novel called ‘Desert Sanctuary’ under the pen-name of Karen Whittingham.  The book is available online at Lulu.com as a print-on-demand or as an e-book (see links below).  Here is the description of the book given on the website. 

 “In Desert Sanctuary, unconventional healer Madrigal Strahan investigates a mystery in the Nevada desert where she lives near her long-time friend and lover, Blaylock Pritchard.  Their silent and beautiful desert resonates with shock-waves following a mysterious fire in a remote location that reveals long-buried secrets leading to multidimensional resolutions for Madrigal’s family and friends, and an earth-centered spiritual epiphany.”

 

The reason I chose to write about the desert is because my partner and I spent many of our vacations camping in the high desert east of the Sierra and in Nevada .  The beauty of the desert and the mystery of its solitude has always stimulated my creativity.  This book expresses many of my beliefs about the importance of community, closeness to nature and healing.

 

I hope you enjoy reading my book!  

 

Desert Sanctuary by Karen Whittingham, available as print-on-demand:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/desert-sanctuary/17342000?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/2

 

Available as an e-book: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/desert-sanctuary/17364322?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/4

PS - for readers interested in the Ishmael books or readers of Daniel Quinn, Desert Sanctuary offers a literary fiction expressing a vision of reality consonant with his. 

response to solitude, etc

A friend who has been a Buddhist nun for 20 plus years wrote this response to my previous blog, and I asked her if I might share it here:

Shonen

I don't know anything about what they call Artemesian solitary austerity or the joyous union of Aphrodite, though I can guess, but I understand the difference she paints between the misogynist patriarchal structures and the more balanced contemplative  formats. I wonder if anyone really knows anything about these groups devoted to Artemis or Aphrodite, and whether they really were based on feminine principles. It seems to me, since they were dominant power structures in their cultures, they still may have been controlled by men, but it seems to me it's hard to discern what really went on from the available information. In any case, in a perfect world, or organization, there needs to be,  I think, a balance between action with focus, which I think is the masculine principle, and feeling receptivity, the feminine.  Chastity is definitely a character quality that can be expressed whether one is in a
sexual union or not. And I think this is a point well taken:   Anxiety towards the opposite sex and a solitary life are two realities which should not be confounded."    Nor do I think solitary contemplation and joyous union are mutually exclusive. It seems to me that many monastic orders have become dangerously one-sided. It says very clearly in words attributed to Jesus that One must love the Lord your God, AND your neighbor as yourself. Not Love God OR your neighbor. So we need to have that relationship with God, which fuels a relationship with other persons, and allows the practice and application of what is given and felt in the God contemplation. The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are wonderful, I think, when taken spiritually, but when usurped by a materialistic patriarchal structure for the purpose of worldly authority and control are perverted and extremely detrimental.  Who is more poor of self than a mother or caregiver, who expresses
divine love in tenderness, nurturing and patience with a child? Who is more chaste than a lover, wife or husband, who is loyal to their partner and believes in their loveliness through many cycles of life? And who is more obedient than one who refuses to do what they are commanded to do out of obedience to the commandment to love their neighbor? But of course those acts don't fit into a traditional monastic format.  I would say Principle, or law/truth is a masculine function, and Love, the feminine, and both are necessary to manifest Life in creation.

Thanks for the food for thought!

solitude, monasticism and artemis

“Opposing the solitary austerity of Artemis to the joyous union inspired by Aphrodite must not let us forget the benefits of solitude, the significance, for the contemporary personality, of Artemesian chastity. 

“Since, from the beginnings of Christianity, most examples of the solitary meditative life have been offered by monasticism, it is relevant to establish the bond, at once historic and mythic, between the cult of Artemis and the solitary life as lived by the religious orders of Christendom, in order to discover the positive elements of both Christian and Artemesian seclusion.

“However, we must distinguish the chastity of the monk or hermit from that of the secular priest, for they did not have the same meaning, nor the same effect.  We have spoken sufficiently of the misogyny of the Fathers of the Church, who, while appropriating to their own advantage the power of domination over others (particularly over women), refused to grant the least power to the feminine sex.  The chastity of such men, who were men of power rather than of spirit, often and unfortunately implied disdain or dislike of women.  When chastity is defined more by negation – rejection of the other sex – then by a positive choice of a way of life, its experience is corrupted.  Anxiety towards the opposite sex and a solitary life are two realitites which should not be confounded.” (pp. 132 -133)

“The first communities of monks or solitaries, as marginalizing the dominant values of their society, had other things to do than found a family.  Their refusal of relationship with the opposite sex was perhaps above all a refusal to identify with the paterfamilias and the conqueror mentality associated with virility.  For the nuns, chastity might have been a way to escape the biological destiny of maternity and a way to live in a female hierarchy of power.  In fact, certain monks gave the impression of venerating nature and the feminine principle but also of identifying with the style of life proper to women: they wore robes, tilled the soil, and refused to fight wars.  (The first Christian monks, retired into the desert or into a monastery, were often Roman soldiers who refused military service.) (133)

“The chastity of the first Christian monks thus resembles the castration of the priests of Artemis, who emasculated themselves voluntarily to enter the service of the virgin Goddess, approaching her through mimesis.  Contrary to this, the priests of the ecclesiastical orders identify with a hierarchy of power that is strictly male and that clearly seeks to keep the priest from feminine contagion.  The pyramidical organization of ecclesiastical power resembles that of an army, whereas the rules and values adopted by the religious orders – such as the Franciscans, the Benedictines, or the Cistercians – are much more similar to the cult of Artemis and of nature than to the rest of the Church.  The equilibrium of manual labor, contemplation, and intellectual work, their cult of nature, and the importance accorded solitude and silence – all these aimed to develop contemplatives and not soldiers of Christ.” 

These passages are quoted from "Pagan Meditations, The Worlds of Aphrodite, Hestia, Artemis" by Ginette Paris, published by Spring Publication.

I just happened to open to this by chance, and everywhere I look in this book I want to copy out passages! (The ancient scribe-woman lives!)  This particular section helps me to make sense of how, when I was self-identified as Christian, I did not feel 'sympatico' with much that was happening around me in the 'church,' but rather felt drawn to the monastic tradition, to contemplative practices, and I idealized 'the hermit living in the woods.'  (I've pretty much transfered all of this whole to Hinduism where it also fits in rather well, especially with my Guiding Light, Amma, whose personal spiritual practice took place basically on the beach.)  I was also able to see how the Andalusian culture of contemplation, enshrined in the 'alcove,' the meditation garden, etcetera, was adopted into European Christian culture in the late medieval period and how that influenced the Catholicism I grew up with, but this puts a whole new slant on things. 

For me, Ginette Paris' words evoke a startling realization, a whole new way of seeing something previously very familiar, or so I thought.

non-reductive physicalism: soul

My friend Nancey Murphy, a philosopher and theologian, has developed a philosophical theory called 'non-reductive physicalism.'  I've been in this camp for about twenty years now, and am happy that someone has been able to create a coherent philosophy to account for this stance.  I'm just an ordinary person who is 'living' my philosophy, finding support for it, thinking it through, but not in any systematic philosophical way, so I appreciate her work very much.  I'd like to respond to it here on the blog, with some of my own discoveries that match up with what she is saying.  So, here goes:

In discussing the origin of the problem of soul-body dualism, Murphy writes: "For many Greek thinkers reality was conceived as a hierarchy of beings exhibiting varying degrees of materiality.  ONe important conflict in ancient philosophy concerned the question whether the soul belonged to this gradation of material realities."  (p.3, Whatever Happened to the Soul)  In other words, is the soul a material entity, albeit of a subtle quality of matter?  "Plato described the person as an immortal soul imprisoned in a mortal body.  Origen (185-254) followed Plato in teaching that the soul is incorporeal and eternal, pre-existing the body."  (pp3-4, ibid)  It is easy to see how, in our scientific post-modern age, this kind of concept of the soul is no longer acceptable.  I don't think it's necessary for me to describe here why this body-soul or body-mind dualism is no longer acceptable, but I can refer you to Murphy's book, 'Anglo-American Postmodernism,' if you are interested in further reading on this subject. 

Thomas Moore, on the other hand, represents a psychological, non-dualistic approach to the soul au courant today, when he writes: "Soul is an elusive word.  For many, soul is an invisible but finite essence, made of some spiritual substance, that keeps the body together and functioning in life and flies off to another dimension at death.  In relation to the body, it is like a genie in a bottle." (p.40, The Planets Within, the Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino.)  Clearly Moore does not agree with this understanding of the 'soul.'  His book's subject is Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance hermeticist.  "The soul Ficino places at the center of his professional and personal life is not this creature of folk religion.  For him soul is a quality of existence, a quality rather than a quantity.  For that reason it is better to speak of soul rather than a soul.  When we say that a person has soul, we usually mean that he shows evidence of internal movement.  People who clearly have soul show a certain depth, vitality, individuality, familiarity with pain and death, and good humor.  Soul is also depth, a metaphor we use to point to a certain intensity of experience.  With soul, events are not merely two-dimensional; they carry an invisible but clearly felt dimension of depth, a reverberation and resonance carrying through beneath the surface of everyday experience."  (pp.40-41, ibid)

Murphy looks at other ancient conceptions of soul that are more 'vitalistic' than substantive.  "Aristotle thought of the soul not as an entity, but more as a life principle.  He illustrates the relation of soul to body with an analogy: if the eye were a complete animal, sight would be its soul." (p3, ibid)  This view is about potency, what Thomas Aquinas called 'virtue,' from the Latin, vir, 'male power.' Soul and virtue in this sense are similar to the Asian images of 'qi' (China) and 'prana' (India), the energetic source of power and movement in matter.  In fact, this image of the eye and sight is very similar to the Bhagavad Gita's way of indicating the presence of divinity in matter.  Krishna says, "Of luminaries, I am the radiant sun, and of lights in the night, I am the moon.  Of words I am OM, and of prayers I am the prayer of silence. Of things that move not I am the Himalayas.  Among things of purification I am the wind, and of all things that measure I am time. Among creators I am the creator of love."    

These images suggest both Aristotelian potency and also Ficino's essence.  These are not merely images of 'greatness' or power but also of essentials, of that which 'means' the very thing that is alluded to.  The sun is the prototype of all illumination, (who can hold a candle to the sun?), and the very nature of 'light' during the darkness of the night is indeed imaged by the Moon. Om is the sacred sound that underlies all sound and all words.  In need of an image of the essence of 'that which moves not' what could be more dramatic and complete than an image of the Himalayas?  The wind in many indigenous cultures signifies purification and change.  And what is more creative than love?

In other translations: I am "The policy of conquerors, the potency of kings, The great unbroken silence in learning's secret things; The lore of all the learned, the seed of all which springs" -(this is from Sir Edwin Arnold's translation on line).  Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea.  "Among winds (I am) the whirlwind, and (I am) Wisdom Supreme of what is wise, Words on the uttering lips am I, and the eyesight of the eyes" - the very same image used by Aristotle and making the same point.

To be continued...And I suppose I ought to add a few words about myself to explain why I'm doing this writing.  I was a philosophy student at UC Berkeley briefly - however, I had been accepted into the department which was quite an honor in itself.  I later studied liberal theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, graduating with a master's degree in 1985.  I went on to study indigenous medicine and healing systems, and am a self-published writer living in Berkeley.  I've always been interested in etymology and the way the meanings (and sounds) of words change over time.

xochiquetzal

Today would have been the 57th birthday of my dear friend, Risa, who died in January of this year from breast cancer.  I love this picture of her, and have always loved it, in particular.  It just seems to me to capture her intense love of life.

You can imagine my surprise when I discovered this image of an Aztec goddess called Xochiquetzal.  Here's what I wrote in my journal this morning: "Have been fascinated by the similarity between her photo and the Aztec depiction of Xochiquetzal, Precious Flower, the Goddess of Flowers, Love and Beauty.  She lives in Tamoanchan, the Place of Our Origin and guards over the Xochitlicacan, “the Flowery Tree of Life, whose flowers, with only a single touch, bring good fortune and fidelity to those in love.”

“Xochitl, Flower, is the Aztec symbol of purification and perfection.  Xochitl lives and dies for a moment of beauty.  Xochitl is truth, completion and the maximal statement, the essence that is born at the height of an evolution.  It’s about going for the highest potentials, bringing visions into reality, and art.  Flowers are sexual organs.  Xochitl is love and the search for union.  It’s happiness.  It’s sex.  The Sun of Flowers is when humanity comes to flower.”  (Quotations from "The Aztec Virgin" by John Mini)

"Xochitl lives and dies for a moment of beauty."  Boy, was this ever true of Risa!  I think that's why we all loved her so much!

Here's another contemporary portrayal of Xochiquetzal (from a free online image):
 


and one more message:
Happy Birthday, Risa ~ and fare thee well. 

 

american porch

One thing I miss in Berkeley is 'the front porch.'  I used to wonder about the dearth of porches here, and my husband said it was because there are no warm evenings.  Well, that seems like a reasonable explanation to me.

But there aren't any porches down in Los Angeles either, at least not in the numbers you see in other parts of the country.  I also don't see any typical 'American porches' in films set in Europe, don't remember seeing any porches in my own brief travels there.  So I began to wonder if the American porch, as an extension of a living space, not merely as a covered passageway, is possibly one of those vestigial native american influences we find scattered throughout american culture with no 'provenance' so to speak, because we deny all native american cultural influence as a matter of course. 

So, I started my research, looking at the etymology of the word 'porch.'  Wikipedia says:
"A porch (from the Catalan word porxo)^[1] is a structure attached to a building, forming a covered entrance to a vestibule or doorway.^[2] It is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.

"There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location. All porches will allow for sufficient space for a person to comfortably pause before entering or after exiting the building. However, they may be larger. Verandahs, for example, are usually quite large and may encompass the entire facade as well as the sides of a structure. At the other extreme, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan has the longest porch in the world at 660 feet (200 m) in length."  [Significant that the longest porch in the world is located in prime native american country, and I'll bet it has been lined with rocking chairs at certain times in its history.]

With a Spanish origin of the word and concept of 'portico,' it would seem obvious that porches are not really an 'Anglo' thing, although the American-Anglos have adopted them wholeheartedly.  However, you don't see porches in Great Britain.  Yes, there was much more Spanish and Portugese influence in early colonial East-Coast America than is acknowledged, but even in Spain, the porch was not really an extension of the living space, a place where comfortable chairs were set out and people did housework, like veggie-prep, household repairs, tools maintenance, child-care, etcetera.  This is the way porches were used in our regional area, especially by the native americans, who often sat low to the floor while performing these household tasks, surrounded by cooling grass-mat screens.  Porches in those other parts of the world - like Spain - seemed to be used for taking the air, being shaded while watching an event in the courtyard or looking out at a vista, not for daily living.

Wikipedia goes on to say that porches are found as parts of churches in England or as parts of temples in India.  Yes, that kind of 'porch' or really 'covered passageway,' is seen in lots of kinds of temples around the world.  In New Englad, according to Wikipedia, the porch evolved from a mudroom or covered vestibule.  I've been in mud-rooms, and they really don't seem like porches to me. 

On the other hand, the Algonquin-speaking Native Americans, like the Lenape, had bungalow-shaped dwellings with a roofed extension in summer, shaded on the top and sides by grass mats, much like those still in use in my neighborhood in poor Philadelphia in the 1950's. This extension to the house (wikaon) was called 'alewikaon' in Lenape, which is usually translated as 'porch,'  The less native/more white-identified households in Philly adorned their porches with canvas awnings, but there were still plenty of the old grass-curtains in use when I was a child.  We still had the old Lenape baskets in use, too - my grandmother had one, and I often saw them in the homes and yards around the neighborhood - and we also used a distinct local native-patterned cloth.  I wish I still had a piece of that.  I would not be able to recreate the pattern today even though as a child it was extremely familiar to me.  I'm afraid I very ignorantly scoffed at these native vestiges, influenced as I was by the many recent European-immigrant children to disdain my american roots.  Nobody's fault, just the way it is.  Kids will be kids, and we didn't know anything.  But I'm afraid I may have hurt my mother's feelings.  I'm very sorry about that.  I wish I had known, but my mother's verdict was that I looked unambiguously white and therefore there was no reason to teach me anything about our native roots, and it might even be dangerous to try to do so.  So, that's how it went.

But anyway, I think - imo, in my opinion - the typical American porch is a vestige of our old Native American lifestyle, the lifestyle adopted by so many newcomers to America from Europe who did not only impose their own cultural imprint onto the landscape but were also influenced in turn by their new homeland and its people, or who married into a native or quasi-native family and tradition.  So much of the truth of all that has been lost in the struggle for survival, which has involved denials and denouncements, hiding and secrets, lies and white-lies, etcetera.  But let's not go there.  The season is hard upon us to go out and enjoy our front porches.  Bring up the rockers and the glider from the basement or garage, put out the grass carpet and the wicker furniture, set up the awning, make some lemonade.  I hope this kind of lifestyle is still happening somewhere in America.

north pole sunset

 

"This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point last week.
a scene you will probably never get to see in person, so take a moment and enjoy God at work at the North Pole.
And, you also see the sun below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. 
You may want to pass it on to others so they can enjoy it.
The Chinese have a saying that goes something like this:
'When someone shares with you something of value, 
you have an obligation to share it with others!' 
I just did.. Your turn"

A friend sent this to us.  Isn't it beautiful? 

I like the passage too - reminds us of just how much God doesn't need us - God's been having fun creating effects like this for untold millenia.  I've heard it said that we are here because God wanted His or Her handiwork to be appreciated.  My question is - How good a job are we doing at that?  Is that really our top priority?

kerala temples

When I studied theology, I learned that the architecture, iconography, etcetera of a religious tradition tells us a lot about the way its people view reality and the human relationship with the 'divine.'  The 'axis of the world tree,' etcetera, from Mircea Eliade, on vertical religious architecture:  soaring cathedrals, bullet-like projectiles around mosques.  Recently I've had a renewal of interest and enthusiasm for my Keralan spiritual connection, and I liked this passage from 'Temples and Legends of Kerala" by K.R. Vaidyanathan.  He quotes Ronald Bernier in "Splendors of Kerala":

"Kerala temples emphasize horizontal movment as symbolic of the path toward truth.  The temple is not a mountain, although it is built around an axis.  It is activated by its enshrined 'engine,' a holy power in the form of a sculpture or symbol from which energy and goodness radiate.  Mighty as it is, a figural image at the centre of the womb may smile in benevolent, friendly acceptance.  Perhaps Kerala's is the most house-like of all the divine dwellings in India.  Its materials are natural and clearly earth-derived.  The monument touches the masses in terms of earthly experience rather than that of of the worldly grandeur and pomp.  At the same time, there is room for preciousness since the temple is after all a heavenly abode.  (Yet) it is not for its precious parts that Kerala temple design is best to be remembered, but for its special accomplishments primarily in the use of wood."

Kerala is coastal territory, beaches and wetlands ringed by coastal mountains and the sea.  I wonder sometimes if my attraction to this spiritual tradition springs from my ancestors having come from coastal territories so much themselves.  It's 'in the blood,' so to speak.  My mtDNA J2 ancestors are associated with sea routes from Turkey to Iceland, my father's people lived on the sea-swept west coast of Jutland, I have Irish ancestors from County Mayo, a poor coastal territory that took in its share of survivors from the Spanish Armada, and then my Delaware Moor ancestors were native to the marshlands of southern New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. We also seem to have a certain element of pirate ancestry, as well, which fits with the high scores I had in East African dna matches.  At any rate, I love that spread-open, airy, flat 'delta' kind of land wherever I find it.

But there's more to it than that, of course.  I love Vedanta and the entire Shankaracarya tradition as it has been lived up to the present day in Kerala.  Shankaracarya was a peace-maker who synthesized many different traditions in Kerala.  I confess I felt a bit weary of the constant fighting of the middle-eastern traditions from which my Jewish, Christian and Moorish forbears sprang - that fighting just seems to go on and on.  Shankaracarya brought resolution to similar fighting among religious factions in his own land, and the peace seems to have lasted pretty much up to the present.  So, there must be something to it.  I think we really ought to be looking at what they're doing.  At any rate, it is one of the most beautiful, lively, colorful, relaxed, joyful, playful, mystical, entrancing religious traditions I've ever come across, and I've come across quite a few.  (Sufism, perhaps, comes closest, imo.)  Wise and insightful, Keralan spirituality has certainly stood the test of time.

Anyway you can see more examples and read more about Kerala's Temples here.  
 


 

jack d. forbes, red blood

I'm finally getting around to reading jack d. forbes, university of california, davis, professor of native american studies.  I'm starting with one of his scholarly books, "The American Discovery of Europe" and also his only novel, "Red Blood."  I am really impressed by the novel.  It is written in the peripatetic motif popularized in the English tradition by Smolett, but found also in that sperm-seed of western literature, Don Quixote. So, nothing much happens, there is no suspensful 'plot,' but the protagonist, Jesse, travels around and meets different people of various native american backgrounds, reflects on what he sees, and gains insight into what it means to be native american, or part-native american, at this particular juncture in time. 

It seems to me he covers every possible permutation.

It's a great loss that Jack Forbes has recently died, in February 2011, because he was clearly a man of great insight with a basically gentle attitude toward differences, a lot of love, compassion and intelligence.  A jewel.  He was of Powhatan-Renape and Lenape background, which may mean he looked more brown or more white than the popular conception of what 'Native American' looks like.  He writes a LOT about all the various shades of color and subtleties of feature found in our population.  Young white readers, in particular, (from what I've seen in the comments on blogs that deal with these issues) often find this kind of writing 'racist,' but really, it's just revealing the racism that is already there in our society, but goes unacknowledged.  There's been a fairly large acknowledgement of the racism heir to the plantation-slavery of Africans prior to the Civil War, but there is less awareness of the widespread slavery prior to the rise of the South's cotton industry.  Slavery or indentured servitude were very common throughout the thirteen colonies and early states and involved white, black and red persons, who often united in bands of community and through marriage.  Their descendents, along with the descendants of many later immigrants, form the 'unentitled' masses of America today.  The lower classes and working classes. 

For people who fall into that latter category, 'Red Blood' is a helpful book.  For people like myself, with perhaps only a smidgen of native blood but a fairly wide streak of influence from the native forbears, it is comforting to see just where these influences come from, and that we have a sort of 'right' to our beliefs and our lifestyle.  We are not simply somehow defective white people or 'anti-social' or whatever label might have been applied to us in our difference.  We are not simply 'black' Americans, either, but that is someone else's story to tell, not mine. 

For myself, to look at me, I understand why no one would credit that I am part-native american, or part African, even though my dna tests show that, and my family (barely) acknowledged it, regarding it as something too precious to share abroad, only eliciting criticism, ridicule or negativity.  Rather, our truth was like a precious pearl kept secret in a special container deep inside our home.  Anyway, I'm not going to try to convince anybody - about myself, I mean.  It will be a fairly private thing for me, and an online post doesn't really change that.

I look forward to reading more Jack Forbes and I encourage you to read him too.

suze rotolo: memory lane

I read online a few weeks ago that Suze Rotolo had died about a month ago, age 67.  Of course, I recognized her famous photo on the 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' album, and learned that she has written a memoir called 'A Freewheelin' Time.'  I picked it up at the library, and soon bought my own copy. 

What a trip down Memory Lane!  Not just the folk-music scene stuff - yes, that was somewhat meaningful to me, since I was an afficianado of the genre at the time, in the early sixties, before it had become 'popular' among my peers.  No!  What I found fascinating was just the story of her life - THAT was what I could really relate to.  Her socialist-oriented parents (a polite way of saying 'communist'), her humble working-class origins (in Queens), the fact that she initially took the subway to Greenwich Village to 'connect,' her problems at school (just like mine!), her life in the old 'bohemian' style, her work creating sets in off (and off-off)-Bwy theatre productions, her natural artistry which manifested in her clothing innovations and jewelry - I could relate to all of that, I suppose because I did all of that! - a few years after Suze, and in another city.  Maybe it was the times, but it wasn't what was happening in our community - I kind of had to go out and find it.  And yet, in another way, I guess I could say I was tuned in to my times.  Anyway, her story sure brought back memories for me!

Also, I shared her experience of being emotionally and sexually connected with a very unusual artist who initially seemed very much on his own, in need of a friend shall we say, but soon became 'attractive' to 'everyone' and who was intimately tied up with notoriety and 'fame' - ye gods, spare us that albatross - and who desired a very different lifestyle from what suited me.  We both had the courage to walk away from what wasn't working for us, to find our own lives, so I could relate to much of what she wrote about that too.

I've taken a look at some of her more recent book-art at Medialia Gallery - I think Suze Rotolo is my new patron saint!