"Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur" was my meditation last year.  A sort of "heart on my sleeve" maxim of which I soon out wore.  My solitude has made me realize that, yes, I did choose to love someone and I find I cannot choose to cease loving him, yet this should not be a something I need hit myself over the head with 24/7.  Eventually I have learned to forgive myself for using a boy to cut myself open.  I realize that the relationship was necessary for me to build up strength and resolve against others who would hurt me worse.  At some point, every woman has to face her Demon Prince -- my idiom for those handsome men who appear to be our dreams-come-true lover but once they use us for their pleasure alone, are exposed as the selfish monsters they really are -- and once she falls out of the embrace of the Demon Prince, she seems to break only to bend and snap back with a surprising strength nature before did not afford her at birth.  I say this out of a deep voice within who hasn't spoken in a long while, as if I'm channeling a kind of grandmotherly spirit who rarely speaks but keeps watch over me.

My meditation this Samhain was something altogether different.  It has no phrase, but is a thought.  I drew it out of the following Tarot card spread:

Near Present (Situations & Feelings Emerging): The Emperor

Future Present (What's next): The Hermit

Enduring Future (Long term situation/feeling): The Sun

Myself at Samhain 2007 into the next year will find me more stable and successfully rediscovering the confidence I thought long lost.  I've been searching for motivation and inspiration.  I haven't drawn anything in weeks.  I set up my desk and pens and pencils but nothing comes out of these hands but a limp hopelessness.  When I attempt to draw, my passions escape from me, all my dreams fade, and I sink into thoughts about how wrong I was to fall in love with someone who couldn't love me back.  I begin to think he may have cursed me, that he's draining me of my passion, using me to fuel his own endeavors, and leaving me with nothing to work with to achieve my own goals.  But then I realize that The Emperor is not the ruler of me.  He only functions as an archetype who powers over others to make himself feel more secure -- he needs to inflict his weight on others and this takes a lot of his energy.  When you can turn to a power within yourself, you don't need to continue to beat others down to get what you want.  There is a peace knowing that you don't have to exert that energy, that you can reserve it, let it build, and direct it in a nurturing way so as you use it, it doesn't wear you down.

I believe I've been through the worst trials of my life now.  I feel myself entering a stage of life where I don't have to move, I just have to be.  I still feel the stinging desire to create, but with that comes that defeating drain -- the knowledge that I have to work hard to achieve creation -- and it comes with a pain in my arms and neck so I rather sleep than draw.  With the sleep comes visions that I can barely find enough time to put down on paper!  There is so much I want to do, that I know eventually that desire is wearing out the previous desires to be someone's lover. 

The Hermit reminds me that I am best in solitude.  In order to achieve my role as artist, I seek not only inspiration (or even the desire to inspire) but concrete evidence to support my visions.  I must research, study, journey, dream...  I don't want to just create pretty pictures, I'm on a mission --

What I want to achieve at some point in my life:

1.  Reach into the ancient past to bring it back to life in the present.  Artist as time machine priestess.  Drawing the costume and customs of my First American ancestors.  There are no books out there detailing -- truly covering -- what people looked like before the Europeans came.  There are only one or two illustrations per book.  I want to dig into that and pull out the visions I see of them, not just guess or estimate -- but then this is born out of my need to reconnect with the ancestors.  I feel an obligation.

2.  Inspired by so many art and "how to draw" books out there, I'd love to put together a series of "How to Draw 18th Century People & Places" or something like that.  This would require teaming up with a few historians and costumers, however.  I also find "How to Draw Children" books in rare supply.  That might be an interesting project to pick up.  I should be a publisher.  There are plenty of "How to Draw Manga" and "How to Draw Comics" type books, but rare are those books out there that really give an artist help on drawing from life outside of a classroom.

3.  I need to finish the Objiwe comic book language project, but it's so over my head.  I need help.  Where can I find it?

4.  I have so many stories to write and finish.  I must go do all that...

And then this list poops out beyond my grasp and attention...  I start to lose focus.  I become clouded.  It's not just the memories of loves lost that hurt me, but the terrible feeling that my dreams are too big for me to make true.  However, The Sun is just beyond those impossible clouds.  There is a fever in my mind, a burning brilliance, a rainbow in the dark shining, a promise that I can defeat my doubts and win a victory over everyone who thought I was worth nothing.  I have to remind myself that I am beyond the reach of those enemies of my esteem!

I come out of the clouds, proceeding at my whim and not at the crack of anyone's whip.  I am the most dangerous thing to men.  I am a masterless woman, betrayed by sex, yet refusing to be a good girl and lie down.  Yes, I was betrayed by sex, but I continue to believe in love.  Even the biggest cock can't touch me now.  Did you read that, buddy, eh?  You can't do me over the back side anymore.  I'm becoming your worst nightmare.  I am the woman you choked who didn't die.  I am a Creator in my own right. 

I will be more than I ever dreamed.