"Little Bee" is going into an art show!

I don't have all the details just yet, but my latest painting, "Little Bee", was accepted into an upcoming art show.  I am to deliver the piece next week, I will have further details soon, if anyone is interested in checking out the show.  It's called "All the Small Things", a series of smaller art pieces, at Northern Contemporary on Roncesvalles, Toronto.

I keep getting a spirit drawing of a key, so I feel drawn to do another small canvas piece with this in mind. I think it's referring to an event from my past, where I buried an old key as an intention to keep fighting to rid myself of my spiritual problems.  Now that I've succeeded with that, it might be an interesting reminder that times are better now.  So, that's probably my next painting.

My exercising continues, flights of stairs aren't quite as exhausting, long walks are my daily meditation.  I am not super toned, but I think my core has gotten stronger.  I'm trying to make floor exercises a meditation, too.  

Not bad, Taurus!

-Saraƒin

Ugh...

I just had a blood test to check on my numbers - while iron is still fine for now, cholesterol has gone up, and since my diet and exercise have greatly improved (I now eat quite lean, have lost 35 lbs over the past year, and I have continued with my long walks about the city, along with my floor exercises) I suspect it's Latuda that's doing it, since that's a known side effect.  This is depressing, because it felt like that was the only antipsychotic I took that seemed to not give me side effects.  Although SCID discredited the idea of me having a psychotic disorder, it's as though my mind's eye gets too overwhelmed without them, life in the big city is loud, and I get bombarded with the imagination.  I am certain my "condition" is a gift, but good luck convincing a psychiatrist of that - it makes me sick my health has to suffer no matter what I do, because these drugs are really hard on the body.  I beg God to help me get off them someday, if I can ever know a mind's eye that is still.  In the meantime, I must discuss this with my GP when I talk to him soon about the lab results.

Shadows are much less now, God feels closer, at least - I still feel a fatigue, a strain, and sometimes I feel like I am dying, but according to kundalini studies, it can feel strange at certain levels of development.  I just wish I knew where to find a specialist to open up to about all this - I doubt I will find one, and if I did, I would probably not be able to afford them.  Doctors in Toronto don't seem to know what kundalini is, it's insane how I can go to a crystal shop, and "Becky" knows what I'm talking about, but a doctor is clueless - this seems to be the standard.  It's problematic, because it might lead to overanalyzing a client, which has happened to me repeatedly, and was not corrected for over a decade and a half.  

If I have a gifted brain, I just hope these horrible drugs haven't iatrogenically harmed me beyond repair, and that Western ignorance didn't destroy my potential.  (I also suffer as an artist on antipsychotics, and life feels stale.)  Things seem bleak when I think about this too much -  if I am a wasted mystic, I beg not to care, it's all I can do while I try to sort everything out.

I wish I knew a better life.

-Saraƒin

New piece: "Little Bee"...

This is a piece based on spirit drawings and channeled downloads I have been getting.  I channeled something interesting about the bee being comparable, as a symbol, to an apostle, in its goodness and its role in the world.  Here, the bee is not just representing an apostle as a metaphor, but the suggestion reminds us of how important the bee's role is to this planet.  That four leaf clover with the cross is also something I have repeatedly drawn in spirit drawings, so I made this one about the bee seeking the clover, suggestive of religious imagery.  I hope I did not overdo it with the psychedelic lines - in this case, they are to suggest the bee's call to seek the clover, I like putting lines like this in my work because of the rather psychedelic visions I have had.  (I took inspiration from the St Hubert-esque Jagermeister logo for its design.) Acrylic and paint pens on 8 x 8" canvas, $200.00.

There's an art show I am going to enter it into - I need to be a bigger presence in the gallery scene again.

-Saraƒin

New piece: "Cherub"...

Yesterday, I finished my latest illustration - I am calling it "Cherub", I think I might do a series of "biblically accurate angels", this was my choice for the first one.

After analyzing how it turned out, it's almost a tone as if to suggest God's feelings about the oppression of women, the angel looks stern here.  It was not what I was intentionally looking to put into it, but it's what I'm seeing, now that it's completed.  (I got more into analyzing my art after years of being a Jungian analysand, it can be interesting what I see.)

Next, maybe a seraph?  I have some other pieces in mind first.

$300, 16 x 20", acrylic and paint pens on canvas.

-Saraƒin

Shrinks do the darndest things (behind your back)...

As I reflect again on the conflict I had around this time last year, I am unnerved about something that reeks of psychiatric meddling:  

It was only upon returning to the outpatient clinic that I found out I had been diagnosed, behind my back, with Schizotypal Personality Disorder.  My feelings now are that it would have been very much appreciated if I had been told on the spot by this doctor that they were calling my set of symptoms this, offering me the opportunity for a debate over it, but instead, for whatever reason, it was hidden from me, like I was some kind of silly child, and I later found out that the diagnosis was invoked "to get me ECT" (said a social worker to my mother).  If this doctor had any idea how socially involved, and how much of a fashionista I am, would they have called me this?  This is a Cluster A personality disorder in the DSM V, these disorders tend to be about having difficulty relating to others, but I don't have that problem at all, so I believe I was just being stereotyped, I wonder what the real reasoning was?

When I took SCID to fight the diagnosis, it found that I only have two traits of Schizotypal Personality Disorder - fine, so I have traits, but you need 5 for a diagnosis.  So why was that not thoroughly discussed with me?  I could have prevented this, but it was hidden.  (I also have one trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder - I will let you try to figure out which one.) 

When we are diagnosed with a physical disorder, the doctor tells us what's wrong, so we can proceed with treatment.  So why is this different with mental health services, why so sneaky?  I think it's because it's not just health care, it's social control.  I only asked for ECT because a doctor from the past advised me to do so, and one night, I didn't know what else to do, so I went to a hospital and asked for it.  In my ignorance, I didn't realize it's not good for trauma, but I was also looking to be screened for trauma, and I wasn't informed that it's not appropriate for that kind of mental health problem.  This worries me, as I get older, and have to rely more on the health care system because of my aging body.  (I have also decided to never ask for ECT again, levels of pain were much heavier last year, and I was overanalyzing my shadows, desperation made me test the universe.)

CAMH and I have a problem now because of this pattern, and I have decided to see them as something I can no longer turn to for any help, short of the one connection I have that works in the labs as a scientist.  I don't know what desperation might lead me to in a crisis, but right now it looks pretty hopeless.  Thank God I'm getting better.

The chart is fixed with SCID (I hope), but I'm still too neurotic to look at it on my own, and I think it's best to just leave it at that with them for now, out of fear that someone else might meddle with it again.  

It ain't easy being lower class coming out of a situation like this - how pretentious.

-Saraƒin

Recent spirit drawings...

I think I figured out the cobra symbolism I was getting... at least, I'm contemplating a new idea:

I recently began getting a spirit drawing of a multi-headed cobra, which I came to believe was Shesha, the serpentine demigod in Hinduism.  I am wondering if the cobra I felt come over me is related, and I am contemplating sources relating to Vishnu.  Since I believe praying to Krishna has opened ways of perceiving God in me, Vishnu, and perhaps Shesha, might be presenting for some reason.  I have periodically made offerings to these sources, and recently I did have a vision of Vishnu at navel level.  Perhaps prayers are aiding Manipura, the navel area has felt disrupted ever since my problems began.

I now suspect Shiva was not involved as a name that answered, in my case - I just had visions of Him.  Sometimes, I just get visions of God representation from other religions, and so I have prayed to sources I have seen come over my mind's eye.  Krishna feels more real, I feel like I have worked with Him, as though a saint allowed through the permission of Jesus.  I suppose esotericism can get like this, if you keep experimenting - certainly, there are plenty of principles, but not many hard rules.

The Wood Dragon year seems to be off to a good start - cheers to that, hope it continues.

-Saraƒin

Interesting...

I recently discussed diagnosis a bit more with a scientist friend who helped me out with my file.  According to her, psychiatrists are supposed to consider a person's religious interpretation, and the exact quality of the experience, for a diagnosis to be given - otherwise, it's not a solid diagnosis.  In my case, I had to learn that, according to DSM V, what I had was not literally voice hearing or hallucinations, but an internal experience that doctors failed to screen properly.  Perhaps they thought that, despite me claiming a religious experience that is common to many religions, because I wasn't fully as involved in my personal practice, they could disregard that rule.  But it was practice and spiritual discipline (mostly Christian, some non-Christian practises, too) that saved me, and is part of what helps me to heal.  With that in mind, I am pissed that I wasn't treated well, and it compromised meaning in my work.  Great, now the art world knows me a certain way because of misrepresentation, and it's all psychiatry's fault.

I hope there comes a day where I feel I can look at my file with confidence, but I don't feel strong enough yet.  I am so embarrassed about mental health awareness not getting Asylum Squad, because of all of this.  What a mess, I hope my career does not look ridiculous.

Going forward, most of my art is going to be about the soul, in protest of what my image became because of mishandling and bad PR.  If you are understanding this site exists, and you saw my work, thinking it was about schizophrenia, please understand - I never had it, and now the hospital agrees, too.  I have something Dr. Jung might understand better, but the hospital thinks Jung is a fruitcake, so I can forget about getting their sympathy.

Maybe one day, my artist's image will look the way it should.  Being psychiatrized really affects everything.

-Saraƒin