The meditation on Sacred Feminine Archetypes has been a source of healing and inspiration for me for many years. I believe that spirit is infinite and that there are infinite expressions of the divine, both masculine and feminine. I also feel that seeing images of the many aspects of divine energy manifested in physical form, enables us to experience a personal relationship with the diety. This allows us to see in a sacred mirror the potential of what is possible in the scope of human experience, a reflection of the divinity within ourselves. My songs are vehicles that take me into the vibration of each goddess, so that I become surrounded and filled with that energy.  Often when I am painting I will sing  to bring in the Goddess energy .   Sometimes the image will come first and the song will come during the course of the painting process as my experience of the goddess deepens upon  seeing  her.   I feel the paintings contain the energy of those experiences like a crystal stores memory. . Here are the stories and background of my Goddess images:

Brighid : Goddess of the ancient Celts, is the muse that inspires and who presides over healing ,smithcraft, divination and the creative arts. She is associated with the sacred fire, and also waters and wells ,and more anciently the hollow hills~ the fairy realm . This painting came from a very vivid dream that I had of being initiated by the goddess around Candlemas of 2009. I dreamt she was in a temple, sitting on a throne made of amber holding a staff in the shape of a flame that was also of amber, with a tiny dragon familiar at her feet. I noticed her crown was very unusual , almost futuristic with three golden metal discs at angles around her head.  Although  this isnt a typical crown, because it was shown to me in the dream I painted it just as I saw it. I was one of many initiates waiting and we were to come to her, one at a time, to ask for our hearts desire to manifest, bath ourselves energetically in the sacred flame and enter through the heavy crimson velvet curtains which felt like moving into the petals of a giant rose. Inside the rose was the great womb of creation which to me looked like the universe of stars, and I made my intention in that sacred space.

Lady of the Lake: I painted this for my album cover, in 1992, and saw her as a water elemental , in a lake on the emerald isle bathed in deep twilight holding a luminous jewel of wisdom. I wondered at this mysterious mythological figure who was generally portrayed just as a hand holding up Excalibur. What would she look like ,what would it be like to look into the eyes of this being? I meditated on the energy of Pisces, a mutable water sign ruled by Neptune, planet of dreams fantasy illusions and illumination. I felt I experienced the entire spectrum of this Neptunian energy during the course of the painting.   Because she was of the water, her face changed what seemed like a thousand times. As the face and especially the eyes are the first thing I paint, in order to connect with the diety, she was very challenging to capture ..But the ultimate gift that she gave me was an experience of deep peace, the transcendental peace of the highest octave of Neptune.

 Cornmother: Painted on a dark and stormy night in 1984 in my meditation room with the sun in scorpio and moon in cancer, a magical fertile combination. I began to paint in candlelight and in this light I could ‘ see’ the entire painting superimposed on the blank canvas like a hologram .  When I turned the light on to see better I could no longer see this vision , so I continued in candlelight until she came through. She is dancing on the rainbow trail, symbol of cosmic balance, holding the sacred corn symbolizing the creative life force ,carrying a basket of corn kernels, the seeds of creation. As she offers the seeds to be planted the lighting bolt of transformation strikes them before they fall to earth. This is symbolic of the creative energy of the goddess that exists within all of us to manifest our dreams.  That was the year I released my first album and was soon asked to perform for the first time. That was a major challenge to me , as my singing had never been about performance, and I meditated on the face of this goddess to help me move into this new arena of my life.    Her eyes seem to beckon me to take a chance, a leap of faith ,and step up, and so I did ..

The Mermaid Queen: symbol of the goddess in her water aspect, who rules the emotional psychic realms, one who has the ability to dive into the depths of the unconscious waters and emerge with the light empowered by wisdom. In East Indian and Tibetan traditions nagas are magical beings known to  live under the sea, that most often take the form of serpents, dragons and mermaids ( although they may shape shift and take any form) and are the keepers of the great eternal treasures of wisdom. Tibetan thankas ( sacred paintings) depict mermaids/nagas emerging out of the water offering crystals and other precious things that will awaken sacred memories or realizations in the receiver, usually holy men. I was told that the queen of the nagas is a mermaid, and so when I went to the island of Iona in Scotland in 1990, I made an offering to the mermaid queen on those sacred shores and my song was the result. The song and the painting were from the same vision/experience.

Naga Dakini: Dakini means divine feminine being , a magical sacred being . Nagas as mentioned are sacred elemental spirits associated with fertility, prosperity and are said to make rain. They also have a protector aspect to them , which sometimes gives them a fierce quality . This is an archetype of feminine empowerment to me, and an expression of scorpio energy ,water in its most potent form. I experience her as an embodiment of complete, self possessed freedom of being.

 Kuan Yin : Kuan Yin, Mother of Compassion , is the Chinese goddess of mercy, similar to  the Tibetan Goddess Tara ,who is another one of my patron goddesses.  Both are said to be emanations of the Hindu god of compassion , Avalokiteshwara.   In this painting Kuan Yin is blessing the son of the dragon king, who she rescued in an act of compassion.  The grateful dragon king then  in return  became her devoted ally.  Many traditional portraits of Kuan Yin show her riding the dragon or having the dragon at her feet. My interpretation of the symbolism of the dragon is that it is the primordial creative life force ,which is our creative passion, our sacred fire. When directed by our soul or cosmic intelligence, ( as are the two sphinxes in the Chariot card in the Tarot) it becomes a powerful ally to accomplish our goals. In these symbolic images, Kuan Yin, to me, represents the highest spiritual wisdom mastering and guiding the powerful force of the sacred fire .