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Recounting and illustrating
"The Forbidden Fairytale," my own Jungian myth forged
out of a post war conglomeration of cultures held me in it's
grip until at last the time to resurface came. I could
continue to live in that world of hero's stories for a
lifetime. It is a labyrinth's maze in which the gaming is
the joy and ends in itself. My purpose in going there was
to collect the magic of transformation. Pulling away was
necessary. I had watched the madness of staying too long
in your artist fantasy destroy a friend. This was not a
path I was willing to take. It was my goal from the
beginning to give hope to the lost and desperate so that they
would be willing to find the hero inside of themselves.
With this hero newly found, save themselves and others.
I wear
the name Phoenix Smith, so named by Kendra Ryan, because I have
forced myself to survive, I have fought for every small
victory. I know the dark world that lives next to the one
that smiles in radiant sunshine. I have experienced the
kind of hate that pulls you up out of the gutter and demands
that you speak saying "I am and I have the right to
exist." It is to these children (who come from, live
in that world), numbed by fear, made vicious with neglect and
sharpened by abuse that I have dedicated my story and my life
work. It is in the transformation, of the trajectories in their
lives that holds me in this existence. It is now and has
always been so.
It was
here on the verge of this emergence that I discovered
Cancer. My daughter who named Phoenix was not afraid, she said
only this "You will rise from this also," and so I
have. It is time once again having risen and having
strength to return to the work of my soul. To paint for
all of you who have even for a single breath been to the land of
heroes.
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