21 Dream).

I was in a building composed of different rooms, almost like big bedrooms, where different parties of people gathered, and it seemed to be connected to this department store. I was looking for something in the store — shoes, I think — and I asked Maria Cox, who evidently worked there, where I could find them. She directed me to the last isle where I didn’t find any shoes but instead came upon a tall, circular, glass display case with various statues in it, though the only one that caught my eye was this statue of Baphomet.

Later, I was trying to find my room with my people and I was unable to find the right one. I kept intruding into the wrong ones, accidentally waking someone up in one case. I think this is where I can across Maria for the second time. We were in a room, standing across from each other, just talking a bit, though what we spoke of largely escapes me. She was easygoing, playful, and actually quite nice to talk to. I brought up the statue of Baphomet and how strange and cool it was that they had one in the store. She immediately agreed and that seemed to add fuel to the conversation.

As I’ve written of before, Maria was a girl I went to high school with and who I am currently friends with on social media. I never spoke too much with her, but she was friends with Gerty, a girl I was rather close with for a time. For the most part I recall the school dances I attended, when I’d always find her in a dark corner or against a wall, in tears over whatever jackass she came with. I denied my attraction toward her for some time, specifically to Gerty, but eventually it became unmistakable. As I’ve written previously:

“It took some time for her to become a point of focus — and there are levels to it. For one thing, she has transformed into a rather alluring goth over the years, a feel and look that has always inspired my passion with respect to women, at least when it’s authentic, and in her case, it most certainly is — hence Gerty’s insight so long ago that she was right up my alley.

Physically, to state the obvious, she’s hot as fuck. I have cast her in the starring role of countless kinky fantasies of mine over the years. She is also someone who, as seems clear to me from her Facebook posts, actually thinks for herself — a depressing rarity among the human population, it seems to me — and she is a rather rebellious soul in general, which only increases her attractiveness as far as I’m concerned.”

She is also a superb artist and has a certain fondness for Lady Luna and her sea of stars, which makes me want to get high with her some warm evening, sit back with her beneath a cloudless sky, and just talk about weird shit. This isn’t likely to happen, but its crossed my mind more than once.

Aside from that, I always felt Maria was kinky, exploratory in that sense, and was the type to go to fetish parties. I also failed to shake the suspicion that she was involved in Paganism, maybe even Satanism, or at least dabbled in it. And this isn’t Satanism in the sense that your average, Christian-minded person would consider it to be, either — just to be clear.

So why was Maria in my dream? What did she represent? Well, for one thing, it likely relates to goth culture.

A fair question to ask is in regards to my personal relation to goth culture. As far as I’m concerned, I’m on the outskirts, as with so many things. A detached spectator. A distant observer and appreciator. According to one man, however, that’s not nearly all.

A long time ago my good friend, Channing, moved out of his parents’ house and into a condo with a few friends of his. One of these friends was a skinny, black-haired boy striving to be a writer. He identified as a goth. He had a hard-on for the culture, and he seemed to resonate with it quite strongly. He had bouts of depression that reached the extremes of suicidal impulses and there were countless dramatic, emotional moments throughout the time he lived there. Though I can’t say that I got to know him too well, I was around the guy often enough — and heard of incidents involving him through Channing often enough — to know that I sincerely liked the guy. And, I should add, that I shared the worry his roommates had for his well-being.

Once he got to know me a bit, and before he flipped out in a major and characteristically dramatic way that sent him launching away from Ohio and landed him back with his parents in Connecticut, he said something to me that has, I confess, kind of lingered in my mind ever since.

When I denied being goth, he passionately disagreed. He said that when it came to the goth culture, I was a natural. That I was what they wished they were, what they could only hope to become. That I was what the average, run-of-the-mill goth aspired to be.

He could be dramatic, as I memtioned, but in a way — and yes, perhaps one hell of a sick, fucked up way — I took that as a compliment. Even so, I’m allergic to pledging my allegiance to groups. I am what I am: nothing more, nothing less.

My first real introduction to the goth culture was through my friend, Terra, who, especially in the early days, I often jokingly referred to as the Evil One, the Queen of Darkness, and perhaps more recently, simply, and accurately, My Dark Friend. She was never one of those hokey, I-Wanna-Be-a-Vampire goths, either. She wore dark cloths and often had on a spiked choker, but it never seemed like she was wearing a costume — this was simply a reflection of who she was within. She just needed to wear it on her sleeve, perhaps as part of the creative, artistic impulse we both share.

Though there was undoubtedly some conflict between us early on in our friendship due to my deeper desires for her and her seemingly contradictory feelings toward me, the friendship always held strong, and it became clear to me that I valued that more than anything — and I still do.

We’re both introverts, we’re both rather moody, anxious, depressive, and dark. We both seem to enjoy writing and engaging in artwork. We share what I consider a deep yet unconventional kind of friendship, a special bond that I’ve always cherished. She is one of those people that always makes me feel better when I’m around her. Her energy is soothing. I don’t have to hide my darkness as I do when interacting and communicating with most other people, or feel embarassed, dramatic, or ashamed about it. I can let it flow without fearing judgement, and it makes me feel unspeakably wonderful that she seems to feel the same way towards me.

We have often exchanged letters and emails over the years, and in her letters she tends to ask me for advice or a fresh perspective, particularly when it comes to her issues in relationships and feelings towards the male gender in general. This may be relevant because the day before I had the dream I had finally responded to her mist recent email, and it was on that very topic.

Unlike Terra, and even myself, Maria seems more confident, more personally empowered in general, and I think that’s one of the things I most admire about her. It could be an illsion, as I certainly don’t know her personally, but she seems to have found the kind of balance I seek in myself, and which Terra seems to seek as well — the reconciliation of the opposites: the dark and the light, the often false dichotomy of what is considered good and evil, the cultural notion of masculine and feminine qualities of the personality. She may not be the ubermench with a pussy that my ex-girlfriend Anne constitutes, but she’s certainly a strong individual. She’s certainly got a swath of admirable, undeniably alluring qualities that, like Anne, seems to get major aspects of my overall being aroused, including but by no means limited to the shroom-tipped, ever-spitting trouser-snake.

And to get back to the dream, this may be where that glass-encased Statue of Baphomet comes in.

Rather recently I finally read the Satanic Bible, which confirmed my sense that it was essentially an atheistic religion that embraced personal freedom and the development and expression of the individual. I was surprised to find that they also embrace magick ritual, however, which increased my fascination, though the portion of it that teaches curses doesn’t settle right with me. In any case, I could see Maria dabbling in this religion, as well as Pagan practices, which in turn increases my fascination with her. Again, I don’t know her personally, though, so this could be a ridiculous assumption.

Until my research today, spawned by the dream, I failed to catch on to the fact that I was confusing The Church of Satan with The Satanic Temple.

So far as I’ve been able to discern given my little research, The Satanic Temple embraces atheism, science, body atonomy, empathy, and peaceful protest — all of which resonates with me — but they seem to be monists in the philosophy of the mind and wouldn’t so much as entertain notions of out of body experiences, reincarnation, or psi phenomena, inside or outside notions of magick, which sets me apart from them. The Satanic Church, however, seems to incorporate all of the above for the most part but also embraces magick and, with respect to the inclusion of curses in magickal practices, is more than a little light on the notion of empathy.

The image of Baphomet I had in the dream — the statue — seems to derive from the Satanic Temple, not the Church of Satan, not the Satanic Bible. Even so, it seems that what the Levi-inspired statue resonates rather well with the values embraced by both — though I will certainly have to do further research into both and what distinguishes the two to be confident in this perhaps premature impression.

In any case, the image of Baphomet in the context of the Satanic Temple was evidently inspired by the “Sabbatic Goat” drawing of occultist Eliphas Levi in 1856. Here, Baphomet is depicted as an angel-winged, hermaphroditic humanoid with a goat’s head — both human and animal, both male and female, both good and evil. Between its horns sprouts a torch, symbolizing the pursuit of knowledge, and upon its forehead, a pentagram. Upon its arms are the Latin words Solve (separate) and Coagula (reform), familiar to anyone who has read up on alchemy in the context of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology or otherwuse. The right hand points two fingers upward, the left bears two fingers pointing down, meant to suggest the alchemical notion “as above, so below.” Baphomet also has titties — or, alternately, two children, one a boy, the other a girl, to either side of the human-beast, staring up at her/him — to suggest both masculine and feminine qualities. The tummy bears the symbol of the caduceus: two serpents winding around a staff, symbolizing the reconciliation of dualities, which anyone interested in Jung and his notion of a psychological Transcendent Function should appreciate.

In essence, the statue signifies the reconciliation of the opposing forces within and between us in our quest towards totality and the pathway of greater understanding through questioning and experimentation. Perhaps its presence in the dream suggested that I see Maria Cox, in some way, as just another manifestation of that ideal, and that this accounts for my fascination with an attraction towards her.

Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part II).

It took some time for her to become a point of focus — and there are levels to it. For one thing, she has transformed into a rather alluring goth over the years, a feel and look that has always inspired my passion with respect to women, at least when it’s authentic, and in her case, it most certainly is — hence Gerty’s insight so long ago that she was right up my alley.

Physically, to state the obvious, she’s hot as fuck. I have cast her in the starring role of countless kinky fantasies of mine over the years. She is also someone who, as seems clear to me from her Facebook posts, actually thinks for herself — a depressing rarity among the human population, it seems to me — and she is a rather rebellious soul in general, which only increases her attractiveness as far as I’m concerned.

And artistically, to get to the point, she’s fucking amazing. One day recently, as I was bored at work, I was scrolling down my Facebook feed when I discovered she had dumped a load of her artwork online. I scrolled through it and was truly amazed. Alongside her darkness and beauty, she has astounding artistic talent. I’d known this for awhile, and at some point even confessed to her online how I envied her ability to draw the female figure, and draw it so expertly, but had never seen so much of her artwork at once.

It gave my brain a boner. I should have bought her a drink, danced with her, got caught in her web. If a girl cam give both your brain and body a boner, after all, that’s something you should embrace.

Another life lesson, hopefully learned.

In any case, that helped inspire me out of my artistic slumber to some degree, at least with respect to,the underlying and fueling urge, but it also made me feel as though my own talents utterly paled in comparison.

Which again, we shall come to later.

Other inspiration came from a place closer to home, however. This inspiration shit has really covered the spectrum.

Some time ago my mother, sisters, and some old friends began attending these classes at a winery. As far as I’m aware, it essentially deals with sipping wine and being taught how to paint in a hands-on fashion.

Then, likely inspired by this, one of my sister’s friends — Mickey, who is Gerty’s older sister — started holding parties where everyone would watch an episode of Bob Ross and paint along with him. I believe I was invited at least once to one of them, but predictably, I never attended. I’m rather antisocial, for one thing, and producing art in front of others strikes me as rather nervewracking.

Three cheers for introversion and anxiety.

Eve, the eldest of my two younger sisters, has always been very talented musically, a form of art I’ve at best dabbled in through gutair and piano but certainly never taken the time to discipline and develop. Similarly, she never really pursued the visual arts that much.

Until recently, that is.

I’m sure the winery thing and the Bob Ross parties got the ball rolling, but she’s been going through a tough breakup with her exboyfriend, with whom she shares a house, and has found a new outlet in drinking wine and exploring painting. On that note, I’m incredibly happy for her — I know creative expression serves not only as catharsis, but as a transformative force; a sort of psychological and spiritual form of alchemy.

She needs this.

And as has been revealed through her posting her work on Facebook, her talents are improving with nearly every piece.

Rock on, my sis.

Yet like a selfish, sensitive little child, however, I began to feel this envy and jealousy creep up. Like with squeaks. Like with the luscious and seductive Maria Cox. Given this familiar, childish reaction, I feared a pattern I’ve begun to identify in myself was doomed to play itself out.

Someone shows me up, or at least I feel they show me up, and rather than use it to motivate myself to do better or at least try harder I break down, accept defeat, and run away like a weak, pathetic coward. Rather than perceive them as an inspiration, I perceive them as better and accept defeat.

Not exactly what one would call a winning strategy.

It didn’t used to be like this with me, either. When I was a child, even a teenager in high school, I could appreciate the creative talents of others without judging myself against them. After all, it isn’t supposed to be about winning a goddamn conpetition, its supposed to be about working to perfect your own art and feeling that intrinsic satisfaction in the process and, in the best case scenario, feel that life-is-worth-living sense of satisfaction in the result as well.

So we come to my last weekend.

For some time I’ve wanted to take up the practice of oil painting, as I haven’t painted much at all since I was a kid and the stories about painting along with old Bob Ross episodes sounded fucking wonderful to me. While I’ve enjoyed my chalk pastel works, I find I’ve grown bored with them. Everything looks the same and it simply doesn’t inspire the passion and produce that sense of satisfaction it once did.

So for about a week or two now I’ve been amassing a folder on YouTube dedicated to art, hoping it might not only inspire me to produce more art, but also inspire me explore media and techniques I either haven’t explored in eons or perhaps never explored before.

The issue is that I’ve been watching countless YouTube videos — Bob Ross mostly, but more recently videos regarding techniques, supplies, tricks, and things to avoid — but I’ve been doing nothing with it. Just trying to store up data in my head. I kept telling myself: just fucking do it. If it sucks, and I expect that at the very least it initially will, no one has to see it. Then try again. Showing off isn’t the objective here. I had already made the decision not to post any artwork on social media for awhile, as I don’t want the influence, be it likes or the lack thereof. What I want, what I need, is the satisfaction of creative expression, art for the sake of art, at least predominantly.

This last Friday and Saturday, my days off of work, I felt very low. It seemed as though I was on the brink of depression but never quite slipped into it and instead remained locked in this neutral, indifferent state where nothing seemed to move me at all, nothing really maintained my interest or fired up my passions. I drank Friday and then refused to allow myself to do so on Saturday, instead just drinking coffee and smoking a bit of weed.

On Saturday, I felt as if I had to really push myself to do anything. I watched Joker, which was incredibly depressing, though an excellent film — not unlike Requiem for a Dream in that respect. Later, I had the supplies laid out on my counter nearby my laptop — paper, paint, cups of water, a small canvas board — but did nothing with it for what seemed like forever. I went back to watching the art videos.

Finally, I got enough caffeine and cannabis in my system and mentally pushed myself to play. I was soon to discover that some of the paints were really old. When I squeezed the tubes of those elder acrylics the result was an ejaculation of clear goo sprinkled sparsely with particles of the relevant color. Thankfully the new ones, save for the brown for some reason, were still good. Its just that there were only five of them, which was not a wide selection.

I had some oil paint, which is what I really wanted to try (Bob Ross inspired my interest here quite directly), but I didn’t have any paint thinner for the brushes, I didn’t have any liquid white, and I had to be very careful with my money until I got my check. So I did the best with what I had, at least to the extent that my inner numbness would allow, and that involved playing with acrylics.

As predicted, I produced nothing of value, but I got more of a feel for the brushes and paints on the canvas, so I saw the activity as valuable nonetheless. Afraid that my attempt at using acrylics and the sad result might discourage me and turn me further away from art, after I was done with the paint I decided to try some other form of art. I remembered I had some Sculpey and tried molding a face as I simultaneously watched Djangu on my Roku. Then I dug out some charcoal pencils, took out my sketchbook and tried drawing.

Again, nothing I physically produced was great, not in the least, but I felt better knowing I was sort of pushing myself at gunpoint to do something artistic. Even if I wasn’t inspired.

I’ve drifted too far from this world of art, its been too long, and I need to find my way back and push myself to evolve this time. I need to keep writing, too, but it’s just not enough anymore.

Art, Inspiration & the Push (Part I).

For some time, I’ve missed the kind of focus I used to have with respect to producing art. Its not that I dislike writing, which I’ve invested more time and energy in over recent years, its just that it doesn’t produce the same kind of satisfaction, scratch the same kind of itches in the same places that art always did for me. And I’m itching like a flea-infested fuck wearing a sweater straightjacket coverall.

And as for all my enduring focus on writing, has it really improved my writing as a result? I still screw up tenses. Fuck up spelling. I fear a lot of my writing fails to have adequate focus and structure. I can’t write fiction worth a damn. And my attempts at writing a book about my strange, seemingly paranormal experiences?

That’s all clearly gone to shit.

To make matters worse, I’ve failed even more at further developing my art, and I can’t seem to get over this hump. Or perhaps “climb this mountain” is more adequate. And this, this despite my inspiration lately: inspiration that, if I manage it the right way, might light a fire under my ass and get me pouring my soul through imagery again in new and different ways.

This inspiration has come from at least three sources.

One is Squeaks, a young girl I work with. She has a dark, bitter, judgmental part of her, but she conveys it in this giddy, childlike way that amuses me. Her voice frequently gets painfully high-pitched, however, at least to my hypersentive ears, hence the name I’ve given her.

She is yet another child of abusive, otherwise negligent parents that clearly should not have been parents, though thankfully she lives with her boyfriend — who I call Count on account of the legitimate, natural fangs that motherfucker has — who seems like a good kid that truly cares for her. Unfortunately his home life isn’t the greatest, either.

At the very least, they have each other, though, and I think they make a good team.

Whenever she works in back drive thru I catch her doodling on a sheet of paper or a napkin — though calling them doodles doesn’t seem to convey the degree of skill she has. I’ve also seen her sketchbook — but again, to call them mere sketches…

She draws these spectacular cartoons. She often starts with lines and shapes and then starts building on the details as they always teach in art courses. I should probably do more of that. They are high-grade cartoons, for sure, and the way she colors them, often but not always using the computer, makes them look professional as fuck as well.

It makes me happy that it brings so much joy to her despite the endless onslaught of pain in her life, too, and though she has no interest in pursuing it through college or a career, I hope she eventually changes her mind and decides to invest her undeniable talent in some way that brings satisfaction to her. And perhaps even brings joy and inspiration to others in the process.

After all, as I believe I’ve made clear by this point: her artistic talents have clearly brought joy and inspiration to me…

Though admittedly, also envy and jealousy. Which well come back to. But there are, as I said, still other sources of inspiration.

There is, for instance, this girl I know from high school; she was a grade or two behind me. I’ll call her Maria Cox. I knew her brother, Johnny Cox, who was in my class. I also knew her close friend, Gerty, who was an anxious girl with a rapid-fire mind with whom I got along pretty well. I never got to know Maria too well, however, and despite affectionately calling her “Little Cox” whenever I got the chance, I don’t think she was too amused by it. Nor do I feel subsequent interactions made her perspective on me any better. Still, I always liked her — though, at least consciously, not to the degree that I do presently.

I remember little of her in high school save for the school dances I attended. While each dance held its own particular flavor of drama, a rather consistent element was that Maria would always end up along the wall, in the darkness of the gym, crying. Typically, or at least I always assumed, some ass-hat of guy she had come with had ditched her or in some way broke her heart.

I always felt bad for her. I always felt the urge to comfort her.

Even so, I never got to know her too well. I saw her now and then after graduation, but for the most part, only in passing.

I bumped into her once in a nearby town and she asked to borrow fifty bucks; I lent it to her. This was back when I was far more naive than I am today and still tried to trust and believe in people. She promised to repay me, and it was some time before I saw her again.

When I did, I was hanging out in a booth in a fast food restaraunt, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and writing in my notebook, as I often did. She came in the door, walked right passed me without so much as a glance, and sat a few booths behind me with one or two other people. They said something to her I couldn’t quite hear, but her response?

That I overheard.

It was essentially that “his” parents were rich, that “he” didn’t need the money, both of which are untrue, and so on — essentially providing a list of excuses to the others as to why she need not pay me back. That I found more than a bit douche-like and it soured me towards her for some time.

I can be a bitter, grudge-holding douche.

The next time I saw her was a good time later, and it stands as the last time I saw her as of the time of this writing.

I found myself at a bar with some friends and found out that one of the guys I went to school with was the lead singer in a metal band. We talked for awhile on the porch and then I meandered back inside. That’s where I saw this sexy, darkly-dressed girl expertly, seductively slow-dancing with some guy. It took me a moment to realize it was Maria.

In retrospect, I recall her looking good. Really fucking good.

Shortly thereafter she approached me and asked if I wanted to buy her a drink; I confessed I had no money (which I believe was true) and left it at that. Ever since, I’ve regretted not taking her up on her offer.

At some point after I got on Facebook years upon years ago she came to be on my friends list. Though I can’t recall at what point she became insatiable to me, it must have been some time after that. I remember seeing Gerty at some point after joining the Book of Faces and she said with confidence she knew who I thought was hot, she knew who I wanted to fuck. I asked her who, and when she mentioned Maria, I flatly denied it.

Gerty’s response conveyed that she thought this impossible. Not unlikely, mind you, but downright bloody impossible. Every guy wanted to fuck Maria, she seemed to believe, and on top of that Gerty knew she was right up my alley — evidently before I was able to consciously acknowledge it myself.

Maybe I still held a grudge at some level over what I overheard her say that day in the restaurant and denied my intense attraction towards her to myself, burying it far from consciousness.

It did not remain there, however.