The Nobleman and the Psychic

By Hannah Janicke

The nobleman 
was dignified
Never boasted
Nor fretted

New in this town,

But known to the rest

A psychic with

Intuition

He prophesied 
A many things
His foresight was 
Better than his eyes

So our nobleman 
Was quick to his feet
He went straight to 
The psychic 

"Master Master
Please, I have
But one question

Oh, when will I die?"
The nobleman asks,
“So I know where I must avoid.”

The psychic side-eyes him

And says

"Nonsense, no way,
then you’ll be afraid everyday. 

Where there was no fear

Now anxiety creeps

You won’t sleep.”

The nobleman doesn’t understand

So he makes a demand

“I’ll give you money, even
Some land.”

The psychic

In his great wisdom

Says 

“Look here,
If it’s going to come, 
Let it come without worry.

Your fears will not change the future

Worry never rescued anyone
From anything
No matter how much help
One thought it was” 

The God of Chichen Itza

[Context: I write my dreams as if they were fictional short stories. I believe this helps me become a better writer. On my blog, I label these dreamy short stories as #fictionalshortstories.]

Midday. High school math class. 

My headphones were in and I was singing "Where is my Mind?" by the Pixies. I walked down the rows of students to my seat. I noticed people laughing as I walked, so I pulled out my headphones. 

I was singing out loud.

Blushing, I sat at an empty spot, which weirdly was on a smooth brown plastic floor. The floor was a concave shape, and the large drain hole at the bottom of the slope made me uneasy. As I sat down, my favorite green bomber jacket slid down and into the hole.

"My jacket!," I screamed. 

A dark female bent down and grabbed it for me. The jacket was caught on the drain's gates. The woman handed it back to me, silently.

"Thank you," I said to her. She didn't address me back. 

When I turned around, I was face to face with the most peculiar of people. 

It was the most masculine female, or most feminine male- I couldn't tell which, that I had ever seen. They had feathers over their eyes and under their neck. They were adorned in a turquoise breast plate, gaudy eye shadow, and they were short, wide and stalky. 

"I am the God of Chichen Itza," they said to me. When they spoke, I noticed a glorious light surrounding their body.

I felt honored that they even introduced themself to me. They had two sisters standing beside them.  

Their two sisters told me they were djing at a rave later that night. 

After class ended, I walked out to the parking lot, trailing the god of Chichen Itza and their sisters. The god shape-shifted into a tiny fairy and flew along with the sisters. Sparkles shimmered in the afternoon sun behind them.

At this point, I was shocked. I had to tell someone, so I went to my mom's house to tell her about the weird day I had. 

My mom was wearing an elegant, yet simple white dress, and I was shocked to see her look so feminine and beautiful. 

When I told her I met the god of Chichen Itza and watched them transform into a fairy, she became concerned. She didn't know if the god meant me harm or not. 

I felt this sense of dread wash over me, and just as I began to wonder the same thing, I woke up. 

"I fell asleep on the couch again," I thought to myself. 

Relief washed over me, but dissipated instantly.

My newest painting, "The Severed Feminine" walked out of the canvas and stood directly over me, staring at me silently.

"Gah!," I screamed as I woke up again. 

It was a dream within a dream. 

But seeing the silent, severed feminine presence in front of me, in what felt like real time, really freaked me out. 

Every time I look at my painting now, I'm haunted by the collective feminine that has been severed and deafeningly silenced. 

The Girl Who Saw Red [Update: Published on Bright Flash Literary Review🥂]

by Hannah Janicke

There was a little girl named Lana.

She was bright, curious, and kind.

Her parents were first responders.
They told her, Never wear red.

They had seen too many
people arrested in red,
people dying in red,
families ruined because of red.

So they obsessed over it.
Every dinner, every story ended with the same warning:
Red will ruin you.

Lana, curious as ever, began to wonder.
She read about red in secret,
dreamed of it at night.

One day she came home
with a red bracelet hidden under her sleeve.

Her mother saw it,
ripped it from her wrist.
Beads flew across the floor like drops of blood.
She made Lana pick them up one by one.
She screamed until her face turned red
but never noticed.

Now Lana burned to know more.

By junior year, she found parties
where boys let her wear red.
She slipped it off before coming home,
but inside, she glowed scarlet.

Her father told her about a girl who died in red.
But Lana wasn’t listening anymore.
She was busy planning how to find more.

What could have been a phase became an obsession.
How to wear red and never get caught.
Where to buy it.
Who to trust.

When her parents noticed the look in her eyes,
they sent her away —
to a place where they chained her to a bed,
stripped her of color,
and injected her with a poison to get the red out of her.

They told her stories of people who died in red
while others bled quietly on bathroom floors
because they couldn’t stop.

When Lana came home,
she wasn’t cured.
Now, everywhere she looked,
all she could see was red.

Nude Woman from Willendorf Statue: A Parallel to Baubo

 

Nude Woman from Willendorf 
Paleolithic Age

Immediately, this statue of a nude woman reminded me of the Greek Mythical Goddess Baubo. This is the greyscale photo below.

Baubo from Greece

The Nude Woman is from the Paleolithic age. It is small, only around 4 inches. I believe this is because it was made and given to adolescent, coming of age women. Perhaps even used as a first menstrual gift. I think it embodied the sensual concepts of womanhood, health, and successful procreation.

The artist created a conceptual representation of the female form by deliberately exaggerating the anatomical features. They depicted the subject based on the "idea" of the feminine rather than how "she" appears realistically. I think this is for a couple reasons. One: a tribe mentality. In contrast to later years, there weren't any aristocrats, governing groups, or wealthy people who wanted images in their likeness yet. That is one reason why there is no emphasis on a face. It's meant for the whole of the tribal women. No one thought they were that important or noble on their own to have something physical made in their likeness- something that would be around long after they had passed. Everything during the Paleolithic age had survival of the tribe at its core essence. Thus, the continuing of humanity. 

My second thought I had was, "This is before the domestication of women and repressed female sexuality." (How we have it all wrong now...but I digress). Maybe females were upset when their boobs started to grow and hormones started raging. This statue may have been passed from woman to woman down the linage of the tribe. Like an initiation into womanhood gift. There's one thing for certain, this object had a direct connection to childbirth and survival. The Paleolithic Age's survival depended on successful reproduction.

I brought up Baubo earlier, and I just want to explain who she is and draw a potential parallel. Baubo's eyes are her nipples and her vulva is her mouth. She's known for playful obscenity and making Demeter laugh when she was in a deep grief. It's like the pure belly laugh from a woman who is obscene and hilarious. I'm sure we've all felt this before when we're with our closest female companions. Laughing about the most ridiculous, borderline embarrassing things. Things out of earshot of other company and especially safely guarded away from any males. Baubo was the Goddess of this sacred, unhinged joking and laughter. Baubo represents the healing, humorous aspect of a woman's life that remains pure and untouched by what society thinks, because it's reserved for private female companionship.

Although Baubo came way after the Nude Woman, maybe the tribe made it as something humorous to laugh about together. We always talk about how we inherited our fear response from early humans. We picture them constantly afraid, dumping cortisol and adrenaline to stay alive. Running from sabertooth tigers. But what's more important to consider is how did we make ourselves laugh back then? I'm sure without all the cultural restraints and learned-shame we have today, the Paleolithic humans laughed at everything and were always finding ways to make each other laugh, even if it was obscene. Especially if it was obscene. Maybe there was a woman in the village who had big boobs and wanted sex all the time and the artist created this and said, "That's you" with a straight face in front of the whole tribe. Then she and everyone roared with laughter for months to come. Maybe this statue was a good pick-me-up joke even when they're hiding in a cave trying to evade a predator. Perhaps while crouching behind the men who were keeping look-out, the women would make gestures of big boobs and point to the woman referencing their inside joke. The men would motion for them to keep it down, and the women would be squeaking and snorting trying not to laugh. This is the version of the Nude Woman I can emotionally relate to most.

Great Beginner Drawing Book

 Pen and Ink

Here's a link to a fantastic book on the Internet Archive for anyone starting with pen and ink. 

Obviously you can't learn everything from the internet. However, this is a great reference to follow along with if you're taking a drawing class. 

If you're debating taking an art class, but think you can just learn online, I'll let you in on an I Ching saying:

There is something very limited about the self-taught man.

That one hit me in the gut when I first heard it because I thought I could teach myself everything. It took a disaster for me to reap the consequences from "teaching myself."

I took online classes prior to taking in-person classes again. I wanted to "get back into the flow of school," and all it did was shoot me in the foot. The teachers didn't teach, they sent linked in learning videos, and that was it. The assignments were disproportionally advanced compared the basic, incomplete knowledge given in Linked In videos. 

The final projects were impossibly hard, and there was no one to ask for help. The breaking point wasn't just my own stress; it was seeing another student have a mental breakdown in the campus lab. In the end, my reward for putting in more effort than ever was failing every class and losing my financial aid. It felt like a massive, unfair setback.

(I forgot to mention, never take architecture or design classes at LBCC).

But that failure, which felt like the end of the world, was actually a redirection. It’s proof of my personal motto: the universe always has our backs. 

I finally did what I should have done all along and signed up for my first in-person art class. And that whole disaster taught me an invaluable lesson. In choosing architecture and design, I had been standing on the sidelines of my own life, watching the game I desperately wanted to play. I was pursuing something that was just a taste of what I really wanted- to be an artist.

This is what so many of us do- especially women- isn't it? We become city planners or architecture majors when we dream of being artists. We support other people who are chasing the very dreams we've shelved. It's a special kind of torture.

In that moment, I decided I will never dip my toe into my dreams again. I'm going balls to the wall, full force no turning back on all my dreams. No matter how big or small.

Being in a studio with 20 other artists creating and learning with you is unparalleled. Even if no one's talking and everyone has their headphones in, just being in physical proximity to other students is so vital. You walk around and see what other people are doing; then there's critiques on your work to boost your confidence and show you where to make necessary adjustments.

It's also a huge plus to get away from home for a few hours a day. No dogs whining when you need to focus on your work. No loud motorcycles going by or neighbors smoking cigarettes outside your open window. I highly recommend in-person classes.

I'm not even pursuing art as a career necessarily. I just absolutely love it. Two days ago, I passed my real estate exam and next I'm taking my private pilot exam. Art, Real Estate, and Aviation are all very important to me. Women need to create art in some form. It is so critical for us to be engaged in something where our daily womanly lives are put aside and we're just creating. Seeing your skills improve boosts your confidence. 

There's so much to learn from slowing down and falling in love with the process. Not only are you getting better at your skill, but the process teaches you about yourself too.