Hollie's Green Man

Some years ago, my sister Hollie commissioned a DRAWING of the Green Man for her new son's bedroom. Along with the central Green Man figure, it was to include a wolf, a bear and a stag; later she added the raccoon to represent her son.

It didn't want to be a drawing: it wanted to be a painting.

I hadn't painted in years, but my mother (who was taking painting at the local senior center) had started using gouache (which is how, after all these years, I learned how to pronounce "gouache"--it's "goo-ash") so I picked up some and started painting. Things went swimmingly through the first three quarters of the painting. I added the badger to represent yours truly, and the mantis (I kept dreaming about them.)

Then I got stuck. I had no idea what needed to go into the lower right-hand corner. Nothing was coming to me.

And so the painting sat, for nearly a year.

Then one night I had a vision. I was in a field at dawn: it was one of those mornings when the dew is thick on the grass and there is a thick mist. I didn't see the Goddess, but I felt her presence and tremendous love. She told me that she was greatly pleased with my work, and here were the animals that would complete the composition: grouse or pheasant, mouse, squirrel, giraffe, blue jay and rabbit. And THEN she made me repeat them back so I wouldn't forget them!

When I awoke, I hadn't forgotten them. I completed the painting and it has become the cornerstone of my line of paintings. And I have never forgotten the love of the Goddess.