In 1968 I fell down the rabbit hole and almost disappeared. In the late summer I met Alice Twitchell, the artist angel who saved me. And from that moment on I once again knew my direction. Late in the year while I was working in the Coven Tree boutique/gallery on Coventry Road a hardcover book fell of the shelf into my hands. Titled Introduction to Yoga Principles and Practices by Sachindra Kumar Majumdar it opened me up to a world of extraordinary words and oh so exotic images. I began to read and then study voraciously the Sutras and the poetry of the Vedas and the Upanishads.

I began ever so slowly, ever so tentatively to attempt to quiet my mind. I recall being frightened of what might happen as I practiced learning to meditate. At the same time, and to a greater and far more compelling degree I felt as though I had slipped through a veil. I sensed that here I could find a safe space to heal as I dreamed my artist life into being.

One of the first poems I learned to lean into was:

Save the self by the Self.

Never upset the self.

The Self is the only friend of self.

The self is the only foe of Self.

Yoga helped me to begin to learn that there was another way to move through the world. As an aspiring artist I was yearning to find my voice, a voice that I felt I had lost as a result of deep trauma and violence.

Shown here are two contour drawings from that time period. My living room and my two studio companions, doves Horatio and Sunday.