What's in a Name

Flotilla, Drozda 2001

18x24 inches

mixed on recycled wood

Several days ago Alyson asking me to address my blog name Merci 33.
Here's what has come to share.

Once upon a time 3 miscreants set me up in an entrapment situation, traumatized me severely and left me for dead. You can connect with the storyline where I created a graphic memoir last summer and posted it here on the blog from June through August. A post can be found here. You can imagine how physically, emotionally and psychically bereft the experience left me. One aspect of my recovery involved working diligently for 16 years to move beyond debilitating Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I lived in relative solitude for much of that time and devoted every day to inner repair working in studio and garden. It took time to learn to trust that life wouldn't brutally harm me again. I learned, and continue to enlist, unbroken focus; taking active measures to reclaim and rebirth myself, to walk in balance.

Alyson was curious and interested to know where the name Merci33 comes from and if I had ever explained that to my readers. In a follow-up email she went further and suggested that I tell the story of Donna Iona Drozda.

I'll be brief.

I love how the words we use and the way we communicate sends energy out into the world. Pain/pleasure, gain/loss, praise/blame, fame/disgrace. The list goes on and on. Some words help us feel hopeful and uplifted other words suck our lifeforce away and break our spirit.

Since 1991 the Lifecycle department of my studio outreach has been devoted to assisting us in walking in creative balance. The mantra for Lifecycle is paraphrased from Thoreau and states 'To affect the quality of the day is the highest of arts.' For Lifecycle I enlist a variety of well developed tools. I have a love affair with the work of walking through the world in a state of balance.

Merci 33: of course Merci means thank you. Thank you for every blessed moment. And 33 is an auspicious number that relates to 'All is Well'.
Therefore Merci 33 is a code for my life that reminds me 'Thank you. All is well.'

my plates remind me daily

My given name is Donna Jean Drozda. When I was violently attacked I could have been lost to myself for all time. However very quickly an artist/mentor came into my life and her lifestyle served as an example and helped me to immerse in the study of first Raja yoga and when my mind was able to calm a bit Hatha yoga. I was simultaneoulsy introduced to the Tao Te Ching. I have studied these daily for decades.

As part of the ongoing healing process I opened my studio to monthly 'Creativity Salons'. The monthly Salons were like protected circles, a gathering of artists who also shared like-minded souls. A core group of twelve of us engaged in a kind of 'collective creating' using the phases of the moon to circumnavigate the year. For more than five years we invested in the Salon environment where we were free to creatively invent ourselves anew.

We were a very playful group and one of the first things we did was give ourselves permission to choose a 'name for the day'. Instinctively I knew I needed my true  'Artist Name'...my own soul name. A name that belonged to me. What came is Iona. As in I own a Drozda...I own myself. Iona. No one anywhere, under any circumstance, has the power to take me from me. Not ever. It's been tested. It's been proven.

The Fields of Dewachen, Drozda 2001

30x30 inches

Acrylic on canvas

I feel very fortunate that circumstances came together to form a scar tissue that has made me stronger and more flexible as a result of what I have endured. I am a bona fide member of the 'Scar Clan' as outlined in the magnificent book Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

I am well aware that we are each stronger than we can ever possibly imagine. Often it is not until, or unless, we find ourselves faced with a true test of our inner strengths and resources that we discover just how Merci 33 life truly is.

So there you have it Alyson, in short form.

 Thank you so much for stopping by... may you always in all ways:

~Sing the day

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.

I Go Among Trees and Sit Still

Prior to my move out of the city I lived across the street from the breathtaking and magnificent landscapes of Lakeview Cemetery. Founded in 1869 the 285 acres of land are modeled after the great garden cemeteries of Victorian England and France.

My morning meanderings would take me into the forests and along streambeds where ancient trees and the sound of water anchored me. I so enjoyed drawing the Standing Ones all around me. My soul yearned for roots and I took great comfort in hours of stillness and solitude.

The days held a rich contrast of nature and culture.

After my morning hikes I would walk around the corner to go to work at a little boutique/antique shop on the famous Coventry Road .

Living and working in this lively cultural zone for five years gave me a chance to become an impassioned student of Hatha yoga and to envision the look and feel of my artist life.

These two works are 10x8 inches. The first a soft pastel and ink on Strathmore. The second a watercolor on Arches paper.