x Before continuing the story, a little background about me. I've always read widely and always drawn; driven as much by visions/dreams, mythology, as by studying real-life detail. Throughout my tumultuous high school experience, art classes were my refuge -- so much so, that I took a couple of summer courses in it as well. In college, I minored in Art, while majoring in English Lit. I wanted to be a writer who did her own illustrations.
Once out of college, I was faced with the career obstacles of the early nineties. As I saw it, there were no jobs for artists -- unless it was graphic or commercial, so I applied for jobs to write or edit. I had several interviews, but no offers. I worked at Walden Books for 3 years instead, which lead to my back pain, which lead me to study Yoga.
A couple years after getting married (towards the end of my Walden Book period), we started trying to have a child, which began a very long and difficult quest. The longing, visualizing, striving and failing took a toll. Aside from decorating our new home and teaching Yoga, my creativity was tied up in the attempt for the ultimate creation. I wrote articles for Sun and Moon Yoga Studio's newsletters, or did an occasional drawing based on dreams or meditations, but my original dream of writing/illustrating was back-burnered.
8 years later, and with no "results," we gave up the fertility quest. Finally I could let go of making demands on my body and searching for (and sometimes creating) symptoms of pregnancy. This was a big shift, which I celebrated by joining a Belly-Dance class. Ah-ha, a new passion was born!
Then, we went to India and on that trip, decided to adopt. This lead to another year and a half on that multi-layered process. After our file was created, waiting to be chosen by a birthmother was excruciating. I felt the adoption agency's "support," for the waiting parents was lack-luster, though I could see why they devoted more energy on the mothers in crisis. It felt like; despite our stability as a couple, and our open-mindedness, we were being abandoned again -- this time by a beaurocracy. I had enough! At 38, I couldn't do it any more. After some heart-to-heart discussions, we decided to quit them too.
Finally, I could re-claim my life! I had come to know that nurturing doesn't only refer to parenting -- it's a universal principal of the of the Divine Feminine, and I had it in spades. Yet, some residual darkness/grief from the quest lingered. I still hadn't come back to myself. My mother had moved in with us--creating extra tension, and Drew, my husband was approaching burn-out with his continued long work hours and high stress level in his computer engineering jobs. We as a couple were reaching a decision/crisis. I was sure that leaving the area would help.
Some months later, while in the process of researching where to move, I took the South class near Asheville, NC (please see Part 1 for more details). Among other things--this acquainted me with the special energy that permeates NC. After making friends with some people from the Chapel Hill area during the training, and noting the Research Triangle' s copious tech. companies, I started advocating for us to move there.
A couple of months after my return, while taking notes on Voltron, I felt strongly moved to draw. So I began: the ships, an android, Captain Hawkins, etc. I froze the episode where Hazar was rendered the best, and made the above drawing, adding more shadow to improve it. But, even though I was coming up with far richer backstory for the entire universe, removing Voltron, changing character names and aiming to make the whole thing R-rated, I felt haunted by the specter of getting sued. How would I -- a nobody, win the permission to continue? Even worse--why would they give the ok to a fan with no experience?
I was a couple of months into this massive project -- that was blossoming before my eyes: keeping me up late, waking me with fresh ideas, and filling my head with Huascar's voice (please see Part 1 for the Huascar -- Hazar connection), I freed myself from Voltron -- except in kernel form. This was going to be my creation. Then, I removed Earth from the story too, so I could have even more freedom. The essence of Earth is there--the issues that we are currently grappling with, are present in new ways......
TO BE CONTINUED.
Once out of college, I was faced with the career obstacles of the early nineties. As I saw it, there were no jobs for artists -- unless it was graphic or commercial, so I applied for jobs to write or edit. I had several interviews, but no offers. I worked at Walden Books for 3 years instead, which lead to my back pain, which lead me to study Yoga.
A couple years after getting married (towards the end of my Walden Book period), we started trying to have a child, which began a very long and difficult quest. The longing, visualizing, striving and failing took a toll. Aside from decorating our new home and teaching Yoga, my creativity was tied up in the attempt for the ultimate creation. I wrote articles for Sun and Moon Yoga Studio's newsletters, or did an occasional drawing based on dreams or meditations, but my original dream of writing/illustrating was back-burnered.
8 years later, and with no "results," we gave up the fertility quest. Finally I could let go of making demands on my body and searching for (and sometimes creating) symptoms of pregnancy. This was a big shift, which I celebrated by joining a Belly-Dance class. Ah-ha, a new passion was born!
Then, we went to India and on that trip, decided to adopt. This lead to another year and a half on that multi-layered process. After our file was created, waiting to be chosen by a birthmother was excruciating. I felt the adoption agency's "support," for the waiting parents was lack-luster, though I could see why they devoted more energy on the mothers in crisis. It felt like; despite our stability as a couple, and our open-mindedness, we were being abandoned again -- this time by a beaurocracy. I had enough! At 38, I couldn't do it any more. After some heart-to-heart discussions, we decided to quit them too.
Finally, I could re-claim my life! I had come to know that nurturing doesn't only refer to parenting -- it's a universal principal of the of the Divine Feminine, and I had it in spades. Yet, some residual darkness/grief from the quest lingered. I still hadn't come back to myself. My mother had moved in with us--creating extra tension, and Drew, my husband was approaching burn-out with his continued long work hours and high stress level in his computer engineering jobs. We as a couple were reaching a decision/crisis. I was sure that leaving the area would help.
Some months later, while in the process of researching where to move, I took the South class near Asheville, NC (please see Part 1 for more details). Among other things--this acquainted me with the special energy that permeates NC. After making friends with some people from the Chapel Hill area during the training, and noting the Research Triangle' s copious tech. companies, I started advocating for us to move there.
A couple of months after my return, while taking notes on Voltron, I felt strongly moved to draw. So I began: the ships, an android, Captain Hawkins, etc. I froze the episode where Hazar was rendered the best, and made the above drawing, adding more shadow to improve it. But, even though I was coming up with far richer backstory for the entire universe, removing Voltron, changing character names and aiming to make the whole thing R-rated, I felt haunted by the specter of getting sued. How would I -- a nobody, win the permission to continue? Even worse--why would they give the ok to a fan with no experience?
I was a couple of months into this massive project -- that was blossoming before my eyes: keeping me up late, waking me with fresh ideas, and filling my head with Huascar's voice (please see Part 1 for the Huascar -- Hazar connection), I freed myself from Voltron -- except in kernel form. This was going to be my creation. Then, I removed Earth from the story too, so I could have even more freedom. The essence of Earth is there--the issues that we are currently grappling with, are present in new ways......
TO BE CONTINUED.
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