1 Chapter 1 Negative Space
CeeCee was tired. Very tired of waking up in the middle of the night painting white walls white. To become more creative, one of her life’s many goals, CeeCee began to copy. Copied others’ artistic works in magazines by outlining the shapes with a black Sharpie; used tracing paper to draw someone else’s photo in the newspaper, tested the limits of thin pieces of transparent paper. She delved into her copycat tendency also by engaging in tree pose and mountain pose to imitate nature in her yoga classes. She started to draw lines in her landscape paintings that weren’t there. She had read somewhere that there are no lines in nature. This was all very troublesome. She wanted to be a well-known artist but from casual observation a successful artist needed to be dead. She took long well-earned breaks in negative space.
Once refreshed, drawings were again submitted to “calls for artists.” Every entry cost was 35 to 70 dollars, paperwork to be filled out, framing expense of 50 to 70 more dollars, going to the open house to engage in 4 hours of smiling, plus mileage. These are details that drove CeeCee up the pole of anxiety and dread. She agreed with others it was lonely at the top. Yes, the polecat was getting desperate as no paintings were being purchased. The only “purrchaser” of her paintings was in a sense CeeCee. She began to philosophize and initiated a quest for research. She needed new ideas for her drawings. She researched “lines in the universe” but due to auto-editing Google referred her to “laws of the universe and its mysteries.” The net was catching her.
References were made to Hermes Trismegistus an ancient founder of alchemy, occult wisdom, and astrology. She began to connect the dots. Google also listed “The Kybalion “[2] a book published in 2012 by three authors who wrote of the teachings of this Hermes guy. This was getting exciting. The hair on the back of her neck was beginning to stand up. She felt ex-static electricity about her finds. After downloading her researched laws of the universe she was most attracted to ideas of travel between energy, mind, matter and spirit.
The fakirs of old (interesting name she thought) were able to move between different planes of substance and appearance. Through self-hypnosis, meditation and the art of swallowing one’s tongue, a fakir could appear dead for up to 2 to 3 days. In a book called, “A Search in Secret Egypt” [3], a fakir named Tahra Bey was able to enter a “cat.aleptic” coma, some kind of cosmic cat unconsciousness? A temporary death? Bingo. Lifelines to death dodge.
The Cheshire had heard of the expression, “cat got your tongue?” and thought, “There could be some kind of connection here.” She had experience with static and non-static electricity, pole conductivity, which all will be proven to the reader, stripe development (learned at local tanning booths) and she certainly was scaredy. So going back and forth between planes of existence didn’t seem too far-fetched. She knew once declared dead her drawings might become more valuable, she could possibly become rich and famous, full of high status…untouchable so to speak. The galleries would be clamoring for her work. No more forms, entry fees etc. She could finally get her paws on that fame and fortune. There was more than one way to skin this cat.