introandoverviewnettlesdeliverance

Of Nettles and Deliverance

I
Introduction and Overview
A Journey of Hope, Discovery and Fairy Tales

“Every human is an artist.
And this is the main art that we have:
the creation of our story.”

Don Miguel Ruiz

Of Nettles and Deliverance

As a child, I was fascinated with fairy tales compelled to read them again and again. I had
two favorite volumes; one of tales by Hans Christian Anderson and the other, tales by the
Brothers Grimm.* I believe these stories fueled my imagination with the resilience I needed
to exist in a chaotic abusive environment. I had no inkling of the amazing therapeutic tool and
incredible source of enlightenment the same fairy tales would become so many years later
in my life.

One evening, in 2005, I began a traditional collage by making a photo transfer from a childhood
picture of myself. I wanted to add words to describe my feelings, but I found myself frozen with
fear and unable to handwrite my thoughts.

I was in therapy at the time. I began working with Lori Kleinman, Ph.D., M.F.T., after the
death of my infant grandson and the depth of my son's despair left me haunted by memories.
This tragic loss came at the heels of a decade dominated by care-giving. My husband and I
were responsible for gravely ill and aging relatives from both sides of the family. During that time
I also battled my own serious illness, and the promise of a new little life held much hope for
happier times. But, it wasn't to be, and under the strain of overwhelming grief and the realization
that it was not within my power to alleviate my son’s anguish, I began to experience disturbing
flashbacks to my own childhood.

I knew I’d been abused. I remembered specific incidents with great clarity, but whenever I tried
to speak of them, I felt completely detached. Intellectually I understood the cruelty, but
emotionally I was numb. Though logic told me the abuse was the reason for the fears and
phobias that plagued my life, I felt I had no right to consider the childhood incidents “abuse.” It
was as if these incidents were not “bad enough,” or a “good enough” reason for me to
acknowledge my sad, angry and fearful feelings.

The evening I found myself psychologically stammering over words for my photo transfer
collage, I chanced upon what became a cathartic breakthrough—using words and phrases torn
directly from the well-worn pages of my two childhood books of fairy tales. I began by tearing a
few words from the pages and placing them next to my photo transfer. For the next 16 months
whenever I was at a loss for words to describe my feelings, or simply struggling to “feel,” I flipped
through the books letting my eyes scan the print in free association. Each time, specific words
and phrases flew from the pages to my attention. I tore them out and saved them. Slowly, over
the months, the little girl I once was told me her story— our story— my story. After a time,
through the fairy tales of my childhood, I found my own voice, my own words to write, and
ultimately, in the final two short stories of this series ( IX and X), the truth I'd been unable to
acknowledge.

In the process, I learned that the combination of words and image enabled me to discover
and describe my feelings in a way that was more complete than one without the other.
The Village of Secrets is an example of this interlaced approach. It is a combination of
story and collage created midway through this project. As an overview of both my personal
story and an example of the therapeutic technique using words torn from the fairy tales of
Anderson and Brothers Grimm, this is a good place to begin.:

Examples of partial sentences I had randomly collected over the months that appear in this story
are:

“ . . . every time she squeaked they knocked her on the beak.”

(Anderson, The Roses and the Sparrows)

“ . . . as good as . . . any in the world.”

(Brothers Grimm, Snow-White and Rose-Red)

“ . . . dared not say anything . . . ”

(Anderson, Great Clause and Little Clause)

At the time I made a decision to write this story using my “collection” of torn words and
phrases, I returned to both books and intentionally searched for the words I needed to
complete my sentences. I pieced my story together and pasted it onto a journal page.
(cl ick here t o see part of story pieced from torn words and pasted into journal )

The collage half of The Village of Secrets, includes a photo of me at the age of twelve and
scans of contest headlines from old newspaper clippings about my music awards.

The complete work follows:

A Village of Secrets

Once, in a village, there stood a lovely cottage. In the cottage dwelt two young married people, their
two little daughters and the children’s grandmother. The children were as good and as precious as
any in the world, and everything looked neat and pretty. It seemed a most respectable home, but in
truth, life inside the nest was not a very pretty picture.

The big people were filled with a terrible rage, and they fought with such fury that the children did not
know what to do for fright. The eldest child did her best to protect her baby sister, and thinking to
please her parents tried as hard as she could to be amiable. She hardly made a peep, but her efforts
did not a bit of good, and every time she squeaked they knocked her on the beak. Then the
neighbors heard a cry, like that of a little child, but people do not trouble themselves about their
neighbor’s misfortunes. “It is only a sparrow,” they would say. At last, the poor child dared not say
anything, so lest she make no sound at all, she learned to play a violin.

Thenceforward the little girl hid her pain behind a lovely smile, and the violin became her voice. Her
music shimmered like nightingale’s song beneath the moonlight, and the stars were like countless little
silver bells sounding from the sky. Alas, it was not to last thus for long, and soon there was no end to
the child’s misery. No matter how splendid her playing, the grown people would not be pleased and
grew angry until she felt full of terror, even of the very leaves on the trees.

Years later, when the innocent child was grown, it chanced she met others who, like her, were
tormented by long concealed, bitter secrets. The time had come to tell their stories, for such secrets
were terrible for the soul and distorted everything they looked at. Many tears were shed as they
unburdened their hearts.

“Do you remember this?” one whispered, “Do you remember that?”

Oh, what long dark days those had been. Oh, the torture. It was the first time most were able to
share what had happened to them. Some had tried, but were mocked.

“I don’t believe it.”

“We don’t believe it.”

The words of the others echoed the girl’s memories and her shame, and she wept because theirs
were so like her own story. Together, they comforted her.

“Go on, little nightingale, tell us what happened. We are here!”

Then with each word she uttered, the room grew more brilliant with Heaven’s golden light.

“I believe it!” said the sunshine.

And the earth bore witness to the truth.

If you would prefer to continue reading
story/image pieces, parts VII-X contain the final
4 works for this series beginning with a short
summary.
Click Here to jump to part VII .

To read and view the complete chronological
therapeutic process and the art leading to the
final works, continue to Next Page.

Main Website
www.megfoxart.com

Contact Meg

About the Artist

*Anderson, Hans Christian. Anderson's Fairy Tales. Translated by Mrs. E. V. Lucas and
Mrs. H. B. Paull. Illustrated Junior Library ed. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., 1945

Grimm, Jacob and Grimm, Wilhelm. Grimm's Fairy Tales. Translated by Mrs. E. V. Lucas
and Mrs. H. B. Paull. Illustrated Junior Library ed. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., 1945