My Artist Marisa – A Communication

This morning I was woken up by a dream. I was communicating with my friend from high school Marisa Covella, who passed unexpectedly days before graduation. In my dream there was a ‘medium’ who communicated what Marisa was saying to me. I began to cry so much that it woke me up from my sleep, only to realize that the ‘medium’ was now me…and that Marisa was still talking to me…and that she was sharing so much about my life and her current existence it was amazing. Serious things and silly things, telling me she still watches volleyball for the ‘six packs’ and claims she even helped me find my husband and most of my previous boyfriends. She said, “Do you even realize how hot your husband is?” It made me laugh. Her sense of humor is what validated everything for me. She always made me laugh. She told me that her feet are still beautiful and mine could use improvement, and all types of things that we would talk about when she was alive.

Her favorite color was purple, and I think that was what brought us together in a way I wouldn’t understand until recently. The purple-violet light I work with is vital in ‘shifting’ and ‘transmuting’ situations and energy. Her life was a catalyst for our small high school community and even outside of it, where compassion and love for each other was created out of such tragedy. That was one of the serious things she wanted to share…not to feel badly, that it was her purpose as a soul to come here and serve in that way in order to bring us all together and break division. She definitely did that and left us with a ‘soul scar’ that would shape many of us in ways we weren’t necessarily aware of.

Her communication brought such a feeling of peace to my heart. \When she finally decided that the communication was fairly complete, she told me to put up my arms and hug myself. That was a hug from her.  This too made me cry of course, because ultimately even after so many years, I still miss her and the possibility of a friendship with her in the physical reality. When I thought about that sadness, she said, “Oh, I’m married and happy…and visit my family back there, but to be honest I hang out with artists most of the time now, because I miss not bringing things into form personally and like to inspire them. I do it through you and others.”  She left it at that.

So, for those of you who knew her who may be reading this, regardless of whether you believe in the afterlife or any of the above, I know she’s around and able to communicate with any of us. Just like anyone we’ve lost in life. They are always just a breath away…all the time. You just might not know it or feel it all the time, but they are there. All you have to do is ask them to show you a sign, come in a dream or reach out to you in a way that is undeniable, and they will.

I have known Marisa has been quietly influencing my creative pursuits now for a few years, living vicariously through me, which I don’t mind at all. I’m completely grateful for today’s confirmation of that.  She was an amazing painter/artist, and said, “you aren’t much of a painter, no offense, so I work with what we have and paint visually through your words when I get the chance.”  The afterlife is an amazing and mysterious experience by design, and I think it’s time to do what we can to make it less frightening. One of my goals is to do that through my work, my writings and teachings. I am sure Marisa will be guiding that too.

Meanwhile, I finally published my first book “Soul Scars” this year, composed of poems I wrote over a period of twenty years; one of them dedicated to her of course.  Since I did not have a chance to read it at my book’s launch party this past weekend, I am posting it here and will make sure to share it at my next reading. Marisa is of course thrilled. The second poem, “Shirley”, is an example of Marisa painting through my words a message that was close to her heart; a message that judgment can never erase the power of our gifts.

All My Love, 

Stephanie

                                               MY ARTIST – December 3, 1998

There were tears hidden

Behind the smile

The tears that I could only see

Having seen them many

Times before

No one knew you like me

No one saw the misery

Swimming in your eyeballs

Blinking through them

At the ugly world

Until one day it took you

Suddenly – too soon

I’ll meet you there someday

When my job here is through

And now when I look to the sky

See you painting me sunsets

Of purples and pinks

Wrapping up the sun for the night

Cozy like we were

Sitting in your living room

Munching on Red Vines

As I think of our memories

My smile is tremendous

Even if no one sees it

Hiding behind lonely tears.

                                                 SHIRLEY – April 4, 1993

When they said beauty is only skin deep, Shirley was never in mind. 

Her hair – waves of yellow straw yarn

Framing blank blue orbs of

Limp gelatin and fragile glass

A large snout protruding over scaly skinBleeding red matte lipstick – dry, caked

Peeling like old tattered cellophane off

Frog lips – pursed into a dime-size circle of skin

The blotchy sandpaper complexion

Painted by childlike hands

No art involved, no style, just Shirley.

Nothing natural about her building

No inhabitants either

Just arms, legs, sagging breasts left sitting on a potbelly.

Even her ears – scarred with too many holes

“Poor girl, wonder if she’ll ever marry?”

That’s all they said, enthralled and appalled

Like scared dust running from a vacuum

But meant to enter

Then suddenly her cracked lips move

She speaks.

An odor of jasmine from her words, warm and sultry

Like molasses.

The music of jazz or blues in her talk – spellbinding.

Shirley knows how to work what she’s got

A gift, though poorly wrapped, once opened it shines.

Still, those eyelashes like daggers

Eyebrows of painted arches

But she talks.

Angelic, beautiful words.

Springtime air and warm sheets

Poetry flowing from her tongue 

Silk.

The clothes – dull, five and dime

But those words erotic

That voice melodic

What deception to those few lonely minds

Calling her Roxanne or Lori

Listening to dripping honey over a phone

Nine-seven-six who knows her?

They only know what they hear

And assume what they want

Shirley knows how to work what she’s got

And well.

The gift of illusion

A magician of pleasure

No sight, no touch or taste

Only sound.

Her voice – the loneliest of them all

Home – some small plywood desk and vinyl chair

Fruit loops and the times

A cord with a one way receiver.  

-Soul Scars: Rising Phoenix, Stephanie Lodge