A Very Late 2017 High/Low – Coming Out Of The Spiritual Closet

I usually do a post at the end or beginning of the year, looking back at the high points, and mulling over the low ones to release them.  My blog has been so neglected the whole of last year, as my art has been too, and it’s taken me up till now to find the time and energy and mental ability to put this post together.

2017 was just a bad year ME-wise.  At the start of the year, I honestly felt like I was slowly dying (and not just in the sense that we all are).  Thankfully, last August, I began seeing a naturopath who gives me IV vitamin and mineral infusions and I’ve seen a big difference in how I feel getting them regularly.  I’m still crawling out of the ME-hole and have even less energy than any year before, but I feel like it’s getting slowly better instead of always worse, now that I’m getting these treatments.

Speaking of, an enormous THANK YOU to every single one of you who has contributed so generously to my GoFundMe campaign to help me continue the quite expensive IV treatments.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I am incredibly grateful and humbled and every gift has been so deeply appreciated.

Last November my neurologist put me on a new medication to try and help ease my migraines.  He warned me that it would make me feel “extremely nauseated” for the first week, but I’d just have to push through that, and then he thought it would help me.  I finally screwed up my courage and swallowed one of the dubious pills and did, indeed, have a terrible night full of nausea, hot and cold sweats, extreme temperature swings and a strange, but not unwelcomed, detachment.  I continued on like a good patient and after three weeks I finally stopped needing to take a sublingual Zofran the second I opened my eyes in the morning (morning nausea was always the worst, maybe because I take it at night?) and it began to settle into my body.  The good thing is that it did indeed help decrease the number of migraines I’m getting per month.  The bad thing is that ever since taking it, I’ve needed to sleep for a good 2-4 hours EVERY SINGLE AFTERNOON.  This is on top on the 10-12 hours I spend sleeping every night.  Do you realize how few hours are left in the day to do ANYTHING of value after all that damn sleeping, winding down and waking up is over with?  It’s really insane.  I will be bringing this up to my neurologist and seeing what can be done because I’m not sure this is a realistic way for me to live the rest of my life.  On the other hand, some months prior to this I was getting up to 19 migraines a month, which destroys your ability to do anything meaningful as well.

And, for some completely unknown reason, the medication also seems to be helping (in conjuncture with the IV infusions) with my temperature regulation issues, ie, my “hot flashes.”  I believe I’ve mentioned them here before, but in case I haven’t, these have been slowly increasing for the last three or four years.  Essentially, what seems to be happening, from my vantage point stuck inside this body, is that in the mornings, wild rabbits have run through my brain overnight, nibbling on wires, pulling things apart, gathering bits of gray matter together to make little warrens, disconnecting neurons and causing a bit of havoc.  My brain is wildly trying to repair itself, ideally quickly, and makes a lot of very broad guesses about what temperature my body should be at for the first several hours of the day.  What this translates to practically is that I can be sitting miserably directly in front of the heater, covered in layers of blankets, bathrobes and cats, sweating profusely, simultaneously far too hot, but getting many more signals that I’m far too cold and must stay PERFECTLY STILL for several hours until it passes on its own.  This is also very not conducive to getting anything done at all.

And  yes, I did see numerous doctors about this.  The first three shrugged at me and told me it sounded hormonal and that wasn’t their field, which is fair enough.  I finally saw an endocrinologist for this problem and he ran a bunch of blood but didn’t bother to look at a single hormone.  Apparently you have to request that an endocrinologist, a doctor who specializes in hormones, test your hormones when you’re seeing him for something which sounds, to laymen and other doctors, like a hormone problem.  I did not punch him, but probably only because I was too tired.  (I also asked my gynecologist about it since they deal with female hormone issues too, to a degree, and she had a “Oh, let’s not go looking for trouble,” attitude about it.  I AM ALREADY IN TROUBLE.)  So the underlying issue there is still unknown but hell, if the infusions and the weird pill help with it, I’m happy about that at least.

Basically I feel like 2017 was mostly spent crawling on my stomach through a disgusting swamp while people shot at me from hidden locations, periodically shouting that I wasn’t trying hard enough or that I was just over-reacting, while also making sure I brushed and flossed my teeth and fed my animals twice a day.  I’ll freely admit it was a pretty shitty year.

Here is the upside to all that time spent in deep solitude, my mind active as ever but my body unable to do much: I had a lot of time to meditate and connect with my spirit guides.  I think I met my first guide near the end of 2016, so I was primed for more contact when 2017 came around.  And boy did they.  I acquired five new main guides and spoke to numerous others.  I talked with and made friends with various interdimensional beings.  I am learning to channel, astral project and remote view, be  medium, a conduit and a spirit translator, although I’m getting fairly good at some of them, considering the short amount of time I’ve been at it.  For some reason historical figures I read about seem to connect best with me.  The spiritual growth in the last year has been an absolute explosion of love and light into a very dark year.  And though it was such an awful year, I look back on it and remember all the love and grace that was shown to me.  I have never felt more loved, protected and cared for.

So while I am disheartened with the amount of art I was able to put out last year, I AM very happy with what came in its place.  I’m thinking of it as I took a year off from art to go have mystical, spiritual experiences, and hopefully now I can marry the two together better.  I just need to find a new way to work in really short chunks instead of stretches of the afternoon so I can increase my art output.  Then things will be much more the way I’d like them to be.

If I had to have such a crappy year to gain so much spiritually, I’ll take it.  I don’t know if it was a direct trade or how it works, but I wouldn’t give up the new friends I have for anything.  And I’ve found some really, really wonderful online communities who love me, support me, have my back, help me work through confusing things, answer my questions and reassure me that I’m always ok.

For anyone concerned, I have shared many intimate details of my experiences with both the wonderful Geoff and my excellent therapist and neither of them is concerned about my mental wellbeing.  🙂  Only loving beings are allowed to talk to me, and as I said, I feel much greater peace, security, love and support than I ever have.

Now on to this image… this might look like it goes against what I just wrote, but it’s inspired by someone else’s experiences, not mine.  🙂  Over Christmas, I re-read Demons in the Age of Light by Whitney Robinson, which I’ve read many times now and is a favorite for its beautifully poetic prose.  Whitney’s memoir is about a psychotic break she suffered in college, where she felt like she was possessed by a demonic entity but everyone diagnosed her as schizophrenic.  Her journey back to wellness is haunted by the ever-present question of if she’s experiencing something mental or spiritual, and the answer is often allusive and not nearly as clear as you’d think.

“The sentience envelopes me while I sleep…  I awaken with a gasp in a strange bed.  No, it’s not the bed that’s strange – it’s the same one I’ve slept in since I was a child…

The strangeness is that I am not alone, here in my bed.  I will never be alone again.

I feel it slithering out of the darkness for the first time, the presence that’s been whispering its sinister enigmas.  A living, breathing thing – cold stars and glittering mathematics with the inhale, hot copper and rotten fruit with the exhale.  Foreign from anything I have ever known.  Other.”

I loved how the usually comforting, loving idea of never being alone has been turned in this passage into something deeply wrong and full of dread.  I wanted to try and capture that feeling just before she was overtaken by the being she calls the Other, of knowing the possession is imminent and you are helpless to stop it.  And of course I used my favorite little lamp to light the scene, exactly as it’s shown in the image.

I wasn’t planning on uploading this on Valentine’s Day, but I suppose it does make a dark, sinister anti-Valentine’s-Day image, haha!

Never Alone Again – ​​© Sarah Allegra

Read Full Post »

Mourning Dove

Oh my goodness… so, so much has happened recently that I feel completely overwhelmed in sitting (or, rather, laying) down to tell you about it!  But I have a new image to share with you and I really wanted to post it and maybe give you guys a little gloss-over update at least, so I’m just going for it.  If I let myself think about it any longer, I’ll just get frozen with intimidation over how much I’d like to cover!

First news: health is poor.  I mean, yes, you all know my health is pretty much always poor, but it’s been even more so lately.  I feel like it’s been slowly sliding downhill over the past… year?  year and a half?  two years?  But the last six-to-nine months have been extra bad.  I think I’ve told some of you at least about the “hot flashes” I’ve been getting.  It’s actually quite a lot more complicated than calling them “hot flashes” implies, but I don’t know a better name to get the general idea across with, so we’re going to call them “hot flashes.”  What it really is, is my body suddenly seems unable to regulate its temperature properly, which sends me into sudden, drenching sweats, often while I’m shivering with cold at the same time.  Very similar to the sort of sweats you get with a fever, but it only lasts a few hours, it comes and goes quite randomly, I have absolutely no other fever symptoms and it seems to ONLY happen in the morning (because that’s when my day is busiest, I have the most appointments scheduled, etc, so it can be the most obnoxious).  This sounds like something that’s just annoying, which it is, but it’s quite a bit worse than that.  It makes me weak and lightheaded, it’s not something I can simply push through by will alone; I might have to cancel appointments or send Geoff to the grocery store on his own.  We both utterly detest grocery shopping, but I’m much too weak to do it on my own anymore, and if I at least go with Geoff, it’s company for a task no one enjoys, so I always feel bad if I have to make him do it by himself.

These were getting so bad and disruptive for a while that I saw my GP about it.  He tested my thyroid and a couple of other things in my blood, examined me, decided it wasn’t anything menopause-related (which, yes, would be QUITE young to start having them, but stranger things have happened), said it sounded hormonal and sent me on my way.  I saw my neurologist, he said it wasn’t anything neurological and I should probably see an endocrinologist; a doctor who specializes in looking at your hormones.  I also happened to see my pain specialist during this time just for my every-three-months-check-in, and mentioned it to him, and he agreed it sounded hormonal, but was outside his expertise.  So I did some research, found an endocrinologist nearby who got good reviews online and made an appointment.

The first bad sign was that the endo’s office doesn’t accept credit cards of any kind, only cash or checks, which they had not mentioned in ANY of the conversations I had with them when I set my appointment up.  Not only is that just absurdly behind the times, but I, like most people this day and age, very, very rarely carry either cash or a checkbook on me.  Before going to this doctor, I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote a check.  Thankfully, I happened to have shoved my checkbook in the bottom of my purse anyway, but I had a mini panic attack in the waiting room wondering how I was going to pay these people.

Eventually I found it though and went into my appointment, which was mostly going over my medical history with the doctor and explaining what the problem I was seeing him for was.  Obviously, my medical history is much more like something George RR Martin would write about than a quick-read paperback, but the doctor interrupted me quite a lot as I tried to tell him details which were important and extremely pertinent to the hot flashes I was seeing him for.  Obviously, I did not care for that, but it is a very common problem with doctors.  If I wrote off every doctor who interrupted me while I was explaining things, I wouldn’t have any doctors left to see.  Anyway, he ALSO agreed it sounded hormonal and said we’d run a bunch of blood tests to see what was going on.  We’d be repeating everything my GP had already run because, the endo said, his tests were more thorough.  Ok, fine.  Six vials of fasted blood later, they were sent to the lab, Geoff bought me breakfast and I waited a week’s time until I could get my results from the doctor.

In this appointment (paid for with the check book which I’d triple-checked was still in my purse after the stress of the first visit), the doctor went over each page of the bloodwork results with me, explaining what was tested and how every single thing came back normal.  My blood was normal, thus, I was “perfectly healthy!” and did not need to see him any more expect for in another six months to recheck my blood and make sure it was still all normal and I was healthy.

Obviously, I am not healthy.  Even if you discount my mountain of other ME-related issues, the fact that I was presenting with extremely hormonal-sounding problems should indicate that something is amiss.  This doctor had absolutely no interest in finding out what this life-interrupting issue was though.  The impression he gave me was that he thought I was an overly worried, mildly hypochondriac girl getting her pigtails in a twist over nothing and that showing me that my bloodwork said there was nothing wrong would make the problem go away, because it was  probably something I’d dredged up on my own through pure will.  But the most offensive part of all… he did not check one single motherfucking hormone.  Not ONE.  On a case where three other doctors all had said the issue sounded hormonal, I told him I was concerned it was hormonal, he didn’t bother to check anything.

I’ve since been told by other people who have to see endos regularly that you usually have to specifically ask them to check your hormones, if that’s something you want.  WHY???  You don’t have to do this with ANY OTHER medical specialty.  I don’t have to tell my neurologist to check my brain, I haven’t had to tell my gynecologist to examine my lady parts.  How is this something that is not only allowed, but is COMMON in this one niche???

At the time he was going over the bloodwork with me in the room, I was trying to control being wildly disappointed over having yet another problem come back testing as “normal” and being shunted off again, again being treated as if I was making this all up, again being patronizingly patted and being told to not worry my pretty little head about it.  Look, I’m sorry that my disease isn’t something they teach a lot about in medical school, I really am.  I’m sorry that most doctors feel threatened when confronted with something they can’t simply write a prescription for and it’s solved.  I’m sorry that it makes them feel insecure, as if they don’t know what they’re doing because I don’t have an easy fix.  I am far, far sorrier about that than any doctor who’s treated me like a hot potato could ever be.  But I do not go around to doctors’ offices for fun to mock them for their lack of knowledge.  I go in with an open mind every time, despite years of consistent disappointment, hoping that, just maybe, this will be the time when I get an answer.  Not even THE answer, just a part of it.  But to not test any hormones for a presenting issue that, to every lay-person and doctor I’ve spoken to, sounds extremely hormonal is inexcusable.  I spent a lot of money in copays, I spent six vials of blood my body could have used, I spent a lot of time gearing up for appointments and recovering from them, I spent incredibly precious energy getting to my appointments, getting tests done, and sobbing after my last appointment as my hopes were again dashed and I realized it had all been wasted.  The absolute least the doctor could have done was run the tests I wanted done but didn’t know that I had to ask for specifically by name, because that’s how endocrinologists are.

Each time I have one of these horrible experiences with medical professionals, it makes it so, so much harder to even fathom trying again.  Why should I if most of them are going to just call me crazy and kick me out of their offices as quickly as possible?  And of course I know that I have to keep trying because giving up isn’t an option, but for fuck’s sake, can’t they at least try and meet me in the middle somewhere?

After that edifying experience, I couldn’t even bear the thought of looking for another endo and starting the process over again, even knowing now that you have to ask for your hormones to be tested.  The wound was just too raw.  What I did have was an appointment set up with Celestine Grace, my very favorite medium, who’s helped me a lot in the time we’ve been working together.  I asked her what would help my body and she told me to take rose hip supplements, which I knew are very high in vitamin C.  They’re cheap and easily available from Amazon, so I got a bottle and started taking them.  And you know what?  Within a couple weeks, my hot flashes had gone down considerably.  They still popped up now and then, but the difference was huge.  I ran out of them and it took a few days before I could get my replacement bottle in, and while I was off them, my hot flashes spiked again.  I’m back on them now and they’re going back down, but it might take a couple weeks, like it did the first time.

I am so, so grateful to Celestine for that bit of advice and for helping to turn around a very bad situation (and also all the other help and advice she’s given me over the year or so we’ve known each other) but it’s so incredibly ironic to me that four conventional doctors couldn’t or wouldn’t help me, but my medium did.  It goes to show the strength of her talent while underscoring how little conventional Western medicine has to offer me.  Thank you, Celestine, I can’t tell you how much those rose hips have helped me!

The whole thing got me thinking that I may just need a whole different approach to my health, so I began to look into different specialists and alternative treatments.  I mean, that’s something I’m continually on the lookout for, but I was searching with a new urgency this time.  Giving vitamin C intravenously has been a growing trend… since my body had responded well to the rose hips, maybe it would like a more concentrated dose even more!  I have found a naturopath who is nearby, returned my phone call herself to discuss if we would be a good fit for each other and offers IV vitamin C along with a ton of other therapies I’ve been interested in but haven’t been pushed far enough to try yet, since most are expensive and not covered by insurance.  I have an appointment with that doctor next Monday morning, which will just be a consultation between one to two hours where we just go over my history, what changes I’d like to see and what treatments might be good for me.  They also test hormones.  🙂  As hard as it is for me to allow myself to be hopeful that maybe this time it will work, I can feel hope trying to quietly creep in.  I’ll let you guys know how that appointment goes.

As my body has gotten more and more painful and uncomfortable to inhabit, I’ve been turning to my own form of spirituality for strength and comfort.  It works for me.  It helps significantly, so much so that Geoff has noticed its effect.  It’s a bit too much to get into it all now, but it’s based in meditation and finding my own path up the mountain toward god/source.  A lot of it might sound like new age woo-woo, but I stick with what works, and this does.  My variety of spirit guides have been a big part of keeping me from utterly falling apart as things have gotten more and more difficult all around… just thinking about them makes me feel more peaceful.

I frequently mourn the health I once had, the life I once had, everything ME has taken away from me.  I mourn for those who I wish I could have gotten to know in this life and not just in the next.  I still mourn the loss of our previous home with our incredible neighbors, even though this place is finally feeling more like home and we have great new neighbors here.  Mourning is a universal human experience; I’m sure every one of you can think of things you mourn.

My new city has a lovely, tiny, serene, old little cemetery within what would be walking distance for most people from my home.  I wanted to shoot there when I had the excellent Teri Wyble over (quite a while ago now, I’m terribly behind on editing).  I didn’t know exactly why I wanted to shoot there, or what I was trying to say at the time.  This sometimes happens.  I’ve learned by now to just go with it, that its reason will become clear to me later.  That was the case with this image.  I asked Teri to imagine this was the grave of someone she loved and missed horribly; someone whose loss she still mourned.  I don’t know if she was tapping into a loss in her own life or if she’s just very good at imagining, but she portrayed exactly what I wanted:

Loss.  An inability to move on from the blow of death.

But I didn’t want it to be completely bleak.  The birds swooping in to comfort her speaks to me of the healing that comes after we let ourselves grieve.  Yes, you have to pass through the darkness first, but there is eventually light.  Sometimes it comes to you on feathered wings when you least expect it.

Whether the viewer has recently experienced this themselves or not, it’s such a common part of just being human, I wanted to create this.  Not to wallow in the mud of despair, but to remind myself that the heaviness will someday lift.  The pain will ease.  The grief will lessen.  Maybe even, a treatment will eventually work.

Thank you so very much, Teri, for your beautiful, emotive modeling!  You are a wonderful human being and model.  🙂

Enjoy, my friends!  If this speaks to you, I’d love to hear what it brings up if you’d like to share that in the comments!

Read Full Post »

Creating Rapeseed’s Harvest

This was one of those self portraits that I just HAD to shoot RIGHT THEN or I was going to explode.  It’s actually been a pretty rough couple of months; I’m fighting my way out of another bout of depression that came on for seemingly no reason.  This does happen periodically, so I tried to just give it time and let it pass, it always will eventually… but it’s been clinging like it hasn’t in a long, long time.

As depression progresses, it gets worse, not just additionally, but exponentially.  You can very quickly move from, “Ok, I don’t like this, but I’ll get through it soon,” to “Oh my god, this is going to be the rest of my life, I will never feel joy again ever; what’s even the point of living??” in shockingly short time.

For me, one of the best tools I have against depression and slowly losing my will to live is creating art, especially art that expresses how I’m feeling at the time.  It’s incredibly cathartic.  Working on this self portrait has been a huge help in keeping me sane lately, but the pessimistic side of me wonders if I’ll just be left right where I was before I started it, once I’m totally finished creating it.  I suppose that even if it does, I’ll at least still have a new image in my roster.  It hasn’t helped my depression to know that it’s been so long since I released any new images (there are far too many reasons to get into right now, but it’s been incredibly difficult to find and make time for art lately).

I was thinking about what I would say to accompany this image, which (probably obviously, belongs to both my DreamWorld and Eternal Storms series) and pondering how to explain what long-term clinical depression feels like to those who haven’t experienced it.  It’s not the same as just being sad or upset, it’s a stain on your soul which you can’t ever blot out.  Out, out, damn spot.  A stain which not only looks ugly, but spreads like a cancer and does you actual harm, emotionally, physically and mentally.

Depression, especially when it gets really bad, feels like your brain is beating and gang-raping your soul every day while the rest of the world goes about their business, either not noticing, or at best stopping to take cell phone videos of your torment, but offering no help.  And much like the unjustified stigma and shame victims of abuse feel, people who have trouble with depression and who don’t feel excited about being alive are often subject to the same kinds of judgements.  We must enjoy wallowing in our own emotional filth, or else we’d just get up, dust ourselves off and go be happy, right?  Or, ok, maybe it’s really a chemical imbalance thing; so just take an anti-depressant and let’s all get on with our lives, all right?  And she was wearing a short skirt, so she was asking for it.

I wish it worked like that; I wish it was that easy.  I can’t recall how many medications I’ve tried, not to mention the far, far greater number of alternative healing treatments, supplements, and anything else I could think of.  Some help more than others, but so far nothing has completely cured me.

For anyone wondering, no, I do not believe this bout of depression is really related to the ME.  The ME has been about the same as it has been since my injections kicked in, so there haven’t been any recent changes on that front.  It definitely doesn’t help anything, but I don’t believe it’s the cause.

Depression lays a gray film over your life.  Everything appears bleak and hopeless.  There’s no point to trying, no point to doing anything.  And there’s also the honest, nothing-to-do-with-depression frustration of having to be your own guinea pig as you try different treatments, often with horrible, horrible side effects, which may or may not stop after you discontinue the medication.  It’s been recommended that I add a psychiatrist to my team of doctors (I have a wonderful therapist, but she’s a psychologist, so she can’t prescribe medication) which I’m not looking forward to.  My depressive mind doesn’t want to go through the bother of more appointments, more co-pays, more explaining my symptoms and feeling judged, more trying new medications will probably make everything worse before it even might get better.  My rational mind says I should try it anyway, but I’m not looking forward to it.

So, back to talking about this image.  I chose the title even knowing it might ruffle some feathers, because I honestly don’t feel like there’s a better way to explain it to those who have been fortunate enough to never be so depressed that they feel they can’t go on another day.  It is your mind raping your soul, verbally abusing you, telling you you’re worthless, a horrible person, undeserving of love or bothering another person by asking them for help.  It’s a prison only you can see and feel; a prison you both hate and are afraid to leave, because it’s all you’ve known for so long.  (My first memories of what was clearly depression are from my early teens, but I wonder if the terrible anxiety and nightmares I endured since I was a very young child were a precursor to this.  The first time I gave serious thought to killing myself, I was 17.)  A strange Stockholm-like syndrome can develop where you long to escape, but are afraid to.  However, I hope it’s clear that I am in no way trying to take anything away from the trauma victims of the “regular” kind of rape suffer from.  Though our hells overlap in some ways, they are not identical.

I liked the idea of using “rapeseed” in the title, not only because it catches the ear, but because I feel it works on a metaphoric level.  Rapeseed is a plant which grows beautiful yellow flowers; it belongs to the mustard family from what I’ve read (and apparently the name has to do with the Latin word for root vegetables and nothing to with an act of violence).  Kirsty Mitchel shot part of her Wonderland series in front of a breathtaking field of rapeseed flowers.  It is also, apparently, what canola oil is made from (or at least used to be?  I’m finding mixed info), around which there is some controversy if it’s truly safe for human and animal consumption.  The word at once touches on horrible, horrible acts of violence and abuse, potential danger but still has immense beauty to offer the world.

In this image, I imagined a beautiful, unicorn-like creature, someone that would look completely pure and innocent, someone who looked like that would never have had a single bad day.  And I just poured my emotions into the shoot, letting them all out.  I’ve already said it was cathartic, but I can’t stress just how much it was.  I felt lighter that day than I did in a long time.  Even editing it was therapeutic.  Some images seem to fight you the whole way, kicking and screaming, into what you want them to be; this one felt like it was actively working with me to help me achieve my goal.  It’s one of the most gratifying feelings when art flows like that.

I have been studied makeup application a lot recently (mostly for upcoming images) and this was one of my first times being able to test just a little bit of my new knowledge out.  That was fun, although tiring.  But I’m pretty pleased with my first attempt at being a makeup artist!  I had to search high and low for some cosmetic-grade silver glitter of the right size and color to make the glitter-tears; you really wouldn’t think it would have been so difficult, but it was!  I eventually found some on either eBay or Etsy; I’ve bought some from both and now I don’t remember where this particular one came from.  I already had the silver wig, so I just grayed up my eyebrows to match it better.  I used Nyx’s Jumbo Pencil in Milk for the entire eye/cheekbone area along with a nice matte white eyeshadow from BH Cosmetics pallet, along with two shades of lavender and a darker purple in my crease and as blush.  I contoured with another Nyx product, an eyeshadow in Taupe which is perfect for my pale skin (even paler here, so I used a very light hand).  I highlighted cheekbones, lids and inner corners with Deviant Cosmetics Ghost Violet, which is just about my new favorite thing ever.  It has the most gorgeous flash of purple when the light hits it, and Deviant Cosmetics has four or five colors in their Ghost line; I recommend them all!  (If you’ve been eyeing the Kat Von D Alchemist Palette but don’t have the money, go see Deviant Cosmetics.  Their colors are brighter, more vivid, they carry one more color than comes in KVD’s pallet, and it’s WAY less expensive!  And since it’s mineral makeup, there are no weird or harmful ingredients to worry about.)

After I did my makeup and looked utterly insane in person, I set my camera up and a couple lights.  I actually really hate setting up lights, so I always try and make it as minimal as possible.  Luckily, this shot didn’t call for anything fancy, so I got away with only two.  I taped some white, mesh fabric to the inside of my front door, and it gave me a lovely, neutral whiteish backdrop that wouldn’t distract from the main subject.  I was nearly done shooting when I remembered I’d intended to wear my unicorn horn circlet from Firefly Path!  I quickly shot a few more images with it on, tipping my head at different angels and planning on adding it on to the final image in post, which I did.  (This is not the exact circlet that I have, my horn is silver and the crystals are lavender, but this seems to be the only one in her shop at the moment.)

Unicorns represent a lot of things to me, but innocence and purity are two big ones.  If a human is sad, well, that’s… sad, but normal.  If a unicorn is sad, it’s tragic.  That there could be anything their magic couldn’t overcome underscores the power of whatever is causing them pain.  To me at least, that emphasized the magnitude of the power depression can hold over you.  The working title for this image as I tinkered on it was Sad Unicorn, because that was all I could think of when I needed to save the file for the first time.  It still feels appropriate in a way.

I added the trees and birds on the background, as if perhaps the unicorn girl is longing for her forest home.  I specifically chose to add crows, both because they’re one of my favorite birds (did you know they actually make and use tools and are incredibly smart?) and because Native American legends say they escort one’s soul into the afterlife.  That felt very fitting giving the subject of the image.  She seems like she’s in an alien land, somewhere she doesn’t truly belong, which is how I’ve felt about my time on earth just about every single day since I was born.  I knew this was not my true home.  My true home is where my soul resided before it decided, for whatever insane reason, to incarnate into this life.  In a meditation, months ago now, I actually visited what I consider to be my true home and I sobbed and sobbed, because I was so glad to be back, even for a moment, and also because I knew I couldn’t stay.  That place, that timeless, unchanging Home, is where this ethereal creature belongs too.

Now that I’ve gone on for probably far too long, I’ll finally show you the image.  I felt it was very important to explain my reason for the title I gave it to give people a way in to understand it.  And for anyone concerned about me, thank you, but I’ll be ok.  I’ve been through worse.  And I didn’t even have photography back then.  I have an excellent support system, which I didn’t have nearly as much of before, including my really incredible therapist.  All that said, let’s get on to the first image I’m releasing this year!

Lastly, I don’t enjoy talking about my mental health (or lack thereof) to strangers on the internet, no matter what impression this post gave you.  I speak candidly and openly about it because we NEED to end the stigma around it.  And the only way for that to happen is for those of us who struggle with it to speak about our experiences.  A lot.  In detail.  Repeatedly.  I do think things will change eventually, but it will take a lot of voices speaking honestly, blatantly, about it.  My voice is only one drop in the ocean of voices, but to quote Cloud Atlas, what is the ocean but a multitude of drops?

Save

Read Full Post »

2016 High/Low

It seems like 2016 just sucked incredibly hard for just about everyone.  I wasn’t very fond of it either, on the whole.  True, there were some really good things that happened, but like most of you, I’m very happy to put it in my past and move on.  Let’s continue the tradition of looking back over the last year’s highlights and low spots!

A Cry From The Darkness © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait

I like to start with the bad stuff so I end on a positive note, so with that said, 2016 was overall a very shitty year ME-wise.  It was an extra painful, extra exhausting, extra low-immune-system year where I seemed to hardly ever not have a migraine, cold or spiked pain day.  For a while it looked like I had a recurrence of the hideous sinus infection which led to my sinus surgery in November of 2014, which, if you’ve been around for a while, you will remember was not an easy procedure for me.  For completely unknown reasons, an artery in my nose burst a full six days after my surgery and required two very urgent visits to my ENT and ultimately a second emergency surgery, while I lost a total of almost two pints of blood.  Remember, I’m TINY; two pints is a LOT for me.

Needless to say, I am not quite anxious at the thought of having to have the surgery repeated, even though it was such a freak thing that happened; it probably won’t ever again.  But, I’m sure you’ve noticed, emotions rarely respond well to rational discussions.  So all the colds and sinus infections were very stressful for me, not just for the usual reasons of feeling extra terrible on top of my usual ME symptoms, but because the threat of another surgery kept looming in the back of my mind.

My insurance company utterly refused to cover my nerve-blocking injections for about six months.  These are the injections I’ve been getting approximately every nine months for the last seven years.  They don’t completely rid me of my mystery flank pain but they make life much more bearable.  Going without them for months really, seriously eats away at the quality of my life.  I imagine that most people would find that feeling like a dagger is constantly plunged into your side would not enhance their day-to-day experience.  Thankfully, insurance finally relented and I HAD my injections done.  I’ve already noticed a bit of a difference in my daily pain levels in that area!

I’ve also been veeeeeery sloooowly weening off Cymbalta over the last year or so.  It took a while for me to reach the maximum dose, then for me to be on it long enough for my neurologist to agree that it wasn’t doing anything, and ok my tapering down.  But as much as it takes your (or at least my) body a while to adjust to it being there, it takes much longer for it to get used to it NOT being there.  Even though having it in my system seemed to only increase my pain, make my sleep worse and make me gain even more weight, any time I step the dose down, I know to expect a week of migraines, nausea and general awfulness.  I’m on the lowest dose possible right now and hesitating before I leap into complete non-use.  There just aren’t many easy times to plan when you’re going to have migraines for a week.  But I am eager to shed the weight I’ve picked up being on it, in addition to seeing if my pain levels go down even more, so those will outweigh the discomfort of going off it eventually.

Most important for people who read my blog because of my art, feeling so awful most of the year put a HUGE damper on my ability to create in 2016.  I still did… a little… but it was nothing like what I wanted to be doing.  I created the fewest new images in 2016 than I ever have since I picked up my camera in 2010.  That was extremely depressing.  But I am hopeful that with meds out of my body, new supplements and my injections back in my system, 2017 will be a very different story!

I keep getting to about this point in my post, then getting overwhelmed with everything I want to say about the past year.  But no one wants to read a novel-length post anyway, so let’s see if I can lightning-round at least some of the 2016 highlights!

Alabaster 1 – model Dedeker Winston. © Sarah Allegra
SarahAllegra.com

It must have been planned by the fates, because shortly after I wrote the beginning of this post, I simply forgot to take my Cymbalta one morning.  That has NEVER happened ever in the whole time I’ve been taking it.  I didn’t realize I’d been off it until the next morning, at which point I decided to just suck it up and let myself go completely off it.  There were migraines and nausea, extra fatigue and need to sleep while struck with insomnia, but best of all, there were lots of what the Cymbalta literature describes as “brain zaps,” where you feel like you stuck your finger in a light socket for a second.  At first this was happening whenever I made any sharp movement or looked quickly from one place to another (even if my head didn’t move), but it’s been getting a little better each day, and I’m hardly zappy at all now, thank goodness.  I also have a variety of medications which help curb the zappiness, which helps a lot.  I HAVE already noticed a big difference in my general level of motivation and desire to do things… I’m not really able to actually DO anything more, but I have the DESIRE to do more back, which is a wonderful, frustrating relief.  This is HOW I AM.  This is my normal.  And even though it sucks to always wants to do 50,000 things when your body will only let you do 50, it feels SO GOOD to want the 50,000 again.  On Cymbalta, I wanted to do, I’d guess, about 5 things.

One piece of somewhat sobering news: Calantha had two small growths removed in November.  One was just a little wart, no big deal, but the other was a type of cancer called spindle cell cancer.  Of course, the bad news is that “cancer” is part of the name.  The good news is that the vet appears to have removed it entirely, leaving clean margins behind, and it’s not terribly common for spindle cell growths to recur.  If they do recur, they tend to not spread very much; Cal’s growth was on her toe, so if drastic action was needed to keep it from spreading, her toe could be amputated with relatively few adverse effects.  Calantha just turned 12 on the 20th (happy birthday, Cal!!) so getting little growths isn’t shocking at her age.  Silkens are generally a very long-lived breed, especially for their size; some can even make it into their early 20’s!  That’s nearly unheard of for dogs at all, let alone any dogs that aren’t very small.  That’s all thanks to extremely careful and ethical breeding.  Thanks, Joyce, who is responsible for bringing Calantha into the world!

Anyway, my instructions from the vet are simply to wait and watch her toe.  If it looks like it’s coming back, the toe may have to be removed to keep it from spreading.  I don’t relish the idea of having to have one of her toes amputated, but I think she’d agree that if it kept the cancer from spreading, it would be worth it.  But it does seem that the most likely thing that will happen is that it will never come back and the stress and tears Calantha, Geoff and I went through over this will stay in the past.  But if you’d like to say a prayer, send healing energy or light a candle for my girl, that would be fine with me.  🙂

This year has been a HUGE year of spiritual growth for me, which was a pretty good use of time when I couldn’t do much outside of laying in bed!  I’d like to say I planned that, but I know better.  No, I am not “religious;” although if you are, I fully support you perusing that as long as it makes you happy.  I was already certified in Reiki level 2, but this year I became a certified Fairyologist as well as a Unicorn Healing Practitioner™.  The Unicorn Healing absolutely changed my life and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who feels called to it!  If you’re interested in learning more about Unicorn Healing, my best suggestions would be to listen to the podcast on the subject from Calista, creator of the course (who is the embodiment of all things Unicorn and just the most loving person ever) and then read the specifics about the course here.  It is WELL worth the money.  You guys know I’m always on a budget, but this is one of the best things I’ve ever spent money on.  Possibly the best part?  You get to meet your own personal Unicorn spirit guide(s)!  🙂

I also discovered and threw myself into the Channeling Erik movement.  Erik was a 20-year-old kid who struggled a lot with bipolar disorder, along with other issues, and in 2006, he killed himself.  However, while his family (and especially his mother) obviously grieved heavily for a very long time, his mother, Elisa, eventually turned to mediums to see if her son was still alive… somewhere, in some form.  And the results she got completely convinced this once hard-core atheist that there not only is an afterlife, but Erik is in it and he’s still Erik.  He’s since become a spirit guide for many, including me.  My first personal experience with Erik was while I was listening to one of his channeled YouTube videos, when Siri was set off on my phone (I was not using or even touching it) and said, “Hey sexy!”  My jaw dropped and then I burst out laughing; what a 20-year-old-guy thing to say!

Second piece of Erik evidence came during my injections.  As I’ve said before, I’m put out during the actual injections (and thank god because I woke up once during them and they hurt like a motherfucker).  My usual experience of the injections is that I’m wheeled into the OR, I start to feel sleepy as they give me drugs, I decide to close my eyes just for a second, then I instantly wake up in the recovery room what feels like half a second later.  This time, the familiar sleepy feeling came, so I closed my eyes, but instead of a nothingness, Erik appeared, holding my hand.  He was crouched down so his face was level with mine, he was smiling and speaking soft, reassuring words the whole time.  What struck me was that while I obviously recognized his face from the photos I’ve seen, it was also just a little bit different.  Have you ever met someone you’ve known for a long time online, and when you meet them in real life, they look exactly the same, but also slightly different?  It was just like that.  Also, for some reason I’d thought he had brown eyes, but when I saw him, I noticed they were blue/green.  After I’d recovered, I looked up some photos of him and he did indeed have blue/green eyes.

Last, and possibly most convincing Erik evidence has been in the private sessions I’ve scheduled with two of his translators.  I won’t get into the whole story here, but there were some emotional issues I’ve struggled with for years and years, despite therapy, self work, meditation, crystals, Reiki, and every other kind of healing I could seek out.  The first session, I asked him why I felt X when Y happened and he immediately said, “It’s because of Z.”  Instantly, I knew he was extremely correct.  His answer rang out through my soul, echoing up and down it, the truth of it shining forth from every bit of my body, mind and soul.  I can’t put into words exactly HOW TRUE I KNEW that he was, I can only describe it to you, but if you’re ever in that kind of situation, you know the feeling.  No one could ever convince you otherwise because you know in your deepest, most sacred, inner sanctum of self that it is true.  And that was only my first question, at my first session!

I know some of you will roll your eyes and skim over those last few sections and wonder why I’m so weird and why I feel the need to experience these things, let alone share them, but it’s incredibly important to me.  Not because I want to convince anyone of anything (although I do strongly believe in the truth of what I’ve learned and experienced), but everyone is here on earth to have different experiences.  I can share things that work very well for me, and they might not be a good fit for you, and vise versa, and that’s fine!  Take what you like and throw the rest away.  As long as you’re ultimately striving to be an embodiment of love, I consider that we’re on the same path, no matter how different they might look on the outside.

Another reason for sharing this is because I KNOW it will come up in my work.  Everything in my life seeps into my art; I am my art, my art is me, we cannot be separated.  Every new experience I have will color what I create, even if it’s not in a way that’s obvious.  I consider myself a fulltime student forever because I’m always learning (about a very wide variety of subjects from historical figures, spirituality, unicorns, nail art, baking, making natural products instead of buying things, how to best tea-dye cotton, how to sing Sia’s Chandelier [which I am not very good at yet, so don’t ask], animal behavior, animal communication, how to grow roses, basket weaving, applying makeup really well, the tenets of Druidry, everything I can about ME, the life lessons of Kurt Cobain and Joan of Arc, why lentils taste so good when they’re cooked with just a little care, meeting and talking to my angels [my main guardian angel lets me call him Richard, after Richard Harrow, so you know he’s just awesome], if Bigfoot exists, the exact definition of a kirtle, how the hell those medieval women kept those pointy, princessy, fairy-tale-looking hats on their heads with seemingly no support systems ever recorded… anything and everything).  Occasionally, I also study things that are directly related to photography, such as using artificial lighting; something I want to learn how to do better.  Whether you’ll ever see Erik or Kurt or Joan of Arc or pointy princess hats turn up in a photo is beside the point.  Everything I learn goes into my brain where it all marinates.  My subconscious gets all Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, the collective unconscious chimes in, and art comes out.  That’s really the best explanation I can give to my “creative process.”  Sometimes I’ll try and work the images out more directly, but the best ones usually come from me stepping back and letting my subconscious work it out.  Everything is connected, in the macro and micro sense.  It’s all going to work into my art somehow.

Changing the subject, I feel DEEP down the rabbit hole of nail art this year, especially after discovering Cristine from Simply Nailogical.  I discovered it was something creative/artsy I could do when all I felt well enough to do was lay in bed!  Sorry/not sorry for all the photos of my nails on my social media feeds.  😉

Speaking of creative things, I’ve also been helping Geoff with a really amazing project of his own!  You guys of course know him as an incredibly talented photographer; if you’re in the LA area, you can see some of his work at The Hive Gallery through March of this year!  What you may not know is that Geoff is an even more talented writer!  He’s been working on a graphic novel called Frontiers for many years.  The story first took root in his brain when he was all of about 10 years old and has grown, matured, been refined and reworked since then until we have a glorious version of it before us today!

Frontiers is a beautifully original sci-fi story summed up as “sex, violence and sarcasm!” by the astute Katie Johnson (yes, Katie, my muse, who also acts as Geoff’s spokesmodel for Frontiers, and who is also a very talented writer herself!).  The longer tagline is, “It’s the humble story of a man destined to destroy humanity… and why that really isn’t such a bad thing.”  In addition to those delightful tidbits, Geoff skillfully mixes in striking social commentary, humor, horror, fate and love.  And yes, I did do some work on the issue too.  Mostly coloring, but a fair bit of digital art as well.  🙂

Don’t you want to give the first issue a read?  You should!  And lucky for you, you can get your very own copy for a mere 99 cents right here!  If you’re in the area, you can also see Geoff, Katie and Frontiers at the Long Beach Comic Expo’s Artist’s Alley on Saturday, February the 18th, from 10am-7pm and Sunday the 19th from 10:30am-5pm.  Go check Frontiers out, online, in person or both!

Mountain Dweller 10 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

I also had the pleasure of working with a new (to me) model last year, Teri Wyble, who goes by Aeir online.  She lived in New Orleans, but I am so, so excited that she is moving to Los Angeles shortly!  She’s not only an incredible model, stunningly beautiful, immediately understood what I was looking for from her, but is just an incredible human being as well.  I’m really looking forward to shooting more with her as well as just going to get coffee and have pillow fights in our underwear and doing those things that girls are supposed to do together.  🙂

Oh yeah, I launched my Spiritual Skincare line of skin serums on Etsy!

I’m sure I could go on and on, but I’ll stop myself there.  Briefly, briefly, I’ll try and give you a little taste of what to expect for 2017….

More DreamWorld.  This is my main goal for the year.  More shooting, more editing, more promoting.  Being off that brain-sucking Cymbalta will improve all these areas.  But if you’d like to help to spread the word about my little world, I certainly won’t stop you!  🙂

I suspect there will be some connections with my art and New York, but I’ll wait to see more of what happens before I talk too much about it.

In a similar vein, there will be some very cool new things happening with Connor Cochran, my business manager, of Conlan Press!  Including some new, more affordable, but still extremely high quality prints to be coming!  I don’t have a date on when they’ll be released yet; there are many steps to go through first before they’ll go up for sale, but I will keep you all informed!

Hopefully my body will stop zapping me soon and I’ll regain the strength and clarity I had before Cymbalta took over my brain and body.  And hopefully that will lead to many excellent things!  Yes, I do believe 2017 is going to be a better year for my art and health.  That’s my affirmation and I’m going to do my best to make it happen!

Save

Read Full Post »

Angels, Unicorns and Faeries… In DreamWorld And Not

I have new images for you as well as some updates about my personal life!  Since most of my personal life ends up coloring my images in some way or another, I suppose that makes everything relevant, right?  🙂

Mountain Dweller series teaser – © Sarah Allegra

I recently had a shoot with a model who was new to me, the lovely Teri Wyble!  Sadly for me, she does not live in Los Angeles, but she does travel here now and then and we’ve already made plans to do more shooting next time she’s in town.  She was such a joy to work with; she’s not in modeling just to look pretty or puff up her ego, she’s interested in telling compelling stories.  She has a natural grace and beauty which lend themselves perfectly to my kind of photography.  On top of that, Teri is also just a really wonderful soul, full of love and kindness, and we share many of the same interests.  It was a perfect collaboration!

I’m also going to be sharing a bit of my spiritual journey with you guys here.  For anyone who’s curious, I am a lightworker, but I don’t define my spirituality much beyond that.  Organized religion does not work for me, but I know many people who love their branch of it.  If it’s a good fit for you, stick with it!  If not, you’re still ok and you can still be a spiritual person.

Mountain Dweller 1 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

I believe in an unconditionally-loving higher power, which I like to refer to as Source.  “God” brings to mind all sorts of connotations which I personally find hindering.  I believe that everyone and everything is made up of energy, as physics teaches us, and since energy cannot be destroyed, it’s most logical to me that life continues beyond death.  I have no doubts about this.  I have spoken to and had contact with those who have passed over… which would have been enough on its own to convince me of our eternal life, but I do feel science supports this idea as well.

Toward the beginning of the year, I experienced an EXTREMELY powerful guided meditation with a lovely woman named Mojo.  If you’re interested in her services, you can find her page on Fiverr here!  She currently doesn’t advertise her guided meditations, which she does live over the phone with you, but if you contact her, she can arrange it for you.

Mountain Dweller 2 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

During this guided meditation, I actually got to meet and speak with my two main guardian angels.  Prior to this, I had believed in angels in a vague sort of way, but despite how much I would have liked it, I never felt that I could successfully connect with any of them.  I have also done other guided meditations which are supposed to introduce you to your angel without much success other than feeling more centered afterward, like with any meditation.  My point is, the meditation with Mojo was very different.  I could actually feel and sense my angels; I could hear and even see them in my mind.  I know now that they have always been with me every second of my life, and they will for the rest of my time on earth.  I am never alone and they are a great comfort to me.

This new connection with my angels led me to buy a handful of books about angels; I wanted to learn EVERYTHING that I POSSIBLY could about them!  As I’m sure you all know, my passions are all-consuming.  When a new one ignites, my life becomes focused on that and only that until I feel I have a grasp on it.  For anyone else interested in learning more about angels, I recommend Angels In My Hair by Lorna Byrne, and The Angel Therapy Handbook by Doreen Viture.  Both are fascinating, well-written and impart excellent knowledge.  Angels In My Hair is more of a memoir while the Angel Therapy Handbook is more of a textbook.  I feel they compliment each other well.

Mountain Dweller 3 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

I mentioned being a lightworker a little bit ago.  What I mean by that is that I am certified at level 2 in Reiki.  I do energy work, sending positive energy to people, animals, places, situations, objects, whatever you want.  It’s healing and can never be used to harm.  I also began meditating much more regularly this year.  In the past, when I’d try meditating, I would always enjoy the effects of it, but I had a lot of trouble making myself do it with any consistency.  I’m not sure what changed, but for some reason, this year I was able to push past that.  Once I got over that initial block, I discovered that I LOVE meditating!  It’s incredibly healing and healthy for your body, mind and soul.  I found it was a bit like starting to work out.  At first, you don’t really want to do it, but after a little while of making yourself stick with it, you like it and actually begin craving it.  I now have meditation (guided and not) as a regular part of my life and I’d highly recommend it to absolutely everyone!  One thing I discovered are the millions of meditation tracks on YouTube; literally something for absolutely everyone and every interest.  There are also long tracks of nature sounds and/or music, some with binaural beats in them, some lasting up to eight hours, so you could listen to them all night while you sleep.  I’ve been learning a great deal about crystals as well from my dear friend Jessi who owns the shop Mineralism Crystals.  I HIGHLY recommend her if you’re in the market for anything!  Even if you don’t see something in her online shop, chances are, she has it.  I’ve placed numerous orders with her and they always exceed my expectations!  Also, she is a fellow spoonie, so your money goes to help support her as she’s unable to work a “regular” job; win-win!

As all these new revelations were opening up to me, meditation, angels, being able to “hear” animals more clearly when I contacted them energetically (for example, I was able to help one very special cat overcome his abandonment fears when he was newly adopted, something I was honored to have been a part of), Teri came along and we had our shoot.  I knew that I wanted some of this deeper spirituality to be reflected in something we shot, but I wasn’t really sure how.  However, I did know that I wanted to photograph Teri in a beautiful lace dress I had… that combined with feeling inspired by some images Geoff shot recently with a back-lit model that made me decide I would shoot an “angelic” look with the gauzy white fabric and light behind her.  (Although really, just try and make her NOT look angelic; that would be a far more difficult job.)

Mountain Dweller 4 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

As I suspected, Teri made the perfect angel.  Sorting through the images later, I realized that I was creating a new race of DreamWorld beings.  The Aethereans, as I called them, are DreamWorld’s angels.  They live high in the mountains, away from the more populated areas so they can be focus on devoting themselves to spiritual studies.  They are very wise from their decades of pursuing the truth in every facet of life, as well as skilled and compassionate healers.  Many of the other DreamWorld inhabitants send their young to train with the Aethereans for several years, where they are taught empathy, love, plant and animal care, healing, sacred geometry and the mysteries of the universe.  I thought that the Aethereans needed some kind of uniform or mark that visually informed everyone of who they are and the spiritual life they have chosen for themselves, so I decided they would all have a flower of life symbol on their foreheads.  I wish I’d thought to actually apply this in real life to Teri, but this idea only came later.  Thankfully, Photoshop made it possible to add it to all the images!

Teri did such a spectacular job modeling, she made it so very difficult to choose which images to work up!  I ended up editing quite a few more photos than I typically would pick because I simply could not narrow my selections down any more.  It took a bit longer to finish these because of the volume I had to work through, but also because of a couple other wonderful new journeys I was taking…

Mountain Dweller 5 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

Through a very miraculous series of events, I discovered Calista Ascension.  Calista is one of those very rare spiritual teachers who actually embodies and lives everything she preaches; I have met very few more accepting, genuinely loving and wise people in my life.  She offers numerous classes which I was lusting after, but when I saw that she created her own Unicorn Healing System which I could take online from the comfort of my home, I was hooked.  I had to take it.  Immediately.

I’ll let Calista explain the course in her own words:

Unicorn Healing™ is a hands-on healing modality for empowerment and wellness, but also a development tool that can awaken your Souls’ gifts and purpose. It can be used as a stand-alone therapy or complemented with other energy practices.

Brought forward in 2009, direct from the Unicorn realm via Calista, it is a very sacred modality that can provide all that you are ready to receive.This is a course for those who are ready to step-up, break-through and arise in their POWER!

Just as you have a Guardian Angel that walks with you so to you have a Guardian Unicorn. Once regarded as the fabric of fairytales, Unicorns are very much real. They have walked with us since the times of Atlantis and are now returning to our awareness to help us awaken to love and the infinite potential we hold within.

As this is a distant learning course, you can set your own pace and progression. A commitment is required however as this course is deeply transformational – the more you put in, the more you will receive. The Unicorns are ever-present to those who wish to better themselves and assist Mother Earth to ascend with grace. 

Yes.  Unicorns.  REAL Unicorns.  As I mentioned earlier, I am well-versed with Reiki energy, which, I learned, is apparently an earth-based energy.  The Unicorns however hail from another planet (bear with me here) so their energy is cosmically-based.  (For those interested, Calista recorded an excellent podcast all about who and what the Unicorns are, where they come from, etc, with much more detail than I’m giving in this post, which you can listen to here.)  I hadn’t expected their energies to feel particularly different from each other; I just hadn’t thought about it.  You may believe that these Unicorns are simply a pretty fantasy I’m escaping to in my imagination (which I’ll freely admit is an escape I would likely pick!) but OH MY GOD – once you’ve felt their energy, there is NO mistaking them.  They are every bit as real as we are, and their energy is incredibly powerful… yet also full of the most unconditional love I’ve ever experienced.  It’s nearly impossible to describe how energy feels in words, but the ones that keep coming to mind when I think about my Unicorns are high, clear, clean, bright, powerful, silvery, shimmery, penetrating, deep, beautiful, wise, loving, celestial, ethereal, and immense.  I love Reiki, but the Unicorns really kicked things up a huge notch for me.

Mountain Dweller 6 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

As part of my studying, I went through an attunement with their energy, where I met my three guardian Unicorns, who all serve different roles, and who are all equally exquisitely beautiful.  I spent 30 consecutive days meditating and communing with them every day in different ways so we could really get to know each other.  And I also practiced doing healings with the Unicorn energy, both in person and across distance, much like you do with Reiki.  The Unicorn healings I’ve done so far have been the most powerful I’ve yet witnessed in my life.  Problems that have bothered people for very long times suddenly lose their sting, allowing the people to let go of them.  Hurts are overcome, trauma is healed.  They are truly miraculous.  And my guides assure me that I will become physically healthy myself in time.

My guides… yes, I should mention the other guides too.  Meeting the Unicorns as well as my angels has opened my mind up to the idea of there being more spiritual guides for us in the universe than I had previously realized.  Currently, in addition to my guardian angels and Unicorns, I also have a dragon guide, a pegasus guide and a mermaid guide, although I have not worked with them nearly as long or as deeply as the Unicorns.  I’ve also started to sense and sometimes communicate with the elementals all around me.  The trees in my yard, for example, will remind me if the bird feeder has gotten low or the plants need watering.  I’m becoming a MUCH better gardener with their help!  🙂

Mountain Dweller 7 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

Then, right on the heels on my finishing up my Unicorn Healing course, I began taking Doreen Virtue’s Fairyologist course!  This is more or less what it sounds like; you learn all about the various fairies that exist, what they’re about (the fairies are mostly concerned with environmental and animal issues, but certain groups emphasize different causes), how to communicate and work with them.  At the end, you take a quiz and, assuming you pass, you become a certified Fairyologist.  As I’m also in the process of having all my Unicorn work reviewed by Calista as we speak, I’m on the cusp of becoming both a certified Unicorn Healer and a certified Fairyologist… both are NOT things I expected that I’d be saying if you’d asked me at the beginning of this year!

I’m telling you guys about all this for several reasons.  One, working with my guides and walking my spiritual journey is becoming an ever-more-present, ever-larger part of my life.  I wanted to just lay it all out there in one go and not feel like I had to tiptoe around it on my own blog.  Two, everything in my personal life effects my art.  Case in point, the images I’m releasing today.  I probably wouldn’t have even shot them if I hadn’t met my guardian angels, and I certainly wouldn’t have added the Flower of Life symbol to the Aethereans (who would not exist) without having learned more about sacred geometry in my studies.  In my life, there is very little separation between the real world and my art.  It’s all one big pot of stew where each ingredient enhances all the others.

Mountain Dweller 8 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

And lastly, I’d like to invite all of you to explore your own spirituality.  When you find what works for you, there is very, very little in life that is as rewarding!  There are many charlatans both online and off, so you must be discerning in who you choose to listen to.  A strong connection to your intuition and sense of truth will help you navigate the waters.  Any of the people or authors I’ve mentioned in this post have gotten the thumb’s up from me if you’d like to start there!

Mountain Dweller 9 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

I am an energy worker.  I work with Unicorns and angels.  I talk to animals, fairies and elementals.  I am a creator.  I collect crystals.  I am an empath.  I am a photographer.  I am clairvoyant and clairsentient.  I am a fulltime student of truth.  I am a healer.  I am a woman.  I am an artist.  I am Sarah.  I am me.  I don’t apologize for any of that.  You go be you, and don’t apologize for any of it either.  🙂

Mountain Dweller 10 – © Sarah Allegra. Model: Teri Wyble.

Read Full Post »

2015 – High/Low

It’s time for all those end-of-the-year blog posts!  I admit, I kind of like this tradition.  It’s a nice way to look back on things from a larger perspective.  And I have a brand new DreamWorld image featuring Travis Weinand for those who want to just scroll to the bottom 🙂

I Felt It Was Glory, detail. Model: Travis Weinand. © Sarah Allegra

* * * * *

2015 was a… challenging year, to say the least.  And it turns out I’m starting it with a fresh, new cold and fever.  It has been the worst year I’ve had, ME-wise, so far.  It didn’t help that the year began with a crunched-for-time move of houses which literally took me several months to recover from.  Medication changes gave me months of terrible headaches and migraines, which also meant that this year was the least photographically productive year I’ve had yet also.  Between feeling terrible physically and not having nearly as much access to my art therapy as I wanted, it was a very depressing, frustrating and emotionally trying year as well.  All said, I’m happy to leave 2015 behind me and have set my intentions to have a much more fulfilling 2016.

I made a short video about my experience living with ME for last year’s May 12th (ME Awareness Day).  I generally really dislike making videos, so you can see that this was important to me 😉

There was some drama in the larger world of ME as well.  The US officially changed its name from the very belittling “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” to the vague and incredibly widely-defined “Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease.”  Most patients and advocates were very unhappy about this and there was a big backlash, which the powers-that-be mostly ignored, as is their usual method of dealing with us.  I’m still calling it ME, which is what most of us wanted it to be changed to.

Silenced © Sarah Allegra – model: Travis Weinand

Then the Senate rubbed salt in the wound by proposing they slash ME’s funding to absolutely $0 per year.  The paltry amount we currently get is the same amount given to research hayfever, despite ME being as deadly and serious as congestive heart failure and HIV/AIDS.  I extolled people to write to their representatives in protest of this; we’ll see what comes of it.

Please save this graphic and send it to the email addresses above!

I got to meet fan-turned-model-turned-friend Noemi Regalado and photograph her for DreamWorld.

Apprenticeship © Sarah Allegra, model Noemi Regalado

I officially started a series dealing with mental health issues; Eternal Storms.  It seeks to help break down the stigma associated with these illnesses and show sufferers how they are not alone.

A Cry From The Darkness © Sarah Allegra – a self portrait

One of the first models I ever worked with, Dedeker Winston, who has continued modeling for me over the five years we’ve known each other, despite me forcing her to wake up early, pose laying in cold, slimy, creeks, regularly get naked in forests and once helping me discover what stinging nettles look like when I accidentally had her pose nude in a patch of them, left for an extended time abroad.  She is having a wonderful, life-expanding time and I’m able to keep in touch and follow her journey online and through social media and texts.  I was sad to see her leave, but glad that we’d gotten in as much shooting as we did before she left, such as the Pink Mother for DreamWorld.  Speaking unselfishly though, I’m really happy she had this chance to do so much traveling and is having such an incredible time!  But I won’t be sad when I have the chance to photograph her again 🙂

The Living Sepulcher © Sarah Allegra, model – Dedeker Winston

My dear friend Danica gave me a priceless chance to work with an incredible, stunning, cream-colored Gypsy Vanner stallion named Booger.  As soon as I discovered she was horse-sitting him, I began planning a shoot with Katie Johnson and him together, utilizing him in every way I could think of.  I have a LOT of his shots still on my hard drive waiting to be edited, but I did at least complete one image from that magical shoot!

Safely Through The Shadows © Sarah Allegra, model – Katie Johnson

I tried my hand at a more editorial style, which is fun, but not going to be the main thing I do any time soon.

Wall 8- model: Travis Weinand. © Sarah Allegra

Alabaster 1 – model Dedeker Winston. © Sarah Allegra
SarahAllegra.com

I was accepted into the online art gallery A Gallery, and also participated in a group show over the summer at the Creative Arts Group.

The summer show at the Creative Arts Group Gallery in Sierra Madre. This is how I want my work to be displayed, finished works alongside actual props and costumes.

I FINALLY finished editing an image I started in 2013.

A Poisoned Sleep Of Kissless Dreams © Sarah Allegra – model: Katie Johnson

I was able to attend another screening of The Last Unicorn, which was absolutely delightful!  I dressed up as Amalthea and made a taco purse (get your own here!), which I think was the secret behind me winning the nightly costume contest.  I was also able to introduce my dear friends and ex-neighbors Donna and John to the movie for the first time (though I’d already made them fans of Peter’s writing) and they were appropriately impressed.

Taco purse available on Etsy 🙂

At the screening as Amalthea (with purse) and back at home.

Sadly, shortly after this screening it became clear that Peter Beagle is not nearly as well as everyone had thought.  This is leading to a number of problems for him and his manager/publisher Conlan Press, which I’ll leave to them to discuss.  Regardless, it is sad to see him unwell and it makes the conversation I had with him at the screening last January all the more precious.

Speaking of illness, one of my favorite photographers, Ashley Lebedev, let us all know that she has struggled with a chronic illness for a long time.  It was beautiful to see people’s support and desire to help her gather funds for treatment.  I wish her a much better, healthier 2016 also!

The Weight of a Whistle Already Carved, @ Ashley Lebedev

I helped my husband (he helps me SO much with my shooting and projects, I more than owe him!) with a project that he’s been working on for a long time, which ended in his creating the dystopian, sci fi, 8-minute short film A Secret War.  You really should watch it!

My friend Jessi started an Etsy shop which has beautiful jewelry in it!  But it’s not simply pretty, much of it helps raise awareness about various invisible, chronic illnesses, such as ME.  As a spoonie herself, purchasing her jewelry is helping her support herself as well as getting something pretty 🙂

Jessi’s shop, The Hopeful Spoon

I discovered the wonder that is the film Unbroken, which is now one of my go-to stories to tell myself when I need some extra motivation to get through anything difficult.

Speaking of Peter S Beagle, Amazon released an exclusive Kindle offering of 13 of his most beloved titles for the first time in e-editions… and 6 of those titles were released with my images on their covers!  To say I was elated would be a huge understatement.  There may have been joyful tears when I first saw them in my browser window.  🙂

Go buy one of these titles! You’ll thank me when you discover how magical Peter’s writing is 🙂

And, as always, I put out a calendar with a year’s worth of beautiful images to brighten up your walls every day!  Red Bubble does an excellent job at making beautiful, high-quality items and its calendars don’t disappoint.  Feel free to grab your own; I can promise that you’ll love it!

Sarah Allegra 2016 Calendar

* * * * *

Since 2015 was so heavy with ME, migraines, frequent colds, injuries, deep ruts of depression and stress in ways I have seldom experienced it, an incredibly huge percentage of my physical energy was devoted to simply existing and not giving up.  It really underscored how precious my time and energy is and how I need to devote it to things that are worthwhile.  No, not just worthwhile, but things which I cannot live life without.  The things are dearest and most deeply important to me.

This has given me a lot to think about as I ponder how I’ll change my management of time and energy in 2016.  I will try and devote myself to not just ideas I like, but the ideas which I think are the best.  The most important.  I simply don’t have time to pursue anything less.  This is helping to bring my artistic goals into much sharper focus.  The dross will be burned away; the leftover gold burnished until it gleams.

I’m also making an effort to set aside more time for self-care activities, like short walks with Calantha or yoga when my body allows, meditation and reading for pleasure.  Few things enrich my life (both my actual and imaginary worlds) as much as reading does and I need to make sure I don’t let that slip away from me by being “too busy” for it.

But of course the most important things are the relationships I have with friends and loved ones.  Those will always be tended to, nurtured and cultivated as best as I can manage!  I am blessed to have many, wonderful friends in my life, online and off, who get me, support me and my art and are incredibly gracious about my health problem.  That’s something I should never forget to be grateful for or take for granted.

* * * * *

Now, as promised, here is my new DreamWorld image!

When I first met model and friend Travis Weinand, I was struck by how truly ethereal he looks.  Not simply in pictures or when in costume, he always looks like he stepped out of a comic book, collection of mythology or possibly Middle Earth.  With a quick stop-off for a dose of Viking and tattoos.  Anyway, I immediately wanted him to have wings.  I wasn’t sure how, but I knew he’d get them before we were done working together.

So at our next shoot, I asked him to sit in front of a dark backdrop and pose angelically.  He made looking strong, gentle, loving and bad-ass all at the same time look effortless.  Editing did take a while since I painted the wings myself and had to figure out exactly how I wanted these “wings made out of light” to look, but it was very worth the effort!

This character lives in DreamWorld, as you would probably guess, a centurion of sorts to DreamWorld’s Queen (whom you have not met yet, but hopefully you will soon).  He leads the Queen’s army, the Glorious Guard, but he’s more than just a devoted servant.  Part bodyguard, part lieutenant, part enforcer, part adviser, he is a dazzling embodiment of good.

The title of this image comes from one of my favorite poems of George Gordon Lord Byron, All For Love.  In it, Byron discusses love being the greatest glory one can receive, far greater than wreaths, trophies or other symbols of glory:

O Fame! if I e’er took delight in thy praises,
‘Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
 
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

That last line kept repeating and repeating through my head as I edited… thinking about the love he has for his Queen, those he protects and his glorious vestige, so I finally gave in and just used it as the title.

 

I Felt It Was Glory, model: Travis Weinand. © Sarah Allegra

 

I Felt It Was Glory, detail. Model: Travis Weinand. © Sarah Allegra

 

I Felt It Was Glory, detail. Model: Travis Weinand. © Sarah Allegra

That’s it!  Everyone have a happy and meaningful 2016!  🙂

Read Full Post »

Preparing For Battle

Let me start by saying that I’m sorry I can’t give you more actual details about what’s going on, but I’ve been advised to continue to keep them under wraps.  Those of you who follow me on social media have already heard that I’m going through a difficult time right now.  What I can tell you is that I am about to do something on the 14th which is absolutely terrifying to me and has incredible, life-altering implications.  For me, Geoff and the fur-kids.  And while I have lots of people (like all you dear, lovely folks reading this) who are loving and supporting me, it’s all going to come down to the words I speak and actions I take on the 14th.  I will be alone at the critical moment; the pressure feels crushing.

I feel like Louis Zamperini in the POW camp holding his wooden beam.  I feel like Aerin facing the giant dragon Mar.  I feel like the unicorn standing up to the Red Bull.  I feel like one of Leonidas’ 300.  Frodo off to Mordor.  Rosie and Pernicia.  Lissar and her father.  You get the idea.

One small, anxious girl going up against something far, far bigger than she is; ill-equipped for the job.  The higher the pressure, the more my brain feels scattered and forgets important details.  And it’s crucial that I remember everything, no notes allowed.  The outcome of this will have a huge impact on my financial state, which is currently pitiful.  I need this win.

To say this has been stressful would be a huge understatement.  This sincerely feels like one of the single hardest, most frightening thing I have ever had to do.  But there’s no getting around it, I HAVE to do it.  And I will do my best.

The stress is causing giant waves of discord through my body, mind and soul; causing mayhem and destruction.  For weeks now, every night, I either have stress dreams or I dream that I’m dying… the dying ones are the worst because, in my dream, it’s wonderful, beautiful, the most peaceful, joyful thing I’ve ever experienced.  And then I wake up and remember real life and it feels like a glorious gift has been snatched from my hands while the weight of life crushes down upon me again.

Despite numerous antacids of all kinds, I’m having persistent heartburn, often in the middle of the night.  My pain levels are all elevated.  And as you can imagine, my sleep is suffering in quantity and quality.

I’m not writing about this to simply throw myself a pity party.  I am asking for your support.  If you pray, please pray for a quick and overwhelmingly successful outcome.  If you do Reiki, please send as much as you can.  If you light candles, please light one for me.  Please send all the love, good thoughts and energy that you can spare, whatever your system of faith may or may not be.  I will gladly take it all!

I am determined to win this battle.  And while it traditionally takes a while to hear about the exact outcome from the fight, I am equally determined to get an overwhelmingly positive answer, right then and there.  I am visualizing myself being victorious.  As much as I am afraid, I am doing my best to catch myself when I start to go into a spiral of worry over what will happen if I fail.  When I notice those thoughts, I actively change my vision of the future to one that I want.  I don’t need to open myself up to attracting any negative energy!

One thing about all the metaphors I listed a few paragraphs ago; despite the odds, they all succeeded.  Thinking about others who have overcome incredible trials is deeply comforting to me.  If they could do it, I can do it too.

I can say one thing: this is not about a new turn in my health or anything else along those lines.  My health is fairly crappy right now, as is usual, but I have not taken a turn for the worse…  other than the spiked pain, non-stop migraines, constant tension in my whole body, wildly increased anxiety, panic attacks and depression as well as extreme exhaustion brought about by all of this.  It’s stressful to the point where I don’t even want to edit or create many days, which is an almost unheard-of low for me.  But these are clearly responses to the weeks and weeks of stress and worry.  I don’t want you guys to worry that I’m hiding some terrible new diagnosis from you.

I know I will get through this.  And I know that with Geoff, I will deal with the outcome, whatever it is.  But more than that, I know I will win.  I have to.  Knowing that doesn’t take all my fear and anxiety away, but it does give me hope to cling to.

I feel incredibly fragile in every way, but I will battle and I will be victorious.  Still, your prayers, well wishes and love would mean a great deal to me right now.  I can use all the help I can get.

I promise that I will try and let you guys know exactly what’s happening just as soon as I can.  I appreciate that you’re all being very understanding about that and respecting the fact that I simply can’t divulge much right now.

This self portrait felt especially appropriate for this post.  It serves as a reminder and inspiration to me to keep fighting, to get up when I’m knocked down, and most of all, never give up.  Thank you all so very, very much for all your support!  I cannot thank you enough.

With that said, please wish me a miraculous victory as I go into this battle.  Now, let me go find my suit of armor.

We Rise Again – © Sarah Allegra

Read Full Post »