RICIMER - TANGLED TIMES

A little boy, aware of his Destiny, sure of his determination to fulfill it …

a youngling lad, far from home so that he can master the knowledge and skills he will need in order to succeed, surrounded always by those from whom and with whom he is taught, yet alone always, alone with the demands of his Destiny …

a young man developing ties which will further his career, ties that will prove vital as the motion of his Destiny carries him ever onward along that path …

a man grown, gathering into his own fists the lines of control, sure of his direction, confident in the strength of those ties and of the lines of authority which carry the strength to his own hands …

a man, solitary, whose supports are one by one by one knocked from beneath him until when finally, in death, he can say the words “We did it” most of the companions, the ‘WE’ to which he refers, have gone on ahead of him into death.

They say we all die alone … but … maybe not.

One man.

One Destiny.

Not to rule but to break forever the power of ‘Comply or Die’.

Not to force his own will, but to force the Peoples of Europe to find, forge, fight for, and follow their Own Will.

One man.

One Destiny.

A continent at his command.

Hear the command of Ricimer:

‘Think or Sink!’

‘Fight or Fall!’

‘If not now, when? If not you, who?’

One man.

One Destiny.

Ricimer opens the maw of the smelter – and some call it hell – whose fire already burns, shoves in the raw ore, works the bellows, and steps away.

‘Think or Sink!’

‘Fight or Fall!’

‘Choose or Lose!’

‘Freedom belongs to you. Where now your Faith? Who cares for your Family but you? Choose wisely your Friends lest they become your foes. You hold in your hands, today, the Future of generations not yet even conceived.’

Such is the message of Ricimer to all of the Peoples he encounters.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

He tells the Peoples until his throat is raw, his voice hoarse.

‘You have now, today, the Freedom to Choose,’ he tells them. ‘Find the Will to do so.’

The maw is open.

‘Now CHOOSE!’ he shouts.

And shoves the Peoples of Europe into the gaping maw of the smelter from which will emerge the Iron Will of the Peoples.

One man.

One Destiny.

A mother weeps for her son, who must do what no other can or will, no matter what.

Ullin of Iona counts, again, the Tears of Anna.

Getting back into RICIMER mode ... BUT MEANWHILE ...

Let it be a challenge to me.

We left him at age 12 with almost the whole of his very active life ahead of him.

He's got places to go, things to do, people to see.

Protege of Aetius, along with Majorian and Aegidius, Ricimer's Destiny is not going to be an easy one.

In between us abandoning Ricimer in the days of his youth, Our Characters have taken the bit in their collective teeth and skipped ahead to when they journey to America in the year 1600. Two of the AINE Books are written and in print (and on Kindle). Then we skip ahead yet again to meet the lot of them in the 1800s - in America's Wild West. That they bring their own Wild Ways with them is a given since the Young Ones show up (Colum, Saorsa, Marra, and Mamm the Younger). IF you've met them already, you don't need to wonder that the American West might be just about to get a little more wild than it already was.

This is the painting I used for the cover of the 'Go West!' book that has Our Characters moving from western Kansas into eastern Colorado, and then preparing for their next western move - to the Colorado Rockies.

So ... it's going to be a toss-up between RICIMER and these Characters of the American West (along with finishing the rest of the AINE Books) as to which will manage to get done in what order.

Stay tuned.

CATCHING UP WITH ARTWORK

These three were painted for the 2019 Las Animas Art Show in conjunction with the annual Santa Fe Trail Day Celebration. The 2019 theme was TRAILBLAZERS AND STARGAZERS.

Titled 'Go West!' this depicts an early morning leave-taking by a small group of covered wagons. 

The piece is 2' x 2', acrylic on fabric.

I titled this one simply 'Grandad', used a photo of my grandfather riding a bronc, 

paired it with a background of an early spring morning,

and used acrylic and texturing on really rough canvas.

aka 'Trailblazer'

Here is the 'Stargazer' part of things. 

The 'ghostly silhouette' effect is because this is the back of the original.

I messed up the front sky & couldn't fix it, so flipped it.

Acrylic on fabric.

So those are the pieces for that art show.

Going back a bit further:

Someone from Denver commissioned two pieces, both fairly large.

Here's the mock-up for one of them:

Acrylic on rough canvas, this little piece is probably about a foot by a foot and a half.

Here's the finished piece sized 5' x 2':

It's resized her to 30% of the original photo size.

Here's the reverse of it, just because ... 

The 'because' is that we wanted this one to be able to be back-lit.

Used very lightweight fabric stretched very tight so the pigments would bleed through.

This back view of the piece has an abstract look to it. 

The foreground is Not overlaid onto the background.

The other commissioned piece turned out to be two back-to-back on the same piece of fabric (the same lightweight tightly stretched as the above piece, only with many layers of paint); one side textured, the other side not ... same essential scene but very different looks. The story behind that is that the front (textured) side had me so frustrated that I needed a break from it. So I flipped it and let the flip side relax me enough to re-tackle the front. 

When I get time I'll do a post in my artwork blog about the process of getting this 6' x 3' piece developed. For now, here's the front:

It's an early morning dawning from up on a mountain,

looking south toward another range.

Here's the 'other side':

Same view, different mood.

And again a bit further back - these next two are from 2018 December - about five feet by two-and-a-half or so.

ASPEN QUEEN (one of the variations) acrylic on cotton; designed to be back-lit.

Don't mind the shadows - these photos were taken hurriedly 

as they were being loaded into someone's vehicle.

This one has a tri-color base coat: 

cobalt blue top; off-white center; dark lower.

Then over-painted.

You want more?

Okay, we can do that.

Here's one I did just for the fun of it - on that rough canvas:

Texture with acrylic.

Coming back to the present, here's a set of hand-painted note cards. I painted a lot of them outside up in the mountains. Parked my vehicle on a pull-over along Phantom Canyon in the Colorado Rockies, pulled out my ancient little card table and newer camp-chair, unpacked my artwork 'go-kit', and ... just painted ... Others were done in my sister's cottage-studio, wood-fire keeping it toasty.

These next couple are waiting for over-lay.

There are a bunch more similar to these in various colors/combinations, so I've got some over-laying to get done! I may use paint; I may use ink ... we shall see what we shall see !! I'm just grateful to have this time up here to spend on this.

Does it feel a mite odd to be going from big paintings to little ones?

Yes.

You've already seen one of the texture/acrylic pieces on 100 year old cedar shake - there are more of them, and more plain acrylic on plain wooden plaques - but their photos aren't going to get added today!

One Thousand Words From A Life I Once Lived

He was positive that he had his next wife in the palm of his hand and threw it in my face how much better she was than I was, in every possible way …

He wasn’t INFJ.

I was.

So, although he virulently (and violently) hated me, and she despised me, I told him the truth.

Come to think of it, maybe it was because I was so hated and despised that I told him the truth.

‘She doesn’t want to marry you. She just wants a playmate for a while. You’re married and she knows it. You’re cheating on your wife with her and she knows that too. She won’t marry you.’

He argued, of course.

I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could.

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

The rest of my life depended on his response. If he believed the truth and didn’t divorce me so that he’d be free to marry her, to prove to her that he loved her more than he did me and our daughters and was serious about marrying her, my life might be short indeed. He’d already almost killed me more than once.

If he refused the truth, he might still kill me but I’d at least have a chance to be free for a while first. I could take the girls and run for it if he divorced me.

So … angry, sure I was lying in order to hurt him, off he went to file for divorce.

It didn’t take long. We didn’t have much of anything to speak of, I had things lined up for my return to college, and about the time the divorce came through so did the clearance for me and the girls to move into family housing on campus.

We had tried this route twice before.

Once the girls went with me for a summer school session and stayed part of that summer with me in my dorm, part of it with his family until I went and got them and kept them with me on campus.

The second time we had gotten an apartment off campus and for the first time I took out student loans as there was no way he was going to help in any way. That was the time I got myself into counseling, was reassured that indeed I was NOT the crazy woman he’d constantly drilled into my head that I was, and found encouragement in a support group for battered women.

Yeh.

That backfired in a big way when one of our group was murdered, along with her children, by her abuser. We knew where he was, as opposed to never being altogether sure where any of the rest of our men were at any given time. He was in jail; she was the only one of all of us who walked free and confident.

That was before we got some laws changed.

They never notified her when they turned him loose.

Convinced that I would be safer knowing where mine was than never being sure he wouldn’t sneak up on me and the girls and do the same, I went back to him. Again. At least I would know where he was.

So back I went.

Things had changed.

He told me when he found out I was right about his girlfriend. Right all the way down the line. Right all along.

He wanted us to use our divorce as a starting over point and I encouraged him to believe that it could be exactly that for us.

I did not tell him that this starting over point would be where our paths diverged and we would be starting over in different directions.

This time I had help.

This time I had a long term plan.

This time I had some community support.

This time when I left to go back to school, I wasn’t coming back.

Ever.

Not that I told him that.

Better safe than sorry.

Let him be on his best behavior while he tried to woo me back.

When he decided to leave the career that had gotten him nowhere, and the town that had not given him his proper due (especially when the truth finally came out) the girls and I had already found Steve and moved halfway across the country.

When he was on his way to pick up the girls for a visit I notified my local sheriff and was told to shoot him if he came to my door. Appalled, I said I couldn’t do that. ‘Well then, throw rocks at him before he gets to the door.’

He was afraid of the mountains, something deep and visceral in him was truly terrified of the mountains. At ten thousand feet up I was as safe from him as I could get.

For his part, he chose my go-to place, the college town I’d returned to in every emergency of my life, to resettle himself with the trophy bride who remained married to him just long enough for him to pay for her advanced education and to be able to take him for all he was worth when she left with someone her own age.

There is, of course, much more to this story than I’m putting down here. Perhaps one day I will tell the rest of the story but for the moment this will have to suffice.

My points here are several.

First, if an INFJ tells you a truth about someone, believe them even if you are convinced otherwise.

Second, when you need to do something you have to use all of the resources at your disposal, including your instincts. And subterfuge if need be.

Third, if laws need changing you have to do your bit to get them changed.

Fourth, believe this: ‘Vengeance is Mine saith the Lord.’ Call it karma if you want. Call it the Universe restoring Balance. Regardless of what label you choose, do your bit and then just step back.

Welcome Back to Danann and Sidhelagh of Dunnottar!

Seriously enjoying being back at the familiar south hearth of the Dunnottar roundhouse, I tell you true.

Mamm has begun telling the Ricimer Story and I honestly can't wait to 'hear' more of it.

See, this is the fun part of the whole thing: research as done as it's going to get, document files formatted, endless sorting and filing and organizing of information (you would NOT believe it; this is way 'worse' than Alaric, holy cow), so all that stuff is settled into place in the appropriate niches of my mind.

Being as Mamm and the others can read my mind (🙄) and take it from there, all I have to do is watch the Charactors play out the RICIMER Story Line, so to speak, and try to keep up with them as it unfolds.

A very special bonus, at least for me, is that this story is being told shortly after Alianora, Drustann, Merri, and Dothann get home from their long years of travel, during that gap of time between 487 Spring Equinox and May Day when SONG kicks in. And THAT means guess who get to have living breathing parts in the Dunnottar story line ... Danann and Sidhelagh!

As usual I have no idea what any of them are going to be getting me into. That bunch of Dunnottar Characters tends to ad lib stuff as we go along, so we shall see what we shall see. The *good* news is that I don't think there are going to be any major crises among them (I hope). At least the RICIMER Cast of Characters is somewhat predictable. :)

[note: the image at the top was chosen because it kind of reminds me of Danann of Dunnottar, some of whose tools we see here ... so it's a 'welcome back' image for him and Sidhelagh]

THIS one is for Everyone :)