“Lunacy”

2017 | 14”x17” | Mixed-media:
Prismacolor Verithin red/blue colored pencil, Derwent Inktense pencils, white charcoal, and water brush on cold press watercolor paper.
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Since time immemorial, long has the moon pushed the tide. Waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, pulling waves at high and low frequency…

First coined as the Latin “lunaticus,” philosophers as early as Aristotle and Pliny The Elder cited the moon’s light as the source of epilepsy and bipolar disorder. It was believed that the light provided during times that should otherwise be dark caused sleep disturbances that gave way to madness, moodiness, and unpredictability.

The persistence of this lunar superstition lasted through even the 1800’s. In Victorian times, pregnant women were advised to avoid open terraces during parties, for the fear that bathing in moonlight would cause their child to be born wild and moody. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that this lunacy came to be understood as “manic depression,” only later distinguished from schizophrenia as “bipolar disorder.” While psychology and understanding have thankfully advanced (though there is still room for growth), these “moon children” carry within them the biphasic notions of pushing and pulling, filling in and out, each day a new phase.

When fighting against the natural rhythm, denying the truth of diagnosis (for me) only gives way to disorder. I become storming oceans, impulsive and raging. I fall apart trying to appear as a normal that isn’t mine. But in accepting my nature, I feel a priestess-like contentment. Peace washes over me as I wholly accept the unchangeable highs and lows, becoming the shifting moon, The Triple-Goddess mediating between her symptoms, an enlightened herald of preemptive and reactive care.

That is what “LUNACY” represents to me: The giving of the self to the truth, the acknowledgement of what a healthy lifestyle is for me and the patience to recognize that all phases are temporary.
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This piece was created for the PATTERNS OF DISORDER art salon hosted by Menagerie Sacramento and Retrograde Art Collective at Outlet Coworking and The Red Museum Sacramento (January 2017).