Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

The Lesbian Sheep Farm and Perpetual Breakthrough Moments

The year was 1995. I was staying in the shepherd’s room, the upstairs loft above the wool room, on the Vermont sheep farm run by two lesbian women in their fifties. There were 5 rams (all named after visionary men, like Malcolm and Martin) and about 100 ewes.

Mornings on the farm entailed peanut butter on toasted English muffins, coffee and American Spirit cigarettes. We always watched a little news on TV and then reviewed the day’s tasks.

I loved being in nature but I never fully found my groove with all the penned up livestock. I also never quite relaxed under the watchful eyes of the women, sort of waiting for me to exit the proverbial closet. Thursday nights were ‘dyke movie night’ and they would select some VHS tape from the extensive library of films by and about gay men and women.

Was it just me, or was there always a bit of thickness in the air when some love scene came on between two women? Like they were waiting for me to either get visibly uncomfortable (proof of my intolerance), or simply blurt out in confession (proof of my true nature).

The truth is, I was open to the idea of being a lesbian. My heart was broken from a break up with a boyfriend in New Hampshire who’d kind of gone off the deep end. I was twenty-four, confused and shoveling sheep shit. I had even forged friendships with a couple of women my age. But that was what they were- friendships. The potential of my lesbianism was purely conceptual. There was no closet from which to emerge, though eventually I moved out of the shepherd’s room and off the farm.

Six paragraphs in to this, and I’m wondering what it is that has me spinning the tale of the lesbian sheep farm this morning.

Oh, right! Dagaz. The ‘breakthrough’ rune (more info on this ancient alphabet system of Northern Europe here).

It was in that Vermont shepherd’s room when I experienced the magic of the breakthrough. I was alone, with low lights and heavy soul-searching. My boyfriend was gone, I was sick of the sheep and my work trade had trade-offs that didn’t balance. I was short on cash with limited options.

I had a few personal items with me, one of them being a box my aunt had gifted me years before. It looked to be African in origin, but I didn’t know for sure. It held special stones, a certain pine cone, a few feathers and my bag of runes. As I was about to spread a few of them upon the top, I suddenly saw the cowry pattern there in a new light. It was the same design as the rune known as Dagaz. Inspired, I pulled a stone from my bag. Out came that very symbol.

My body flooded in the reverberation. All moments collided. The breakthrough. A clear sign. A signal that there was magic in my midst. I was not without hope. Despite my confusion, there felt to be a promise of a way out. I could trust.

Looking back, I was clearly desperate. I needed to put my faith in something. Anything. Having the rune symbol emerge from the design on a box I’d seen a hundred times before, followed by that very rune being pulled with my own hand, seemed proof enough to me at the time that I could trust in something, however ill-defined.

So that shepherd’s room story of the box and runes has stayed with me for more than 16 years. And it is only this morning as I type it, looking at the Dagaz symbol, taking in the shell pattern on the box top, that I realize: these designs are totally different. The outline made on the box could look slightly similar, but it is not the same pattern of the Dagaz rune.

Jessica Dofflemyer - all rights reserved
courtesy of http://www.runesecrets.com

In fact, looking at all of the rune symbols, I see none that resemble the design on my box. If there are any rune experts out there, steer me in the right direction if I’m wrong. But this morning, after all of these years, I have another breakthrough. My breakthrough moment in the shepherd’s room that night was, technically, an illusion.

None the less, I’ll embrace it. Illusion, or not, it did the job.

Not long after my magical divination eve, I packed up my car in the warmth of June. Hit Highgate, Vermont for Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead. Filled up with love and music. Met a few new friends. Worked mornings at the bagel shop in Middlebury and began camping at night in the nearby forest from my Subaru. It wasn’t easy, but I broke through.

Time and space suggest it is now 2011 and I am 38 years old, currently residing on a tropical island at least 6000 miles away from Vermont and sheep and the bagelry.

Timelines, illusions and long-held stories. What gifts.

I’m still getting breakthroughs.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Opening the Golden Door

This morning I wake at 3:51am wanting to paint.

There was this image that came to me yesterday. A golden door opening. Light beaming out from within, as the door began to swing open.

I light incense and brew some coffee in the wee morning quiet, as a Pete Townsend song plays in my head.

“Let my love open the door…let my love open the door…let my love open the door…to your heart.”

Man, sometimes I’m astounded how much my life’s soundtrack is right on cue.

Though sourced in a feeling, it’s a conceptual piece I’m wanting to convey. A door opening to the heart. And even though, just yesterday, I told someone, “everyone is an artist in their own way, it just may be that sometime in their life someone told them that they weren’t and they believed them”, I’m not feeling skilled enough to get the image in my mind down on paper.

Someone along the way once told me, “you can’t really draw people” – and I believed them.

So when a friend gifted me a sketch pad she’d picked up at a garage sale, I thought it was a sign when a few pages featured the work of someone that really could draw people. The model and the artist will forever remain a mystery, but they left me with inspiration.

This morning, I open the sketch book and try to outline the figure of a woman. Just her shoulders and collarbones, the sternum where her heart would be. But shadowing and shaping present challenges. So I focus on the making of the door.

An hour of my writing time later, I’m left with only a hint of the golden door that I’d imagined actually captured on the page. The woman’s body, so much not what I was wanting, that I simply cut the door out, now making the piece seem more like a pre-school art project.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Oh, my editorial mind!

I flip back to the mystery artist’s rendering of the perfect human shape. The man’s arms outstretched. This is the ideal canvas upon which my golden door could rest. I ponder how I could superimpose my door on his chest. The door’s too big. Maybe I should leave him alone.

artist unknown

Maybe I should leave it all alone and simply find some way to see meaning in this exercise. Admit I moved into less familiar waters this morning and came up a bit tousled and wet.

But if you know the Archives, then you know that’s where my passion lies: it’s all in the process. The words, the photo, the painting, the sketch, the song…they’re all byproducts along the path of expression. Sometimes it’s an incredible result. Sometimes it’s not so “beautiful.” But the process lives. We follow the thread.

And the doubting mind that limits, the voices that taunt us to stop – we acknowledge them, ‘thank you very much for your input’ and move on anyway.

So in that vein, I will post my golden door cut-out in all of its divine imperfection. Nothing of what my mind’s eye saw. But proof-postive in my dedication to keep opening that door.

Love it all. Life is an artist’s work in progress. May we each continue on the path of creating our unique masterpiece.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

The Dead Battery and the Dragonfly

When the key in my ignition turns and there’s no power, I lift my hood to investigate the battery. What I find is a huge dragonfly tucked inside the grill. Dead and dried, but in tact, I show Jeb and tell him I’ll take it as a sign that something magical is happening.

Sure, he thinks it’s magic. He’s got a delay on getting to school this morning and gets some extra time on his skateboard while I call triple A. Still, I can see a little sparkle in his eye at my suggestion. He’s ripe for the supernatural right now – we’re on chapter eight in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

An hour later, I’m jumped and driving. Jeb’s dropped at school and I’m en route to Aloha Transmission and Auto Repair, where a Hawaiian grandfather with white mutton chops has his adult son test my battery. His granddaughter, about two years old, wanders up to me, arms open. Her shirt says “you are my sunshine” and she looks at me as though she’s known me all her life. I move down to her height as she smiles, reaching out to lightly touch my earrings

The battery is officially dead. The alternator tests good. For less than $100, I’ve got a new battery, good for 5 years, and I’m back on the road, only an hour late for my first work appointment.

As I drive my newly charged vehicle, I stretch my mind to the days when I sat around the fire with the fringe-dwellers at Rainbow Gatherings in my twenties. The hippies may have adopted the divination practice, but animal totems are rooted with indigenous people. I don’t know much except for the Animal Medicine cards someone gifted me a few years back. I seem to recall that Dragonfly represented Illusion and the prompting to look beyond what is seen on the surface.

The metaphysical aside, basic entomological facts include a flight speed of about 24 mph, multi-faceted eyes that have nearly a 360 degree view, and a propensity for eating bugs (particularly the pesky ones).

Whatever the meaning, I’m happy to be up and running. Though our battery mishap seems to be the first in a series of strange events involving either our car, Jeb, or both. Two days later, a thief opens our car door and steals Jeb’s school backpack out of the backseat. Nothing valuable, really, but creepy nonetheless. And the next day at school, a younger girl becomes obsessed with Jeb’s bag of Chex mix, rips it from his hand, and when he tries to get it back, she bites him on the finger (no broken skin).

Last night, post-dinner, with the quiet of the evening settling on us both, Jeb reflects on the past few days.

“Mom, you know how you said you think that dragonfly meant something magical was happening? I don’t think it means there’s magic. I think what’s happening is just bad luck.”

I’m not really a ‘bad luck’ believer. Don’t know where he got this concept. But I’m not going to push my magic dogma either.

“Mmmm…” I reply. “I don’t know. I guess it’s all in how you want to look at it. I don’t understand what’s going on with some of these things happening lately. That’s the mystery. But no matter what it all means, I know one thing for sure. That dragonfly is definitely cool.”