Ghost in a Bottle | Original Painting

In contrast to some of my more recent art, of light and angelic beings, here we have a piece with a darker creature in it. This is one I created right before I came back to my Faith in God. At the time I didn't believe in these darker creatures and even now I don't necessarily believe that they look this way, this is more of a generic stereotypical look.
Although this piece is not really one that I want to display out or hang in my home because I don't really like the idea of having this creature in view, this piece does have a lot of significance to me. 

It pertains to returning to my Faith. After the third night of painting on this at a music show by the Kitchen Dwellers, I played a hymn on the drive home from the which had been “stuck” in my head for quite some time. I do believe this hymn helped guide me, inspiring and solidifying my journey back to God

The hymn talks about the Golden Strand!

The golden strand is a symbol for Heaven in the hymn, it sings, “Till I reach the golden strand just beyond the river.”

The hymn is called “Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross”

At the time I couldn't really understand why this hymn was so prominent in my mind, continuing to play again and again. At the time staying near the cross was not a value I had. However singing the song made me think that perhaps there was a little bit of truth inside my soul to this desire.

The night that I painted this dark entity, I was listening to music which was singing of “devils”, this is what had to do with the inspiration behind it and a willingness to paint such a creature. 

Interestingly enough I had drawn this creature in my sketchbook a few months earlier. It was not that I had set out in my mind to draw this creature, but that it just happened to show up on the page during my process. I oftentimes start a drawing having no idea what's going to come out.

Although I don't know much about prophetic art, I can just say that that sketch was most certainly one of those “Higher Consciousness Level” experiences. It proves I was in touch with this realm and my soul was trying to get my attention. 

The creepy creature on my sketch page actually scared me really bad to be completely honest! Even though at the time I didn't believe in these entities, even at the time of painting this piece I didn't believe in them. 

This is one reason why I recently painted an angel piece, because I thought “If I'm going to believe in these darker creatures, I better believe in the light ones too.”

It took a lot of coaxing for me to believe in these creatures, as who wants to live their life under such fear? Not me!

I quickly continued to write on the sketchbook page, “I AM NOT REAL” in all capitol letters. Which happened to be an even more prophetic statement than I realized at the time. As when I came back to my Faith and started to see through the darkness that was moving through my life, I realized that these dark entities desired for me not to know that they exist. That was exactly the kind of camouflage they needed to be active in my world. Literally “needed” because since I found out about them I have completely rid my life of their influence.

It probably seems like I’ve gone mentally insane. Indeed at first I thought that if I believed in demons it made me schizophrenic and that I was no better than the paranoid and highly superstitious wackos! Believe me when I say, it took a lot of coxing to open my thought process up to such a world view. In fact I spend countless hours for months praying for spiritual discernment, really getting in touch with my soul and divine guidance. I even did a fast (which was very unlike me up until this point). I’m not adopting a philosophy lightly or without much thought.

When it comes to these entities wanting to stay hidden from my awareness, it just goes to show how awareness is often the first step and arguably the most important piece of transformation and healing. 

I would ask you to also take a good hard look into your own psyche to look for anything in your blind spots. Simply not believing in something is not enough to make it go away.

“Disbelief” is some bad advice a therapist gave me, she told me, “If you don’t believe in demons, they can’t have any power over you.” Not true, sorry, just not true. Sure, superstitions and curses are nothing to allow anyone to hold over your head, but there are powers and forces in this world that are better seen with eyes wide open, seen for what they really are and not just ignored.

What tugs on our mind? Even if you were to view it all symbolically, or replace the word demon with “thoughts” and approach it more scientifically, we can all agree, there are evils in this world which we need protection from. Physical protection at least, yet I would add spiritual protection too.

The night I painted this entity I was completely sober, although it was a day that was successive to getting high on substances which I no longer entertain in my life. If you have been listening to my podcast you also understand how “open” I am about this. I've been speaking about not really realizing that I was caught up in a crowd of drugs. When I was speaking with someone about coming back to my Faith, she said her skin was crawling with the stories I was telling her. And even another friend having seen me after this show told me that I had a demon. My husband, the night that I painted this, also said he thought that I was possessed. And a couple nights before had said he didn't recognize the person behind my eyes.

That's pretty scary honestly and I do chalk up a lot of it to drug use. Even if I was sober this particular day, I was still sleep deprived and had taken drugs that I'm sure were still in my system. This particular day, minutes before painting this entity, I crawled through the legs of the crowd that I was in, in the mud in a white shirt, managing not to get too dirty and just having fun, just being silly, but obviously weird and I know it scared people, most people laughed at me, others were not too happy. I was just trying to embody the art and the music. I considered it a new dance move, pretending to be a gremlin. 

Since I grew up taught so heavily about demons I was actually super scared of them and since this band was singing about devils I thought it was helping me not be afraid anymore, desensitizing me in a sense. Technically it did for a while (until I woke up, i.e. awakened/heightened spiritual sensitivity). I actually spoke with 3 of the 4 band members, and although I was too much of a fan girl to have the bravery to talk much, I managed to get out the question “Do you work with the Light or the Dark, or both?” All of them said both, which honestly scares me and even still, the dark can masquerade as the light.

In all honesty I’m not sure where I stand with this band, I haven’t been listening to their music, but as I write this I also realize the part they had to play in me returning to my Faith. Maybe I just need a break to get grounded. Either way, if I do approach it again, I will do so with discernment. 

Over the years of listening, I always did believe they were helping purge out the darkness in me. Listening to their music was always a spiritual experience for me. It started out with me being thrown off because I’d never listened to such heavy music before, I got depressed for months. There were so many more things their music helped me process, dark dark things.

In the end, someone has to do the dirty work in the art world, that is, giving people a place to feel their deepest darkest fears, otherwise those things just stay trapped in us.

 I’ve done it with a few of my more depressive paintings, particularly in my Inner World series. And here again in this piece I’m expressing darkness in hopes to bring awareness and healing. I had planned on making the background even scarier, but I found I just couldn’t work on it any longer with that creepy thing staring at me! Good thing I have this art (and writing, another form of art) to help me process all this stuff. 

I also realized that as I was “pretending” to be a gremlin (although to be completely honest what I’m about to tell you felt like more than just pretending) anyways, as I was “dancing” as a gremlin, I came up to the edge of the stage,  which if you do want to get up to the front of the crowd, crawling through the legs instead of pushing your way through is definitely the easiest way!

When I got up to the edge of the music I kind of sat in a little frog-like position and the music satiated me, I became happy, relaxed and calm, bobbing my head, all smiles. Whereas when I was crawling through the crowd, I was pretending to be scared, even though I wasn't really afraid (I guess you could almost call it “channeling” a grimlin). I was hissing and croaking, sometimes yelping. Weird right? Now you’re really gonna think I’m a nut!

When I got back to my easel and painted this dark creature, I had already glued these golden strands to the piece in thoughts of the hymn. Normally when I was camping on these ventures I did not bring with me any string, but this time I just so happened to bring some. I brought them to the show for the kids to play with (cause yes, kids go to these shows and have a lot of fun running around). I was not really thinking that I would use the string in my art, it’s not something I had ever done before. 

Before I had crawled around, I used paint to glue a golden strand to my piece. I’m amazed I managed to find a piece of the string, as the kids grabbed most of the things within seconds of putting them down for them to create with, especially the golden string! Yet, there just so happened to be one last golden strand left for me, meant to be!

So the string was already there when I went to paint this entity. As I was doing so, I accidentally hit one of these strands with its tail, and it kind of messed me up, then I started allowing the paintbrush to move on its own in a sense. The demon really started “fraying” at this point! I was shocked and intrigued, it was like the painting had a life of its own and was trying to tell me something. 

The demon’s tails started trailing off, almost as if it was being damaged by the Golden Strand. It brought to mind a core truth, that the darkness cannot stand in the light! This is scientific, for we never see darkness filling a room where a candle is lit, no, the fire fills the room with flickering light, not the other way around. These evil presences cannot thrive in the light of Heaven; in the presence of Heaven (the Golden Strand).

All this was a picture of what was going on in my life at the time on a spiritual level, there was a battle for my soul (and my name Matilda mean Warrior maiden). The darkness wanted me, it was asking me to give in completely and I almost did. But God would never have let me go! I had devoted my life to God as a child. God draws me closer and calls me every day, to a more intimate relationship with the Divine. Not the evil, it only wants to destroy me (like drugs)!

I proceeded to paint angels on the demon's tongue with light coming out of his mouth from the verse that I knew in the back of my mind, how evil often parades as light:

“And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” ~ 2 Corinthians 11:14

It’s a way of tricking, creating illusions in people's lives, we think we're following something that's good for us, when truly it is just a deception (like drugs).

Drugs seem like they are something good when you’re on them, they bring you into these euphoric states where you feel so wise and knowledgeable. You feel so spiritual, living in “HIGH Consciousness”. When really you're doing yourself a disservice, by living an unhealthy lifestyle hurting your brain, killing brain cells, creating bad examples for the younger ones and perhaps starting addictions. Leading yourself into things that could be even more addicting than what you're getting into now. Losing people you care about left and right!

I'm glad to say that I have been pursuing a life of sobriety, and doing well at it, of course I keep my distance from tempting instances as best I can, which does make it easier, but I do not shelter myself completely.

The rest of this piece is illustrating one of the bands songs about a “Ghost in a Bottle.” The butterfly turned out to be a ghost. The bottle I've always imagined was a beer can or something, but it ended up coming out as a perfume bottle!

I love how the body of the butterfly is a paintbrush, “Painting up that Montana sky” which is another of their lyrics. In fact, every piece of the painting was inspired by their music, getting the ideas while dancing.

There's four members of the band and therefore 4 instruments can be seen in the four wings of the butterfly. There's a heart and lungs in one of the wings for one of the musicians. He has been out for months due to health reasons, so those organs are also a prayer for his healing. 

Initially the inspiration came as this butterfly being a symbol of how their music cuts through the darkness, bringing healing. Their music can be rough but also has these calming melodies that entrance you. I think it's interesting how it almost looks like it's going towards the demon or following the demon. Or perhaps the demon's wings mirror and parallel the butterfly’s wings, perhaps trying to overcome it in a spiritual battle.

You can't really see the demon when you first look at the piece, it's very secretive, just like they like to be. It's very illusory, hardly noticeable, fading. 

There was a lot more happening in my life that I have not mentioned which makes the story hold even more weight, such as the breakup of a 8 year love story of two people madly inlove, my husband and I. (Literally “madly”, we’d gone “Mad” and were mad at each other all the time, LOL). I’m glad to say we did not follow through with a divorce like we thought, and I only have God to thank for that! God came in a healed and directed our hearts in unexplainable ways. I think it’s worth mentioning that we fell apart right after seeing this show I painted this piece at!

My husband even had a dream about a month before the show that I had left him after the show. Very prophetic. I think these are very spiritual matters to be having dreams about such things. And I must add, I had written the band a letter telling them they helped heal our marriage because they did in some ways, but it was still really rough at the time and the letter was more like a wish and a prayer. I am not proud that I was obsessed with this band to the point I was almost praying to them. To me, that’s very disrespectful of my true God who created me. However, I was unaware of the full effects this band would have on my marriage, as even the break up has proved to be a very restorative and healing journey (though painful! So painful!). Ultimately I cannot give any credit to the band for the healing of my marriage as it all belongs to God, just like all praise and worship in the world does. However, if there’s one thing I’ve known since the first time my Faith was shaken, it’s that God can and does use anything and everything to accomplish Their perfect will! So, if God chose to use this band to purify my life and the life of many, I still give credit and thanksgiving to God! And that’s something I’ve been learning lately, just to give credit where credit is due. We earthly beings have so little power, all the power we do have is given us. All the power this band has and holds over its audience is grounded in the spiritual realm. The question is, exactly what sort of power are they tapping into? And what will we allow ourselves to be influenced without a filter of discernment?

Are we even aware of the influence in the first place?

We must pray to see clearly.