The Original Story
(revised)
"Driftwood Lady From Jekyll Island"
"After observing and feeling the photographs of this project for a long time, a river of ideas and words began to flow through me... and so began the story of Driftwood Lady in a spirit of poetry inspired by this enchanting beach and visionary authors like William Blake or Dante."
I Creation
II On the shore stands a majestic ageless tree rescued from a thousand seasons. From the entrails of this tree arises Driftwood Lady, a new blazing and fresh fire.
III Upright, facing the ocean, this Tree of Life harvests whispers of the waves, this crackling lace slips in her ear. She bowes then glimpses roads taking shape and caressing her feet. In front of this liquid and fertile field, the call of life...
IV Driftwood Lady inquires about these eloquent bones, those of our ancestors, roots in our hearts. Reminiscences of Man, a dive into ancestry...
V The dryad of Driftwfood Beach plays and dances with her invincible protector. This invincible keeper teaches her strength in osmosis with the magic alchemy of the elements.
VI She grows on its arm and blooms into an isthmus connecting earth to sky. Even she happens to be alone on the bridge, she will always commit herself.
VII The time has come to discover this world and leave my mark. Can you hear Zephyr? He blows his tufts of ineffable secrets along the coast... Listen... Between the noises lies the unspeakable...
VIII Abracadabra! "Art is the Tree of Life." (William Blake)
IX This young woman was contemplating the silver waves, unwinding a future from the horizon of bronze. She was taking a breath in the limpid light and the so soothing air. Skin against bark, she was dozing strengthlessly in these sharp swords, daggers and spears, the mighty brazen arms of her loyal army. In a premonitory dream, she was seeing herself assaulting this sea of work, this ocean of battles, and sometimes, taking feverish lays in howling strides.
X "O Sun! O Light! Star of the stars, Eye of Zoroaster, you Helios, gaze of gold that honors me in the sparkle of dawn."
XI New forces welcome her in these celestial hours. Her soul listens to Ouranos. She prepares to leave in search of the gods who will inhabit her heart and forge her spirit.
XII On that day, open your eyes wide, read the sky, look where few look and prepare to go where few go... as long as you can adapt to any change, whatever you undertake will succeed!
XIII Helios stops in his run to join Driftwood Lady appealing. He slips in and takes her in his arms. The young lady revels in her rays while Eos silently steals away under Nyx jealous glance.
XIV Nyx, born of chaos... her face lights up in the halo of Selene who waits patiently for her. Nyx is watching the scene from the far reaches of the west...
XV Helios warns her to beware of Theotormon. He cultivated nothing but jealousy and lust, and ended up losing his head lying on the sand soiled by all those infecund mugs.
XVI "Know yourself", slowly but surely, because sooner or later you could cross paths with one of these dangerous characters...
XVII Ares, this rival, this curse, this hater? Ares declares filled with gall: "War takes place on this land that I trample and that hide my kingdom! War is the sea that I drink in battle, it is the air in which whistle the arrows of my victory. War... was born in the flames of the sacred fire! Prometheus stole my father's lightning to save you men, I tamed it to reduce you to nothing!"
XVIII The war creates monsters, like the terrifying Deimos. if she goes ahead, he retreats. Resistant you will remain, fair-minded you will be and as a woman of integrity you will stand.
XIX She'll also have to deal with the frightening Phobos designed to lose us in the labyrinths of fear, the ruins of sanity, these abysses of hubris. These tyrants hinder and kill all self-fulfillment.
XX Her destiny or what must happen will happen, if she so decides.
XXI On the paths of existence, which sometimes look like a maze, a valiant young woman fights the Hydra of Lerna, a monster of vanity, anger and villainy.
XXII Suddenly, Driftwood Lady comes face to face with her Chimera. Its claws planted in this mirror of water, eager to leap like the hurricane rumbling inside her... could it be the harbinger of an inexorable disaster?
XXIII Vision of a Leviathan:
"Now the sneaking serpent walks in mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds where lions roam." (William Blake)
XXIV Between shadow and light, in the fleeting lull, she recalls Eurydice and her fate...
XXV The shadow settles into the silhouette of a darkening vision. She still ignores what lurks in the dark...
XXVI She's caught in the whirlwind of uncertainty. "Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air, hungry clouds swag on the deep." (William Blake)
XXVII In the unreal eclipse of dusk, inside a veiled minute, on the keeper's belly a secret entrance could be seen: his ephemeral navel...
XXVIII "When her sight wants to penetrate too far into darkness, it happens that in imagining she goes
astray." (Dante) Irresistible scarlet gleams attract her, entice her, smile at her and tempt her... In these somber echoes of an obscure fire, a candle burns, alone and cold, at the bottom of the well where you will find Hades...
XXIX Tombs take shape on the walls of Tartarus lamenting. Her body never-quenched casts its anchor in the stream of blood that sees and feels her. In this flesh- covered river, she metamorphoses into a roaring arborescence, then outwits the gloomy spectres in this torrent of tears nourishing the Styx. The drums of Thanatos thunder in the bosom of this Inferno. These beatings that we don't dread until we know what heavy strokes are as they fall like axes on the trunk of hope, on the chorus of fate... But the righteous woman keeps on walking, come what may, to reach that bright light, the paradigm of infinity, over yonder, behind the cliffs of vertigo, where men and women live in peace.
XXX " Eye of Zeus "
From the infernal urn this pearl crawls
And tunes itself up in a farewell roll
Delivering her ritornello in disguise
To this ocean of sharp ears that rise
Clear water preserves the thirst of an endless night,
The wind does not silence the flames, but feeds them right
Once in the eloquent fire I saw this desert of I
Fear planted there, with its insidious eye...
XXXI The Instant of Eternity
"Nothing is born and nothing perishes, but things that already exist combine and then separate again."
XXXII Rebirth
Pearl exploding in yesterday's mute shadow,
Shimmering behind its aquatic mask and glow,
Vivid bubble multiplying in this ray of light,
Sparkling to the rhythm of the elastic tide.
Immaculate beauty blazing in a frothing ribbon,
Subtle bead superbly enrobed in such a warm cotton.
From this mammary gleam springs a new opal age
Born from the first mist escaped from the maze.
XXXIII In the foam of the new day, Eosphoros marvels at Driftwood Lady's rebirth after she escaped from the underworld. Aphrodix florishes on the quivering moor of Gaia's merry tears.
XXXIV Aphrodix and Cerberus
She brings back Cerberus, the guardian of Hades, and tames him. Aphrodix has grasped how to change things: to make herself heard, distilling her essence with opposition, when needed, and being true to herself.
XXXV Beauty and The Beast
- The Beast bows down to Beauty and confesses: "You are whiter than Hera's milk, you are sweeter than saffron powder, fresher than the pure water I've longed for. Your eyes shine more than a thousand of diamonds and has lowered all my weapons."
- Beauty bends down and whispers: "Observe what is beautiful and you will also become beautiful."
XXXVI By facing, learning and understanding each other, they became true friends. Friendship is the only cannon from which love can flow!
XXXVII She rides the platters of salt in the company of her guide, an infallible intuition that will lead her to the beaches she needs to tread. Accompanied by her two best allies: salvation and self-confidence.
XXXVIII Her Daïmôn reminds her: "Say, write, paint, sculpt, play, dance, sing and work hard for what you believe in, what you're made for. Keep the faith and never give up on your dream, never!"
XXXIX Under the millennium axis, Aphrodix is tasting this fruit gorged with light, which teaches her this: to love oneself makes appear love of and for the world!
XL Inspired by his new muse, Orpheus makes Aphrodix the magical string of his lyre. Melody spreads in harmony and fills her with a gorgeous energy. She vibrates, rises and will never stoop!
XLI "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." (William Blake)
XLII "You're not born a woman, you become one." (Simone de Beauvoir)
Her grace lies in her harmony with sovereign nature. A woman whose beauty is sculpted by time in the places that have made her, often welcoming, sometimes hostile. By gaining her independence, she can savor her freedom, the power to live the life she chooses. To embody one's name is to embody one's life! This is the message and precept of Driftwood Lady.
XLIII She is growing as "Driftwood Lady Liberty" now. Look at her as a young woman who is and will remain free, so that others may be free and understand that is an endless battle to be free.
XLIV To freedom, blood of democracy! To equality, bond of living together! To fraternity, heart of this world!
"This world is in my head, my body is in this world!" (Paul Auster) It is in me... in me... Lady Liberty walks with the wind and the fire walks with her. This is a woman who represents what tomorrow must be: resistant and free... F r e e!!!
— The end before a new beginning, the opus#2:
I decided to end this chapter I of the whole story - The Life Of Driftwood Lady - with this reflection of Paul Auster I am daring to consider the following way: again, I see the tensions in ourselves which can occur in everyday life's conditions, those produce by the perception and representation we have of r e a l i t y and d r e a m , what it means... further thinking the difference I find out between dream and fantasy...
... A way to announce the second chapter of this life and existence of a woman facing changes, like climate one. Driftwood Beach remaining her sanctuary and refuge... She will symbolize what our society call the "adult age", this age of reason...
Big City Vision, the second opus, will happen in Georgia again...