My first real home was in the trees...

I began my training, as it were, there at the age of five when my body developed two ways of dealing with what I would now consider an initiation that lasted for about eight years. The first technique my body offered me was the ability to escape its confines and observe its situation from a vantage point that felt ‘safer.’ That vantage point was usually inside the body of a nearby tree; I’d get there by diving into the earth and traveling into the tree via the root system. This was not something I thought to do; it was something that simply happened.

The second technique, which also simply happened, was that the body itself developed – or already possessed, for all I know – the ability to enter into the body of whatever man happened to be taking advantage of my physical presence and read what I would now call his energy in order to provide him with the experience he was seeking, that we – my body and I - might more efficiently dispatch him.

I am aware that sounds all rather animistic, and it is. My life story, until the last couple decades, was not an easy one and its details are not for the faint of heart, hence this more detached rendition. The telling of this background is important because it is a key to the artwork I am currently creating and to the technique, Sleep Magic, that I have developed for personal transformation. I have a very intimate energetic relationship both with my own body and with the bodies of others. It is because of my history that I am what I am and I do what I do. 

My third initiation, in my forties, was the disease, progressive systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma. With a prognosis of death and my body turning rapidly into scar tissue, I once again followed the lead of my body and, with the help of what I can only call a legion of earth angels, I died only to my former life and began, in 1995, a helping practice, as a spiritual counselor and hands-on healer, that opened doors into possibilities for the conscious uses of energy that I had never before imagined, allowing me to incorporate and expand upon my childhood initiations.

In 2009 all of me – body, mind, soul and spirit - fell in love because I was able, at last, to surrender, one hundred percent, to another human being. For reasons that must be obvious, that was a long time coming. In surrendering, curiously, I felt supported in a way I had never experienced before and the creative urge which had always been integral to my being, now informed by an expanded consciousness and an intellectual grasp of the mechanics of energy in the body, found full expression as I began to paint what I called Chakra Portraits, silken prayer flags painted with the intent to disperse those energies into their surroundings.

The creative process is one of constant mutation; one thing led to another and in doing so, painting the energy of the chakras led me back to energy of the body, spawning the various series of multi-media pieces – Lovers, Goddesses, Yogis and Yoginis – which now occupy my creative time. All the works are small, designed for intimate spaces and contemplation.

The Lovers series and the Yogis and Yoginis series are explorations of the energy of the body…or of a given individual(s), if the work is commissioned.  The Goddesses are also based on energy but are more far-reaching in scope, embracing large morphogenetic fields that can encompass energies as vast and multifaceted as DNA or as specific and small as, say, shoes. Sometimes, humor is involved because, after all, life is funny. Earlier works can be seen in the photo folder of this site, current work can be viewed at victoriapendragon.artspan.com.

This is my story. I tell it only because my story is my credentials for the work I bring – and have already brought – to the world and because those things are unusual, the story needs to come first.

I will be speaking at the Arkansas conference in July. Click below or on the poster for more information.