Beauty and the Inner Beast

We all know the story of Beauty and the Beast; how a young girl chose to be imprisoned to save her father, The Beast is ugly and she decides to try to escape.  The Beast asks her again and again, to marry him and she refuses time and time again.  Be it Stockholm or whatever, she falls in love with him because she begins to see the beauty in the beast.  Haven’t we all learned to love a beast in some way?  Have we never kissed a beast and had it turn into something beautiful?  How many of us have thought we could transform someone and had them become what they transformed into and wished we never had?  How many of us had to learn to love ourselves in order for us to be beautiful from the inside out?

Somehow, we need to accept and learn to love ourselves, even our shadows. In doing this, we become a gift to the world.   We have access to the protection of our wolf within.  It can be our anger or it can be our love.  It can be something we hate but also something we need.  

I have the wolf as my guardian and teacher.  When we find something, someone (a flaw in our character), some thing in self that we declare ‘ugly’, we need to acknowledge it and then learn to love what cannot be changed.  That does not mean to give in and say, “Oh, I have always been abrupt…say what is on my mind…  been blunt,” as if that is not the ugly within. It does not mean to accept without change.  If we truly love ourselves, we would change.  If we accept that we have a shadow within that wrecks chaos and wreaks of something ugly, we will remain chaos-makers or unbalanced personalities.  Maybe, like the wounded wolf, we need to spend some time alone (in a symbolic forest) to heal ourselves and turn that inner wolf into all the positive aspects of the wolf, our protector, the loyal one, the beautiful one.  

I have found, over these two months, that delving into the wolf personality has helped me cope with this social isolation.  I did not need this time to run with a pack.  I needed to be a lone wolf for a time because I was hurting, felt betrayed, and need to lick my wounds that a deeply hurting betrayal by someone I loved had caused.  Again, the wolf became, not the beast that wanted to tear the throat out of something that endangered it, but the calm, quiet wolf, that healed through thought and well-solved problem.  Sometimes that lone wolf is our protector, indeed.  

I started this painting , on a wooden board, and then gathered some ephemera to work into the painting, Pia Rom inspired.

Once I had chosen and glued down the ephemera, I began the portrait part of the painting.   

I worked between the Beast and the beauty.

While her face shows up fairly pinkish, I still like her.  The placvementof the castle, from a children's book of fairy-tales, was an afterthought, and became highlighted.  And, I used gesso to fade it into clouds.

I am sure most of us have met our beast during this time of such difference in life we are living and the weight of isolation.  I have met, acknowledged the teacher/s and gained my ah ha moments from it.  I am learning to be patient with the beast.  I have learned the beast is within.  Bless you all and your beast.

Carol Desjarlais 4.24.20