ARTISTS TALKING

# 23 [18 August 2008]

This poem sprang to mind when I was doing shoulder stand whilst I was pregnant: 

The Buddha in the Womb

Bobbing in the waters of the womb,
little godhead, ten toes, ten fingers
& infinite hope,
sails upside down through the world.

My bones, I know, are only a cage
for death.
Meditating, I can see my skull,
a death's head,
lit from within
by candles
which are possibly the suns
of other galaxies.

I know that death
is a movement toward light,
a happy dream
from which you are loath to awaken,
a lover left
in a country
to which you have no visa,
& I know that the horses of the spirit
are galloping, galloping, galloping
out of time
& into the moment called NOW.

Why then do I care
for this upside-down Buddha
bobbling through the world,
his toes, his fingers
alive with blood
that will only sing & die.

There is a light in my skull
& a light in his.
We meditate on our bones only
to let them blow away
with fewer regrets.

Flesh is merely a lesson.
We learn it
& pass on.

© Erica Mann Jong

# 22 [13 August 2008]

I'm relieved to say that my post natal depression has finally shifted. I'm home from hospital now. The hospital was a tremendous help to me. I did alot of art, mostly chalk drawings and using rubber stamps and colouring pencils. The hospital is having an exhibition of work by the inpatients this month. I'm looking forward to seeing all the work. I've learnt alot from my third stay on a psychiatric ward. I want to be an Occupational Therapist now. I'm still going to carry on making art, but I need to pace myself.

Neve is well, she enjoyed the time with her daddy whilst I was in hospital. She's walking now and it's such a joy to watch.  I'm going to continue with the work with teenage mums, but I'm going to take role of creative director rather than taking on all the editing and producing.

# 21 [17 July 2008]

I found out later that my partner wasn't allowed to visit because I was imprisoned near hardened criminals. Does this make me a criminal I asked myself. 

I finally got a visit from a doctor and some other social worker type people. I was shaking in the blue police pjs I was dressed in. 'I just want to see my daughter' I cried. They made they're diagnosis and  I was put back in the cell for god only knows how much longer. I could see the light through the frosted window panes, am I going to be here till it gets dark again I thought to myself. I tried to sleep under the blanket I was given, I tried to do breathing exercises to keep myself calm. I also imagined a Physiotherapist friend helping me to lie down correctly. 

It was evening by the time I got to walk out of the holding station, handcuffed (for my own safety?!) and taken in an ambulance to a psychiatric ward. There I told a psychiatrist my life story! My dad and partner arrived. Then at last I got some sleep with the medication I was on before.

# 20 [17 July 2008]

Hello. I'm back, not from France, but from hospital, Mental Hospital in fact. I'm ok. It's been crazy since I last wrote. I want to write the facts down here so I'm clear. I had a panic attack in the middle of the night, screamed and ran out of the house naked holding my daughter. My partner didn't know where I'd gone so he rang the emergency services. I, in the mean time, had asked a passer-by for help. An ambulance arrived and I was in a state of panic, and thought I was going to have one of my breasts cut off. My friend who happened to be passing came into the ambulance to comfort me. However she didn't travel with me, so I paniced more about where I was I going? My partner took my baby home. I assumed I was being taken to hospital when in fact I arrived at a police station.

I stood, in my red dressing gown, in front of a huge desk looking up at the police sargeant and thought 'I must have done something wrong, why am I here?' I assumed they would look me up on the internet realise that I am an artist and set me free. But no instead I was banged up in a police cell for 24 hours. Anyone who has had to cope with being in a cell when all you want is a friend and some comforting words will understand that this is the last thing I needed. The door was locked I had no human contact apart from through an intercom on the wall. It was terrifying. I tried to keep myself sane by singing and dancing. The police were probably watching and thinking I was psychotic. I was imprisoned, of course I was bloody scared. I thought, I'll enjoy the accostics whilst I'm here. So I screamed/sang as loud as I possibly could and imagined I was part of an art performance performing for a dead friend. My meals were passed through the hatch, a nasty school dinner style sausage and beans. The woman who posted it though called me 'love'. I spoke to my mum on the intercom, but got confused and thought I was in Holloaway when in actual fact I was in Hollingbury. I spoke to my partner and didn't understand why he couldn't come and get me. 

# 19 [19 June 2008]

No Janet still doesn't agree with my about vaccines but I'll have to work on her abit longer. Not sure how that's going to happen there. There's no way Neve is having vaccinations. I've got to put my foot down on that one. It's scarey how people are indoctrinated with this bullshit.

# 18 [19 June 2008]

No Janet still doesn't agree with my about vaccines but I'll have to work on her abit longer. Not sure how that's going to happen. There's no way Neve is having vaccinations.

# 17 [19 June 2008]

Ok I've calmed down abit, I'm tired and need to get some rest. I don't know if I'll be writing for a while as I'm going on holiday to France. I need to take a break.

# 16 [19 June 2008]

MY SISTER IS PREGNANT WITH TWINS - THANK GOD!

# 15 [19 June 2008]

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# 14 [18 June 2008]

Ok I'm really angry, to be honest I'm fucking furious, I've made some discoveries that are shocking and I even fear writing them down here. I fear writing because I know many people will be effected and it could have far reaching impications on the world. My family are medical, I grew up in with surgeons and doctors and I had to make alot of decisions in my life that did not corrolate with the medical establishment. Now I've discovered ways of dealing with my own health and the health of my daughter I feel able to express my anger at the medical establishment. The medical establishment has basically sold us a lie, that lie is vaccinations. I no longer care if anyone disagrees because I now understand it to be the truth. It is the truth because of my own experiences as a child growing up and now as an adult. In fact it is what has driven my artistic practice throughout my life. I am deaf in one ear, I had mumps as a child. My mum gave birth to three babies that died. My step mother had a cot-death. These are real facts that happened in my life. I have been seeking out ways of expressing them using art, this has been getting increasingly difficult until I gave birth. My daughter has freed a creative expression in me that I did not know was possible. I feel able to make art and ideas are beginning to build up in my mind.

My homeopath is helping, this is the reason for my transformation, this is why I have the strength to write this here. I've taken my daughter to the homeopath too because I gave her immunisations. I was terrified for her, terrified she would die of a cot-death and I had a severe attack of anxiety in August which has led me to where I am now. I no longer want children to suffer, there is too much pain in the world already without having to inflict more upon our children. We need to look after them and not inject them with diseases which actually in the end could kill them.