pictures in an exhibition: the Panthers

The mysterious commentator, Fro, suggests that I post pictures that remind me of various people in my life...I accept the challenge and will do so intermittently over the next days...

let's start with the triumvirate of my modern muses...the three panthers.

The first one is easy in and of itself (herself), the original panther...

Here, seen in her self portrait, which appeared on the cover of my first book, PanthEon. It is a fair likeness, although slightly idealized by her fondness for the works of Patrick Nagel.

To me there was a darkness to her, better captured in the image of the model Jillian Ann, both on the cover of and contained in my book THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES.But even that is not a perfect image...if I find the one I need, I'll post it...I once, in the midst of our tempestuous relationship, had a waking dream where she was a dark elf, coiled around my heart, and my chest had been ripped open to expose her there, her dark eyes glowing faintly as she suffocated my very life from me.

She was never really that vicious or cruel, it was more of a fearful thing, caused by an unhappy childhood. I've always been attracted to broken people, or at least those badly bent by strife, abuse and even darker life events. It is in the nature of a dark panther to hide, to use the night for cover from which to strike, and to avoid troubles. There is more to this than the surface suggests.

Then we have the crimson panther, Brigit (not her real name, but her alternative muse name, as to me she is the avatar of the Celtic Goddess of Fire and Poetry)...this piece of art startled me when I first saw it, for it is a good likeness of her, and also suggests her roaring sensuality. Of the three she is easily the sexiest, the most dazzling creature. And brilliant, besides (although this picture does not show it, trust me) I wish I still had the picture of her flipping off the camera when she was in L.A. with me...it was a great shot...

A cimson panther does not, in any form, exist in nature. Perhaps I was merely projecting her red hair, or perhaps that mingled with many other aspects of red, including blood...I had been celibate for almost a year when this dream came, perhaps I was considering sleeping with her almost a loss of virginity, or surrendering to my blood...

I do apologize that she does not have a book cover of mine to represent her...perhaps sometime we can remedy that. She deserves it.

and finally, the golden panther, the Leopard, my second wife, Ann...

depicted here from the cover of "From an Unexpected Quarter", but that is merely a physical representation of her, to me she is more and more abstract as every day passes, less person and more something I imagined... She was and is, I believe still, strikingly pretty, but has never had to work at it, and thus can be a bit like a golden ornament, so certain of her desireability she feels it unnecessary to do anything more but exist to be loved.

Love is more than ornamentation, it is a state of surrender and of purpose. One must learn to love unconditionally, and then to act upon that love...I think she got to the first pillar...but the second pillar, at least for now, has defeated her...

Don't worry, love, most people never even reach the first marker...

Oh, an explanation of "The Three Panthers"...when I was living in Venice Beach, one night I had an extraordinarily vivid dream.

In it I was in a white room, with the sound of an old carousel loud upon me.
Circling me were three abstract leopards; one black, one blood red, one golden.
They had identical postures and expressions, sort of a sly laughing to them, as they circled me in time with the music. Suddenly the music stopped, and I was left with a sense that I had to make a choice, sort of like musical chairs...
I hesitated...
and the music started back up...
and the dream faded...
and I was filled with remorse...

I concluded that at the time the panthers were representations of the original Panther, Brigit (whom, at the time, I was planning to meet with) and Ann, who had begun hinting she may want to come out to visit me in Los Angeles...