Now, where were we? Yes, this artwork. It’s inspired by the unseen and a series of events that happened to me while I was living in Casa Corazon: a farmhouse in the heart of Ibiza between 2016 and 2017. This place had a spirit living in it. I felt it about two days in while staying in the main house. It was around 10pm on a dark winter’s night. I was in my bedroom reading an amazing and rare encyclopedic book on the esoteric history of Ibiza. All of a sudden, I felt as well as saw the bed sheets move around suspiciously by my right thigh. It felt like a hand trying to caress my leg.
Aside from the company of two beautiful cream fur and blue-eyed female cats, I was alone in the house. Not completely remote but a tad isolated in the island’s countryside. Middle of winter. Nighttime. No car. So, I immediately sensed fear. I took a deep breath and plucked up the courage to speak. In a loud amicable voice I asked this presence one thing only: “Whatever you do, don’t scare me”. For goodwill purposes I also stated: “This is your home. I ‘m your humble guest here, and I’m not here to harm you”. She must have heard me because she never frightened me again. She mostly hang out by my bedside in a very unobtrusive and gentle kind of way if you can attribute these qualities to a non-physical entity, that is.
She did manifest herself to a medium friend of mine later on, and also scared the shit out of another very sensitive friend of mine in the following year. Neither of whom I had opened up to in regards to its presence. Personally, it felt like the spirit of a young female child, later confirmed by my medium friend. However, when my next door neighbour read this, she thought that it was Valerie. The former tenant who had died in that house.
Anyway, a few days later the local house owner came by and I cheekily asked him if in the past a young child, possibly female had perished in the house. He looked at me funny, yet not much surprised. In a very likeable, soft-spoken voice he mumbled-jumbled something about a young family member having died there. But it was before his time and that he did not know much more about it, he concluded.
Real identity aside, my brief and ethereal friendship with whom I nicknamed ‘La Nena’ began. And it all started and pretty much ended with this artwork. Around 2009, I had anonymously received an empty email from an unknown sender that had a strange pdf attachment to it: Alien Races that have visited Earth. It claimed to be of Russian origin. It looked pretty unauthentic and kind of wishy washy in terms of presentation, yet it contained very detailed and encyclopedic information in English about the subject. For a year or so after receiving it, I had inwardly felt kind of special or chosen by some higher power to see this.
However a quick scan of the web made me realise this document was easily downloadable through the insertion of carefully chosen key words. Alas, I did say that the way it was presented was a bit fishy. Yet someone must have taken mercy on me and decided to put an end to my varied and colourful attempts at the social media “awakening ranting routine” some of us indulge in when that proverbial elephant in the room we sitting in has yet to take a massive dung dump on us. Mind you, to amicably remind us that tending only to our garden first is the most important early-bird wake up call asked of us in this lifetime.
Anyway, back to the artwork. I had already created two out of the three characters in the foreground, namely the wolf-headed character and the diamond geezer to his left. The wolf is an autobiographical reference. I’m born in Rome, after all. As legend goes it was a city born out a bloody family feud between two brothers who were raised by a she wolf. She together with an eagle are part of this city’s pagan past so its imagery and meaning has been with me since my early educational days.
Moreover, I have always been intrigued by this pack animal that in many ways mirrors our mammalian sense of tribal belonging. Only recently my advanced studies in the work of Dr. Hamer. His New German Medicine system and the Five Biological Laws works he has published, confirmed this feeling of mine. Alternatively, this fascination may be sparked by to the only reliant sense I seem to possess: my survival instinct, so that possibly I may be more attuned, familiar and comfortable with the mammalian animal kingdom rather than resonating with the deep and complex emotional nature of the human existence.
So, bottom line I guess that’s me holding a piece of inhabited space. Very much in the manner of a magician hiding his trick behind the dark veil. However, as much as I enjoy this innuendo I’m not really comfortable with its implications. So, more likely than not that’s me standing there holding onto the veiled curtain. Yet, rather tentative and cautious at really looking at what lies behind it. Maybe the real magician is the diamond geezer to the right? The stand-in being one of my life teachers: Jean Philippe Goedvolk.
I had taken some pictures of him in this serious folded arms pose that he didn’t like, so I decided to kindly edge him on or provoke a reaction from him by adding it in this composition. A reaction, which laughingly and expectantly never came. Nevertheless, I liked the pose. It’s somewhat authoritative and serves as a decent juxtaposition to my open arm stance. Experience versus innocence, or something along those lines metaphorically speaking. Also, It’s one of my indirect ways to show some gratitude, I guess. And that’s my two pence on it.
So, this is where my playful activity with La Nena really kicked in. One night as I was sitting warm by the fire with my digital drawing pad on my lap and the alien race booklet placed on the coffee table, I called her out to play a game with me. I had picked a small heart-shaped pebble in the yard and asked her to place it on any page of her choosing. So, that I would include her alien race of choice in the background ensemble. Nothing happened. I left the room. Nothing happened. I went for a property check and returned after less than 10 minutes. Nothing. OK. She doesn’t seem interested in playing with me, so night night and hasta manana baby.
To my surprise, the next morning, the book was open to a page and the pebble was in place over a specific alien race. The same routine happened over an intermittent short period of days, whereby some nights she would play and some nights she wouldn’t. However, we never played the game together, so to speak. I never saw the pages turn and the pebble never glided through the air as if controlled by an invisible force. It only worked when I went to sleep and left her to play alone.
Was she shy? Was she afraid of scaring me? Did I imagine it? Did I sleep walk it? Am I lying? Ah, the bliss of unresolved mysteries!
But make it as you wish, she did help me to choose all the background characters in this artwork except for the Blue Avian figure (the bird-like creature slightly to the right side of the middle background space). This insertion is in itself a tribute or reference to the knowledge I acquired by researching the works and claims of two certain individuals, one of whom wrote the quote at the end of this story.
But please, I do urge you to make your own research and come to your own conclusions on this subject, as my mere spilling out of who and what is in my own particular universe may feel as a ridiculous indoctrination attempt on my part to shove down your unwilling throats my own version of the unseen forces present in the great cosmos.
At the end of this paranormal playful week in late January or early February of 2016, the artwork was pretty much done except for the space to the left of the wolf character. It stayed that way throughout the summer and throughout most the year after that. In the summer season while the house was booked out as either a tourist holiday rental or a retreat centre, I never slept indoors. So, I couldn’t get in touch with her. I think that as an entity she was stranded in the main house and aside from the two instances described above involving the two friends of mine, she must have pretty much kept to ourself. Also, in the remaining time I spent at the house in the next winter, my curiosity had waned.
I was too busy with earthly issues and had kind of lost the momentum, freedom and sensitivity I had manage to attune into in that previous winter of wonder and amazement. Yet, I started to inwardly feel her pain to the point that when I resigned from the house managing duties, I had asked one of the guys who ran the lease to conduct a ritual of sorts to free her back into the ether. I’m not sure this ever happened. However after much pondering and debate, a year or so later I included my own tribute to her by adding her in. Dale Nena, may your soul roam free.
“Your world exists in an area of congregation, an area that has many inhabited worlds. You do not see this within your own solar system, but beyond your solar system, this is most certainly true. You do not live in a sparsely populated part of the universe. You do not live in a region that is uncharted and unknown to others. This gives you certain disadvantages because your world is being scrutinized by many powerful forces. They are seeking an Intervention now because humanity has reached a point in its development where it has built the infrastructure that other races believe that they can use for themselves. This is why the Intervention did not happen at an earlier time. It was allowed for humanity to build the resources and the infrastructure first. In other words, you did the work for those who believe that you will serve them in the future” (www.alliesofhumanity.org)