I am quite lucky in love, because I really had no idea what Maria was like when I married her. I thought I did, we had been friends for several years, but I didn’t, the person that has emerged over the first three years of our marriage is not remotely like the person I married. Every day, she seems to change, something different emerges. The shy, very quiet artist who was completely shut down in her work, who was afraid to create and show her art, is a very thin memory, I can’t quite recall it. She is eager to get to her Studio, not afraid, she whines, squawks and complains all day that her work is no good, no one will like it, she’ll never get done what she has to get done. Her work is always good, everyone always likes it, buys it, wants more, she always gets done what she has to get done and a lot more.

Watching Maria’s mind and imagination unfold has been a wonder to me, better than the movies, out of Shakespeare maybe, or ancient pagan and Wiccan rituals. Every night she has the most amazing and complex dreams with all sorts of twists and turns  – serial killers, donkeys, blind men with canes, chickens, cats, overflowing sewers, collapsing buildings, dogs and chickens – that evolve into potholders, hanging pieces, pillows and quilts.  All of the days senses, smells, sights, sounds, go into this whirring mixture, her pupils widen, her hands spin like windmills, her mind races like the wind. Altars, totems, strange rock formations appear everywhere.

My wife is a blur,  a creative machine, a dream factory spinning her yard, sketching her creations, running her sewing machine until it clogs and collapses.  Sometimes, her head spins like the exorcist child and she speaks in tongues. I often look up and hear music wafting from her Schoolhouse Studio, where I sometimes find her singing and dancing. She can cast spells and sic the evil eye on bad people.  It is never dull around her. Right now, she is whirring around the farmhouse, talking to plants, comforting trapped moths, calling out to her beloved donkeys, bringing gourmet treats to the chickens, chatting with Frieda and the dogs, weeding the garden, organizing the bills. You can’t keep up, you just go along for the ride.

“Let’s get up and go walk in the woods,” she announced brightly at 4 a.m., this morning. Leave me alone, I am an old man, I say, but she just laughs and smacks me until I move. Blessedly, she fell asleep again and started dreaming.

The wonderful piece above – it just astonished me – came out of a curious night we had the other night, a full moon night when Maria vanished from the bedroom and went outside to sit with the barn cats and watch the moon. She got up again to go out and cuddle Simon in the darkened pasture. It did not surprise or trouble me, such happenings are quite commonplace around here. She didn’t even bother to explain it to me, I have seen her wanderings before, she loves wandering through nature, on hikes, in snowstorms, on full moon nights, hot days. She is of nature connected to it, through the animals, through her pores. It comes out in her work every day.

It turns out my wife is an animal communicator, a mystic, a witch, a pagan. It is much more enchanting than Disney world, sometimes bright, sometimes dark, always colorful. She is warm, sweet, loving, touchy, wary and giving, all at the same time. Strange totems and rock formations appear throughout the house, and disappear just as mysteriously. She blogs at strange  hours, muttering and cursing and studying the stars. Her German side is efficient, chore obsessive. Her Sicilian side seems to dominate, a volcano of emotions, ideas, a chip on her shoulder if men give her orders, or just breathe.

I love this Full Moon Donkey, I was privileged to see it’s creation, it’s radioactive seed.

Had I known who she was when I married her, I would have been a bit wary, but even happier than I was. Mystics are a hoot to live with, especially if you have a sense of humor, never tell them what to do, and do what you are told.