
Sedona, Arizona, Tara Greene October 2019 Photo by Iala Jaggs
One of my favourite artists is surrealist Max Ernst. Max Ernst lived in Sedona Arizona in the 1940’s after dreaming of its surreal red rock landscape since he was a boy in Germany. Sedona called me to live there too. It is my spiritual home. I have always loved art. I told my mother when I was nine years old that I was going to be an artist. I loved to draw and write poems, I was taking dance lessons all the time since I was five years old. I sang and did pantomime shows.
I knew that being an artist gave me a license to be free. I went to a Technical high school to major in Art. It was very rigorous, all afternoon was life drawing, photography, commercial arts, ceramics, interior design, marketing, we had to go to the Museum every weekend and paint from one of the galleries in a realist style. We were taught egg tempera, charcoal and a whole host of techniques.
I studied art history since grade 10 and loved it and had an amazing art history teacher who I will never forget Mr. Walmsley. He taught world art history in chronological order. So we knew what was going on in Chinese, Indian and other cultures at the same time.
It was in a Grade 11 Art History class when I first saw the photograph of the bare-breasted, wasp-waisted, Cretan Snake holding Goddess and it smacked my consciousness awake. I remembered her. That was the beginning of my first consciousness awakening to the past life memories of being a High Priestess. I’d been dreaming of being a Sacred Tantric Priestess almost every night since I was five years old. I had no idea consciously what those intense dreams were all about I was just a kid in this life.
Jump to February 1986 my ex-husband and I had been wanting to travel since we first got married. I wanted to go to Bali since 1979 but he thought it would be too weird. A friend mentioned Sedona Arizona to me and the Bell rang literally and said you have to move there. He said OMG that’s the place my fave artist Max Ernst lived there. I have always been a fan of surrealism. Dali was my fave artist. I knew of Max Ernst but didn’t know he and his artist wife Dorothy Tanning moved there in the ’40s. We arrived in Sedona for the first time on Spring Equinox in 1987 with our son Elijah who was three at the time. We began searching for Max Ernst’s house. We talked to many older folks who said yes they knew of him or had heard of him. The most we could find was that his house was on Brewer Road which you can see in the photographs of him with his famous Capricorn sculpture.
I also found out that Aleister Crowley’s assistant Israel Regardie had been living in Sedona in 1987 with the rumoured original Lady Frieda Harris paintings of the Thoth Tarot too. The one which I later chose as my first tarot deck to learn from. The plot thickens.
If you don’t know of Max Ernst art he was a famous surrealist artist whose vision was very unique and instantly identifiable. He unknowingly been dreaming of Sedona’s landscapes in war-torn Germany since he was young. After escaping the Nazis and made it to America with the help of Peggy Guggenheim who he briefly married. Max and his wife, artist Dorothy Tanning were driving across the U.S. and they found Sedona off the beaten path. Max recognized its sacred red rock and surrealist landscapes from his dreams and they moved there. If you know Sedona there was the “Y” intersection and one store the Sedona Market at that intersection, a post office, and a couple of restaurants in those days. Four hundred people lived in Sedona in the 40’s. Max is a fantastic artist who never changed his principles. He invented a number of techniques.
ASTROLOGY
Ernst was an Aries born April 2, 1891 in Bruhl Germany at 10:30 am.
His Moon is in CAPRICORN right on his Descendant and he built the famous Capricorn sculpture in Sedona probably influenced by that.
He had a very creative Venus Jupiter in Pisces conjunction in his 9th house of foreigners, women, arts, spirituality, dreaming. He was married four times to women of different nationalities. This is a bountifully creative and protected lucky aspect
Sun in Airs in his 10th house of worldly fame with Mercury too.
He had an earthy sensual Mars in Taurus and a Neptune Pluto conjunction in Gemini. With Pluto exactly on his North Node. Max was a very old soul who knew what his destiny was to communicate from his soul. He had a dual nature and his mind was very fresh inventive and open. He had the gift of soul communication. With Saturn in Virgo he was a hard-working, simple, perfectionist and quite modest. Uranus at 0 Scorpio trines Venus gave him the gift of being totally unique as an artist. His ideas were ahead of his times, Max was unconventional to his core. He was a true Bohemian. His work is truly fascinating and inspiring.
I am missing Sedona even though I speak to my friends there every day. I cant wait to go back and stay for awhile and lead ceremonies again.
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