Cici Artemisia shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Cici, we’re so happy to have you here with us and we’d love to explore your story and how you think about life and legacy and so much more. So let’s start with a question we often ask: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
What I’m most proud of building this lifetime is a balanced sense of self. Nobody sees the work, the joys, the sorrows, the trauma, the raging, the release, the forgiving, the recalibrating and letting go that have all resulted in the peace that I have access to now. I may not always remember it’s there in the moment, but I always find my way back to it these days. No matter what.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Cici and I am a mother, grandmother, artist and musician. For most of my life, I worked as a singer-songwriter, playing acoustic guitar and singing, either solo or with bands. I got my first paying gig at the age of 14, and I continued playing out for 50 years. Yes, I said 50. I’m in my 60’s now, and just sold my PA system two years ago, before I took off on a pilgrimage to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I wasn’t feeling inspired to play anymore, so I let go of all of that. I barely play anymore at all. For so many years I lived and breathed it, 24/7. But now I just look at my guitar hanging on the wall, and wonder if /when I’ll pick it up again. I do have a few new songs left unrecorded, and I feel there might be one more album (can I even use that term anymore?) inside me, but I’m not in a rush.
I studied fine arts, mostly painting, in college, and I have always done that on the side. I’ve always had an art room, and when I was raising my children (I had 4 of them), the art room was definitely taken over with their wonderful creativity. But somewhere around 2000, I started painting on canvas again rather seriously, until the visual arts took precedence over the music. I’ve been showing and selling my paintings and prints for the past ten years or so.
With both the art and the music, the original impulse to create is always personal. It’s a form of healing and balancing myself, and I consider that it’s truest purpose. But then, I have found it is incredibly gratifying when someone else sees/hears/gets it, and I feel so lucky that I’ve been able to make a life out of sharing the depths of myself through my art with others.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Well, I’m about to get real, so if you can’t handle difficult subjects, you can stop reading here.
I was sexually abused as a very young child, until the age of 5. So that taught me a lot of twisted and painful lies about myself that I have spent my entire life dissolving. The good news is, I have. But at first I felt utterly worthless and unseen. In many ways, my music career was a response to that: They see me! They hear me! They like me! I must be ok after all, right?
Of course, learning self-love through performance is a very long road, and instead, I had a sort of break down when all the memories broke through in my early 30’s. I went through flashbacks and PTSD and relived the trauma for about 15 very difficult years. But I was writing songs about what I was going through–in the deep of the night, when I couldn’t call my therapist or an ally, I would turn to music, and wrestle with my feelings there, and finally get some peace.
Around the year 2000, I was invited to share some of those songs at a conference on healing and creativity, and that started a part of my career I never could have imagined. Those songs were so deeply personal, and I never dreamed I would ever sing them in front of an audience. But when I did, the resonance with the audience was so powerful that I accepted the next invitation when it came. I ended up creating something I called The Journey to Wholeness Project, where I told my story through spoken word and song to people all over the country. Mostly I shared with other survivors of childhood trauma and their support networks. I even sang at the NIH for the Surgeon General of the United States’ Summit on Child Abuse in 2005.
So, my abuse started so early that I can’t say I was a free and happy child before the world got a hold of me. But these days, I live the quote I heard from Tom Robbins: It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
🙂
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
Well, I chose this question, because I just answered it in the last one;-).
But I can go deeper. What I learned in those years was that the only way out was through. Running from the memories only led me further from myself, into drugs, into bad relationships, into delusion. It was only when I turned around and faced myself that the shackles started coming off. The cloak of shame that I wore at all times started to loosen, and these days, it’s gone. My Journey to Wholeness Project was not about child abuse, it was about transcending everything that had happened to me, and finding the gifts in all of it.
During the most brutal event, at the age of five, I left my body. I found myself floating in space, with beautiful stars all around me, but most significantly, a feeling of utter calm, peace, and safety. I knew I was fine. And in that moment, at the age of five, I learned that I am not just a body. I am so much more. And no matter what happens to this body of mine, I, the true I, MySelf, can never be harmed. That was the start of my spiritual journey this lifetime. There are those who say that’s just a psychological response, a delusion. But to me, no. It was my great truth making itself known. And I’ve followed its thread all of my life.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is more and more the authentic me. In fact, that right there is my only goal these days: like the Velveteen Rabbit, I guess, I just want to become real. Because I believe that is the most evolved thing I can do. In my experience, it is true what they say about spiritual development: it’s not about learning anything new, or shining up and perfecting any of the old parts. It’s about letting go of everything and anything that is false in me. Because that safe, contented, whole being that was floating in space while my body was being traumatized back on earth, that was the True Me. My Soul, my True Essence. It needed nothing else. And now, at this end of my life, I’m beginning to experience the magic of that — actually living from that space here in my body. Both human and divine at the same time. It’s accessible to all of us.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
What I hope people say about me when I’m gone is that I made them feel good. That I reminded them of the best in themselves, and that they are full of potentials. That I brought Light into the room, and a whisper from their own Souls that they are so much more than they have ever before imagined.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.http://ciciart.com
- Instagram: @ciciartemisia
- Facebook: Cici Artemisia
