The Rainbow Child Interview with June Moon Q:What led you to write The Coming of the Rainbow Child (RBC)? June Moon: I have always been way too emotional for my own good, and I learned early not to trust life to take care of me. To survive as a teenager, I started a journal of suicidal thoughts and poetry expressing my pain and a longing for death’s relief. This became the first half of RBC story I wrote about spiritual awakening. My father was killed when I was 10 years old. My mother was left hopelessly depressed, with five kids still at home, and no money. I learned to hide away from the world. I literally hid in the closet to avoid school, while (my mother) cried in her room. By the time I was 17 I couldn't take it anymore. I started writing a journal to help me find a reason to live, or to be an epitaph for my friends. I locked myself in a closet naked for a day and demanded from God a reason why I should stay alive. To my surprise I got an answer, and what was funny was how personal it felt. This very clear voice came into my head and said, "You are not ready for this, but since you won't shut up I'll tell you. We are created by love for love, we are the expression of Love, we are Love." In that instant I knew we are all immortal and we would always know each other. I had a sense that everything would be all right and I just needed to do art. I wasn't much of an artist, but that vision is the purpose of my art. Eventually the high of the vision wore off and I returned to my feelings of hopelessness, but this time I knew I had to stay alive. Q: Who is Gary and why is RBC dedicated to him? JM: Three years after that my oldest brother Gary committed suicide. I had hardly spoken to him, because he enlisted in the Vietnam War and I was very anti-war. He was so sad and I did nothing for him. I felt I had failed him as a sister, and that is why the book is dedicated to him. Besides being a testament to the vision I had in the closet, I hoped RBC might keep someone else from having to kill themselves. In 1979, when I was 24 years old, I took the journal to a cabin by a lake and spent two weeks writing the book using some of the best poetry in the book and my vision of Love. I just knew I had to write it. Afterwards my friends didn't really understand it, I think they thought I was a little crazy. One interesting thing about the book is that the original (manuscript) was immediately lost the man I was selling paintings to in California. He said he couldn't understand the story, and then it disappeared. All I had left was a poor quality copy. Then I just kind of forgot about it and went on with my art and tried to express the vision in paintings instead of words, and here we are in 2011 and I just knew I had to redo RBC. Q: Has The Coming of the Rainbow Child changed or evolved since 1979? JM: The RBC started as a journal of suicidal thoughts, but also of some hopes and dreams. Even in my most depressed states I always felt there was more than this. This is the first time I have reworked the format of the book, and I have left out a few pages that were too confusing or too preachy. I didn't want to change the story too much and I think the abridged copy keeps the original spirit. I cut out the images from the book and placed them on new backgrounds. I hand painted the letters in the first half of the story with the original images cut out and placed by the text. Then I recolored and cut out each word from the second half, which adds a little dimension. Q. What’s next? JM. I have explored different religions, their symbols and deities. I am especially attracted to Hindu and Tibetan art. I ended up focusing on Mandalas or Visual Prayers to center and heal myself. The Shri Yantra is the cosmic sound of AUM in a visual pattern of unfolding triangles. From the Bindi or Spark of God from the center of the Sri Yantra unfold 9 overlapping triangles representing the male and female energies of life. The Flaming Heart is a symbol of the alchemy of the spirit being born from this life of joy and sorrow: The transformation of matter into spirit. That out of this life of pain comes a joy we cannot imagine a place of true love that is our destiny as spiritual beings, but it is so far from this world's reality that we can only glimpse it. Raised as a conservative Lutheran, I had to paint Laughing Jesus. To me, to see Jesus laugh is to get what he was all about. The transcendence of joy over sorrow/life over death, knowing we are all immortal. Romantically obsessed, I painted about true love hoping that I could draw it in, to no avail. The last in that series is called Unrequited Love showing how energy gets blocked and cannot flow freely when our obsessions get the best of us. I did a series of Left-Handed / Eyes-Closed works to loosen me up for fun. I painted Quetzacoatl the Aztec Mayan God that is to return in 2012 and bring a balance of Male and Female energy back to the planet for a time of peace and psychic awareness, not the end of the world. My newer pieces are more personal expressions of my feelings, my favorite being Sorrow Is Beauty which represents my emotions filling up and overflowing and joining the tears that are the fabric of the Universe.