The Byte:Chris Hodge~Magic Happens When You Least Expect It!

Chris tells the story of the loss of his beloved cousin, and how the art he was working on in those dark days saved him. But really, it was what happened on the day of the celebration of his cousin's life--what he saw that day changed everything!

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Bite-Sized Blessings podcast.

I just wanted to revisit why this podcast is in the world.

I wanted during the pandemic to remind people that life is both mysterious and beautiful and I thought I would reach out to everyone I knew to see if they had had experiences that they couldn't explain.

Well soon people were coming out of the woodwork with all sorts of stories of magic,

Of miracles,

Of things that were totally mysterious.

And so I'm so very excited to introduce to you this week another dear friend of mine from my hometown where he teaches art,

Chris Hodge.

And Chris is completely hilarious.

I adore him.

He's the bee's knees.

Let me read you a little bit about Chris.

He's been working on art since he was very young and he incorporates various symbols and thoughts into his artwork.

His body of work has been described as obsessive narrative,

Articulating his imagination while allowing for the work to take a life of its own.

He has the best sense of humor,

Is a sci-fi fan,

And in general just an incredible human being.

I was so very grateful that he agreed and said yes to being on the podcast and he did say at the end of our interview that he had lots more stories to share.

So hopefully in the future he and I will get together again and create another podcast.

I can't wait to introduce him to you.

So here he is,

Here I am,

In another episode of the podcast.

My cousin,

Who I look at as being very young,

33,

Had passed away earlier in the year.

I was already going through some things.

I was already feeling sad about some other interpersonal things and it just it really kind of hit me,

You know.

I'm like,

Oh my god,

What the heck.

I can't put it,

She's like,

She's the first of my generation to pass or like my,

I don't know how you put it,

Group,

People group,

You know,

Like she's my cousin and it was like a real shock.

More recently,

And I do think that sometimes there's like coincidences,

But it's like these events that line up in time have meaning for the people involved and even though,

Yeah,

It was just this thing or maybe science could explain this event or maybe there's like some explanation,

Right?

But it's like,

It's the fact that it happened when it did,

When you were going through what you were going through and how you interpreted that thing,

Which is what really makes it like miraculous,

Right?

And so like my cousin,

Who I look at as being very young,

33,

Had passed away earlier in the year and I was already going through some things.

I was already feeling sad about some other like interpersonal things and like it just,

It really kind of hit me,

You know,

I'm like,

Oh my god,

What the heck,

I can't put it,

She's like,

She's the first of like my generation to pass or like my,

I don't know how you put it,

Group,

People group,

You know,

Like she's my cousin and I,

It was like a real shock.

And,

And I,

You know,

I miss her very much.

And it was hard.

You know,

There's some things that happened there that were also miraculous,

But I'm not going to go into like,

Some of the details of that.

But I will tell you that after she passed,

I started doing this drawing of Jesus.

And I just felt it was something that I had started drawing about 10 or 15 years ago.

It just sat like it just sat like against the wall and kind of like looked at me like,

When are you going to finish me?

And I have a lot of drawings like that,

You know,

I have a lot of ideas I've just kind of left on a wall or left it,

You know,

Put it in a corner,

Like someday,

Someday I'm going to come back and I'm going to finish this idea,

You know,

I'm gonna finish this,

This,

This one.

And I had this like whole vision of what it was going to be was it was Jesus as the tree of life.

And so it's like,

He's on kind of like a cross ish kind of thing.

But it's really a tree in the drawing.

And he has like branches that are like growing out of him.

And there's fruit.

And it's sort of going back almost like the Garden of Eden where you have like that,

You know,

That myth,

I don't want to say mythical,

But like you have the story of the tree of life.

And you know,

How you eat of this tree and like you live forever,

Right?

Like,

You know,

You elude time at that point.

And,

You know,

I do believe that we're going somewhere.

And I do believe that Jesus kind of represents this,

Like redemption and ourself,

That will maybe allow us to experience time,

Like in a very different way,

Right?

You know,

It's like you were talking about,

Like,

How we're creatures of time,

Time is very linear for us.

But it's like almost like a dimensional thing.

You know,

Like,

If you were like,

A two dimensional being in like a three dimensional world,

You wouldn't experience the world the same way,

You know,

Everything would be shapes,

You wouldn't see the form of it,

Like you wouldn't see it.

And really all you wouldn't really see what it really was,

You know,

If I had like a,

Like a,

There's a candle,

I put like a candle down,

And I were two dimensional,

I would go around this like a circle.

Well,

That's a circle that's round,

You know,

It's a circle,

But really,

It's not that,

You know,

If you experience life in the third dimension,

You see,

It's like a cylinder.

So it's bigger.

I think that's true for time to where it's that we see it in this very narrow plane,

You know,

We're only able to experience time,

In the time that we're in,

You know,

However long or short that is.

And,

You know,

We learned about history,

We might have ideas of the future,

But you really only occupy the space that moment,

You know,

And that moment moments always moving.

And then when it's done,

It's done.

And it's my belief,

Or my hope,

That at some point,

You'll be able to experience time separately,

That you'll join that fourth dimension or that other reality,

Where you'll see everything all at once.

And so anyway,

So I'm like going through a lot of stuff,

And I'm drawing this drawing,

I found out my cousin had passed.

And so I don't really like start drawing the picture.

And it just shocked me,

Because I just looked at like a Facebook post of where she was happy,

You know,

Having like coffee with her daughter and their friends for a birthday was that like a coffee shop in Geneva.

And it was just so wonderful,

You know,

And I was like,

Oh,

I'm like,

Happy,

You know,

Like,

It's nice to see her and her family and like,

And then she died that night.

And I'm like,

Oh,

My God,

You know,

And just like,

Just shocked me.

It's like,

I'm looking at a picture of her.

And I get the email that she had passed.

I go back and I'm like,

Look at this post.

And I'm like,

What,

Like,

How?

How is this like,

Reality,

And I was already going through some stuff.

And that just like,

Tanked me,

You know,

And I just felt like I've got to do this drawing.

I did put her initials as like one of the fruit in the tree of life.

And you know,

I can share these pictures with you like later,

You know,

See if you want to like,

Have them tagged or put in or however you want to do that.

But um,

Anyway,

So that was rough.

I got through like winter break.

And I just I was kind of drawing a lot of sad drawings,

You know,

Just like kind of working through this and I started this like series of birds.

I think you will you saw them there at that art show in Batavia.

And in that kind of started I visited my sister in Tennessee and I hadn't seen her for a while.

And of course,

Like,

You know,

My cousin was like,

Like one of her like best friends growing up.

It's just like,

Oh my god,

I can't believe all of this.

And I got it was so nice being some time with my sister and her husband or two puppies.

And my sister's like,

Hey,

She had my mom paint her this composition of a raven holding a little scroll with memento mori written on it,

You know,

Remember,

You'll die.

She's like,

Hey,

I'd like you to draw that for me.

And I'm like,

Really?

I mean,

I don't want to like upset mom,

Though,

Like mom just painted this painting,

You know,

You want me to like draw this.

And I brought like a lot of dry materials with me as I always do.

And that's what I did.

You know,

And I drew it.

My sister liked it.

And I drew a second one,

Which was like a dove in a sort of like the the other part of it,

You know,

So you have like this kind of darker scene with these like kind of brooding trees and this raven holding this like scroll with this like reminder that like,

Life is short.

And you know,

You better like figure things out,

Right?

You better like resolve and like,

You know,

Make amends and,

You know,

Redeem yourself in however way you need to make it.

And then you had the dove.

And that was sort of like life,

Like life ongoing.

And that one,

The Latin,

As I use,

Like all these like Latin phrases,

That was the light of the world,

Sort of like this idea of like redemption,

And maybe like the sick afterlife,

And like,

You know,

Maybe there's something else.

And I kept doing these birds,

Though,

Because I was sad,

You know,

And it wasn't just I mean,

There are a lot of things were happening.

I was like questioning a lot of things about myself.

I was questioning just a lot,

You know,

Maybe it's a midlife crisis,

But I was like working through some things that were something interpersonal things.

And I got to my cousin's memorial.

Now,

This is the miracle part,

Right.

And it was like the day of her memorial,

Because they didn't have it like right away.

And it was like,

Maybe that maybe I shouldn't say it's like a memorial,

It's like a celebration of life.

And it was a very,

Very cold day.

And I'm working on these birds.

And I'm sad.

I'm sad for a lot of reasons.

But I'm sad.

And,

And I got I got about it was about halfway through at that point in the series,

I was I was gonna need 12 in total.

And like a calendar.

But like,

I was like,

Kind of like debating on which one to start next,

You know,

Like,

What's,

What am I doing next?

And it was the morning of the memorial,

We had like,

Went out to like,

Pick up a few things.

And we came back to my parents house.

And there was a red cardinal that was perched on the railing.

And,

And I had a cardinal in mind.

It's not like I didn't think of a cardinal,

But I really nothing was like set in stone yet.

Like I was just like sketching up like different compositions and having different ideas.

And I just like looking at this,

Like cardinal,

It was just like such a cold day.

It was so cold.

It was so gray.

Just,

Just ice,

You know,

No color.

You know,

This like vibrant cardinal sitting on the perched on this railing.

And I'm like,

I tried to get my phone out to take a picture.

But it was like one of those things where it's like,

I don't want to like miss this moment,

Though,

You know,

Because it's like,

I'm gonna spend all this time trying to get this started,

I'm gonna miss this cardinal.

And so I just kind of waited,

And then the cardinal flew away.

But it was really beautiful.

And then I was like,

That's,

That's what I gotta do.

I gotta,

I gotta draw the cardinal now,

You know,

And then we went to the memorial.

And it was nice,

Actually,

It was nice,

Like talking to everybody.

I don't know that you really have like closure always on things,

But it felt good,

Like reconnecting.

And I felt like I I'm like,

I need to do this drawing,

You know,

And so now I'll be honest with you.

I didn't realize the significance of cardinals.

Until later,

I drew the cardinal,

I posted it online,

Right?

And as I do,

Because you know,

I like to have that,

That dopamine hit from all the likes and everything,

You know,

That feedback loop,

But like,

I,

So I posted it,

And then all these people started talking about like,

How it's like,

Represents like the spirit of a loved one,

Or it's like,

You know,

Someone who maybe just passed who's like visiting.

And I was like,

Oh,

I didn't know,

I didn't know any of that.

And I'm like,

Wow,

Like looking back,

The timing of this thing,

Right?

Like,

It's like,

I was like,

One,

I was like,

Searching for like,

What am I going to draw next?

I'm in this mood,

The state already,

My cousin had passed,

We're going to Memorial,

This cardinal lands.

And again,

I have no understanding of the significance of all this,

But all those things came together.

And then it wasn't until later,

It was like revealed to me that,

Hey,

You know,

There might have been some symbolism involved with this,

You know,

Maybe this is God,

Like tapping on your shoulder,

Or letting you know something.

So I would,

I would call that a miraculous thing.

Some people would call that like a coincidence.

But,

You know,

I'm going to read into it a little bit.

All right,

Everyone,

There is my episode with the incredible Chris Hodge.

I hope you loved every second.

And I so adore introducing you to some of the incredible human beings that I know in this world.

He's such an impeccable storyteller,

And incredible artist.

Please do consider leaving a review or writing a little rating.

This labor of love of mine,

I'm trying to get it to as many people as possible.

And those ratings and reviews help other people find it.

I need to thank Chris for being such a wonderful human being.

And then I need to say,

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Chris.

Be enchanted with the world.

I know we covered a lot in this episode.

But what I keep coming back to Chris is his belief in the numinous,

His belief in the mystery,

His belief in magic in the world,

And that we're all heading somewhere.

This is all intentional.

This creation has meaning.

And guess what?

What we create in this world,

It has meaning as well.

So be like Chris,

Have faith in the beauty in the world.

And I think pretty soon,

Or at least I suspect pretty soon,

The world will become more beautiful for you as well.

See you next week for the very next episode of the podcast.

And until then,

I hope your life is filled with magic,

With mystery,

And strangers who ultimately become your friends.