A Year of Happenings

To paint an image, or write a story or poem, is to make inchoate ideas or unnameable feelings into tangible realities, to turn them into happenings in my life. 

To create works of art is to prove that however small life with chronic illness may be, there is an unfathomable largeness at the centre of it, from which wonders can emerge, if I allow belief to triumph over doubt.

By making art I circumnavigate that core largeness, not always knowing how to make contact with it, and not brave enough (yet) to enter it wholly, but often siphoning some gift from the depths, some vision from Source that feeds me in ways I do not understand, yet know are vital. Though while my soul is nourished by this work, the hunger always returns, which keeps me continually seeking a way inside, to see what more I can find.

To touch and converse with the largeness I know I must nurture a discipline of withness,* though it seems impossible right now, except perhaps in small, blessed moments. My capacity to receive, to engage, to participate fully, is impaired and diminished. But I do aspire to the discipline—to be a follower–partaker–knower of life’s rhythms—and hope that my heart-mind finds its way back to the experience of connection and possibility I have known before. 

One day, perhaps, I will fall unexpectedly back into grace, and dwell there for a time, where I will make the art I need to make to bring magic back into the world. 

*

The beginnings of the above thoughts came to me one night recently when I couldn't sleep, and they seemed a good way to end this turbulent, uncertain and testing year. 

I feel as if I have made less art, though that isn’t actually true, as I’ve made two more pieces than I did last year. I am, however, less satisfied with a few images, whilst also delighting in the fact that my work is becoming more visually complex, and thus more difficult to create. My problem-solving skills have been put to good use many a time, and I am rising to the challenge of drawing tricky things.

I have also learnt to sew, and have so far made three tops, a skirt and a dress, with more projects in planning, whilst continuing with knitting—including the Deer with Little Antlers Hat by Tiny Owl Knits for my niece! So once more I have achieved more than I realise.

Here are some of my favourite paintings from the year that was:

Matrix

Beneath the Mountain

Our Lady of the Stars

Our Lady of the Seeds

Mundus

Sacred Mountain

There are some exciting things afoot for 2021, so I’m going to devote myself to studio time as much as I can this summer (which hopefully will be much easier to do than it was last summer).

Thank you to all my readers and new followers for accompanying me on my creative journey, and to the people in the US and France who bought some of my work on Redbubble. I will be putting my modest earnings towards art supplies. 

  

Summer/Winter Solstice greetings, and Happy Holidays, however you may or may not celebrate them.

* ‘… a discipline of withness—of seasonal rhythm, of internal bodily rhythm and cyclicity …’ (Monica Sjöö & Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, Harper One: New York, 1987/1991, p. 326)

Capturing The Sky

Capturing the sky in a net as large as universes, complexity within its folds, its weave of colours, forms—light and energy made flesh. The sensuous is the sacred, the mother-matter that is all, and we dwell within Her body like cells of Herself, our own fire mingling with Her’s; our hearts beating with Her’s, blood flowing like rivers, ocean tides, a great breath—in and out, within and without, over and over, inside Her eternity. A constant unfolding is what She is, the change that never ends, the process that draws forth life, and beckons death, and makes the Wheel of Fortune turn, revolving on its axis of Love—the energy of Life, the gravity that merges all together. To hold love in your hands, to feel it in your bones, surging through your blood—a love-stream—is to know true joy and wonder, to have truly lived. To feel is to know, to have words of truth on your tongue. Truly, there is nothing more important than the language of life, its sensuous fabric.

Rivers run and free themselves from the constraints that bind them. They flow where they will, at will, and into my heart, which is nourished by the gush of liquid life, the purity that writes across the landscape in curvaceous lines, the serpent-body of which there is a small part in everything—the double-helix, the blueprint for life, held inside every body, to twist and dance through time, spiralling around in a lover’s dance, rhythmic and Eros-filled, pulsing inside flesh, blood, bone. The breath is a bond that opens us to All, that suffuses our bodies in invisible connection, with each other, and the Divine. Crossing boundaries is how magic happens, to influence events, to know what is beyond us—to perceive the ancient symbiosis of Life. Perception becomes Truth: the sensuous world is what leads us to wisdom. Small beings dart within us—the birds of emotion—winged and glorious, bathed in beauty. What is is sacred, it is whole, and we carry it within ourselves, as it carries us within itself—that great body of reality—full of storm and calm, a terrible beauty, that enlivens and nourishes. We live and die inside Her flesh—and there is nothing more nor less.

Singing the Sky, felt tip pen and gold pigment ink (2018)

The Carpenter’s Wife: A Recreation Story

Lately, I have been feeling quite pessimistic about the state of the world, getting lost in despair over what we are losing, and have already lost, as climate change (amongst other calamities) destabilises and destroys the healthy workings of this fragile blue-green planet. I’ve felt guilt and hopelessness, exacerbated by my own health issues, yes, but tied first and foremost to the fate of the earth. I believe and know that we are connected with the natural world, and that an unhealthy culture and polluted landscape creates unhealthy and unhappy people. (And this is to say nothing of the fact that life itself is in the balance.)

If this is the case, what are we to do about it?

I wish I had easy answers, solutions to all the problems we are faced with as humans, and as earthlings. 

But I’ve been reminded, thanks to Jacqueline, the wise writer of Radical Honey, and this article that she recently shared on Facebook, that the seeing of beauty is radical resistance to despair. And that is, after all, part of what this blog is about—beauty and creativity as an antidote to destruction (and/or illness). So all I can do, at this point, is make my own small offerings of beauty to the world. It won’t solve any problems, but it is a small act of resistance, at least, and for now that will have to do.

Thus, I offer a brief tale of renewal—a different kind of creation story. Since today is the early spring festival of Imbolc, I thought it apt.

This is one of my early stories, written between January and March 2015. I do not think it one of my best—I really dislike the ending—but I think it is full of hope. That is, active hope, based upon taking action to take apart what is damaging (industrial civilisation), and to heal and recreate what is beautiful, joyous and full of the pleasure of life itself.

* * *

The Carpenter's Wife

A Recreation Story

‘I cannot live in this world,’ said the carpenter’s wife. ‘There is too much ugliness and not enough beauty, too much sorrow and not enough joy, too much pain and not enough pleasure. No one speaks with the Earth, with the growing things, with the four-legged ones, the winged ones and the swimming ones. No one speaks with the oceans and the deserts, the rivers and the mountains. There are voices in my head, voices all around me, but no one else seems to hear them. Husband, I cannot live in this world,’ she said, tears glistening in her eyes.

‘Well, this won’t do,’ said the carpenter. ‘I cannot have my wife unhappy. This simply won’t do.’ He rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘My dear, I think there is only one course to take. We will have to dismantle the world, undoing the ugliness and sorrow and pain, and then we can begin anew, creating a new world. We can build and form and magic into being a new place, a new Earth, with beauty and joy and pleasure woven into its fabric. A world in which there are people—such as you, dearest—who will speak with the Earth and the growing things, with the four-legged ones, the winged ones and the swimming ones, the oceans and deserts, rivers and mountains. Many people will hear the voices, nothing will be silent anymore. You will be able to live in this new world, my love.’

The carpenter left his tearful wife and walked out of his humble house into the big world of smog and machines, populated by millions of deaf and blind humans going about their business. As he surveyed the blighted scene before him, he realised with dismay that dismantling this world was going to take a lot of work, so he enlisted the help of his friends: the stonemason, the blacksmith and the magician. Together they combined their skills and strengths, their knowledge of wood, stone, metal and magic, and they began the painstaking task of taking the old world apart, piece by piece. 

They began by deconstructing the skyscrapers, bringing the overbearing towers back down to the earth from the dirty sky, and they broke up the suffocating highways, freeing the lifeless ground underneath so it could breathe again. Then they burst the rigid, blank-faced dam walls that held back the freedom of the rivers, and water gushed out once more like life-giving blood through arteries. They broke the belching, sulphurous smoke stacks into pieces and cleaned the choked air of pollution, and already the Earth held more beauty, joy and pleasure than it had before. 

It seemed to the four men that their work was made much easier because large cracks had already appeared in reality, as if the new world was trying to burst through, for every manmade thing disintegrated at their touch—ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A reinvigorated world was beginning to take shape as concrete and steel crumbled to fine powder, and earth and water and air were liberated from the shackles that had been imposed on them. 

After some time the men found that the great dismantling was complete, so the carpenter, the stonemason, the blacksmith and the magician, weary and sore from their efforts, returned to the carpenter’s house and sat down to rest. The carpenter’s wife, hearty and rosy-cheeked, brought them steaming cups of tea with a twinkle in her eye. 

‘It’s your turn now,’ said the carpenter, happy that his wife was no longer tearful, for now that the men had played their part, it was time for the women to make their contribution to the reconstruction, the recreation of the world. 

The carpenter’s wife went out and called her friends: the stonemason’s wife, the blacksmith’s wife, and the witch, and together they combined their skills and strengths, for all women are skilled in creation and womancraft, and all women are strong. Swirling out from their dextrous hands came an alchemy of earth, water, air and fire, and the most important ingredient—love—and this enchantment obliterated what was left of the old world and replaced it with interwoven strands of beauty, joy and pleasure.

The new world that sprung from the women’s hands and hearts had green things growing out with snaking tendrils to cover the land, vast breathing forests like green lungs, meandering rivers wandering sedately or splashing wildly to the deep sea, and majestic mountain peaks that caressed the crystalline blue sky. It had four-legged ones, winged ones and swimming ones, creatures with fur and sharp teeth, feathers and slippery scales, who helped to chirp, howl, grunt and sing the Earth into life. There was snow and wind and rain, and flowers blossoming in the sunshine. Moon-bright nights and fragrant days. A marriage of every element.

Surrounded by all this wonder, the humans were no longer deaf and blind. Now there were wise women and men who spoke with the Others and listened to their wise and wild counsel, forming new friendships to ensure that the newly made world of beauty, joy and pleasure would endure and flourish.

The carpenter’s wife, the stonemason’s wife, the blacksmith’s wife and the witch looked upon what had been created and they saw that the world was filled with all manner of wondrous things. They spoke with the Earth, with the growing things, with the four-legged ones, winged ones and swimming ones, the oceans and deserts, the rivers and mountains, and all the Others said they were satisfied with their new home. The women saw that their work was finally done, and weary and sore, but elated as well, they stopped to rest, returning home to join the men who were enjoying their steaming cups of tea.

‘We can all live in this world,’ said the carpenter’s wife, smiling at last. 

* * *

I can’t for the life of me remember why I decided to write about a carpenter—only that the first line of this story came to me, and I tried to allow it to be what it needed to be. I think perhaps, in writing of carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths and magicians/witches, I was remembering what Jay Griffiths wrote in Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape (2013):

As a child, when I pictured the Middle Ages I could see who everyone was: a woodcutter with his axe, a merchant selling satins, a farmer or a weaver. People’s activities and their trades were graspable, visible and knowable, unlike careers in finance, project management, or consultancy, which are incomprehensible to children [and to me!]. Where there were unknowns, in the Middle Ages, they were known unknowns, the secret magic of witch, healer, seer and wizard … In terms of landscape, the Middle Ages told me of a finite, knowable village and an infinite and knownly unknowable beyond, and both glimmered with appeal. No plastic. Things were handmade and crafted, unprocessed and unfactoried. Everything was itself and was knowably makeable, findable, buildable. Everything came from the known earth around: leather, wood, wax, honey and apples. Things known, in this sense, shade into being close, intimate and beloved: this is not about information but relationship. (pp. 276–277)

The carpenter, stonemason and blacksmith represent trades/crafts that deal with tangible, handmade things: wood, stone and metal; while the magician and witch add the crucial element of magic, which is as much a part of the physical world as anything else. 

I’m not convinced that stone and metal, being non-renewables, are truly sustainable (and certainly timber used faster than it can be replaced is not). Yet there is a big difference, for instance, in the blacksmith plying his trade at the edge of the village, making horseshoes and shovels, compared with the building of massive skyscrapers which require tons upon tons of steel. One is small-scale, indeed, human-scaled, and still attached to the earth; the other is massive, industrial and completely artificial.

I think I also thought that if these men are ‘makers’, they can also be ‘unmakers’, and tear everything down. Initially I had them doing that work, as well as the recreation, and that caused the story to stall for a while. I needed a couple of months to realise that it is right and proper for the men to take apart the unnatural world they have created, but that it should be the women—the ones who had always stood behind the men, merely as ‘wives’—who should now step forward, moving from passive to active, to put things right again. 

I am seeing much that suggests that something to that effect will indeed take place. If we do manage to survive what is coming, it will be women, and supportive men, who will be the creators of the new cultures that take us beyond this time of endings, and into a brighter (though difficult) future. 

I don’t like the ending of my story—too simplistic? Too twee?—but I do hope it will come true.

Imbolc Blessings!

Connection: Writing as Magic

I subtitled Offerings from the Wellspring, ‘A blog about creativity and connection in a living world’, for an important reason.

‘Creativity’ is self-explanatory. This space is both creative tool and outlet, where I can share my writing, my art, my attempts at living creatively.

As for ‘a living world’, of course, this world and everything in it is alive, sentient, capable of communication and relationship. My ideas in this area have been particularly influenced by David Abram’s extraordinary and mind-blowing books, which explore, academically and poetically, the concept of animism (in terms of language, perception and embodiedness). I try as much as I can, to think and act from this animistic perspective. Not very well, I freely admit, but perhaps that is a story for another day.

But it is the word ‘connection’ that I am led to explain further. I have mentioned it before, in a piece I wrote for Writers in the Mist last August, in which I said: 

The word ‘connection’ has three meanings in this context: (i) the interconnectedness of everything, and the necessity of forming relationships, not just with humans, but also with nonhumans and the earth (principles I try to keep in mind as much as I can); (ii) the connections and friendships that can potentially be formed by sharing my work with other bloggers and readers from all over the world; and, (iii) the connections that I love to find in my writing and other creative work, such as when a resonant concept in a nonfiction book I have just read pops up in a novel, giving me something to explore and write about; or when a series of separate ideas or events join together to form a story.

And of course these three meanings are … ahem … connected.

It has been important to remind myself of this because I’ve been doing a bit more writing lately, flooding pages in my notebook with words, when for several months the words had only been coming in drips and drops. As I began to enjoy the process once more—no matter the quality, or lack thereof, of what I was producing—I started to realise that what I have been missing and craving is connection.

I wrote a poem not long ago—which I am holding safely under my wing for the time being—and that poem emerged from many connections: a feeling, an intriguing word, a few sentences I had written down a year ago, word meanings, synonyms and etymology … words leading to other words … images accumulating … until the poem surfaced, whole. I am proud of it.

There is something about the creative process which thrives on, requires, connections. Perhaps that is all it is: finding connections, and expressing them. Words strung like pearls on a necklace, threads of imagery woven into larger pictures, thoughts catching hold of other thoughts. When ideas are coming thick and fast, and I find my way from nothing to something, I feel so very alive, so very wild, like I am dwelling within a magical—yet entirely natural—process that is unfolding because of my engagement and interactions with it. 

Then I think of this: ‘Modern sickness is that of disconnection, the ego unable to feel an organic part of the world, except via chemical and popular culture addictions.’ (1) Yet we are an organic part of the world, our bodies and souls made of the very same stuff, from stardust to birdsong. That we forget this, or are no longer able to perceive it, is one of the tragedies of modern life. We are disconnected, and made ill and unhappy because of it. 

I often think of this quote from Abram: ‘… we are human only in contact and conviviality, with what is not human’. (2)

Though we are human, and think in (usually very limited) human ways, we do not exist in a vacuum, surrounded only by what is human, only by our selves. It can be easy to think this sometimes, living as we do in square-walled human constructions, with human-made (thus unnatural) conveniences like electricity and running water; or living only in our heads, in a disembodied intellectual state which we have come to believe is normal. In these ways we are physically (and psychically) disconnected from the weather outside, from fresh air, from other creatures, and from the natural world as a whole, with its cycles and transformations. We’re also disconnected from our own bodies. Thus, life ends up feeling static and empty of meaning, and we turn to the ‘modern addictions’ to alleviate this, merely making the problem worse.

We can only define ourselves as human by differentiating ourselves from what is not human, what is not us. Everything that we perceive and experience—the wind whipping our hair about, the shape and solidity of a tree, the velvety ears of a dog or cat—serves to tell us what we are not, what our bodily boundaries are. I think this is part of what Abram meant in the above quote. Yet there is so much more to it, for ‘contact’ is connection, and ‘conviviality’ is friendliness, relationship. We can’t just define ourselves as human based on what is ‘other’, but must connect with those others, those nonhuman beings and landscapes. This implies a need for engagement, observation, interaction and, importantly, empathy. In doing this, we learn how to be human, how to exist as part of, not disconnected from, the more-than-human community; how to speak with and learn from nonhumans and the land, and hopefully, how to be better humans. 

This is why we need what is not human, for it is the nonhuman world that creates us, not to mention the fact that nonhumans are, literally, our kin, and meant to be our teachers. This knowledge should humble us. And this is why the extinction of every species, the destruction of every natural place, is so great a loss. As we diminish the diversity of the earth, we diminish the family of life and ourselves, lessening our chances of becoming fully human animals.

I should say that this idea of contact and conviviality applies to nonhumans as much as it does to us. A wild creature is not just the body that contains it, but the sum of all of its interactions with the world: with its habitat, with others of its kind, with predators or prey, with earth or treetop, water or sky. Divorced from that wild context, and say, put in a zoo, a wild creature ceases to be what it is. And tamed and held captive in our houses, perhaps we are the same. Disconnected. Hollow.

While we do have a physical boundary, that of our skin, which contains us as a discrete person, a certain shape in the world, and a personal mind or consciousness, at the same time I believe we can, and do, extend ourselves beyond this dividing line. This is part of what animistic perception is about: letting the rest of the world in, and projecting ourselves out into it, physically and psychically. With each inhalation we let air (Spirit) into our bodies, with its myriad scents carrying the essence of other beings—the perfume of violets, the scent of coming rain, the musty decay of autumn leaves. Sounds enter our ears and cause physical and emotional responses, whether it be a memory arising from hearing a favourite song, or a slammed door making us jump. We feel gloomy on an overcast day, or have a sense of expansiveness and freedom when standing at a high vantage point. I believe that even thoughts, ideas and dreams cannot be claimed as merely human phenomena, as they come from elsewhere, perhaps given to us by a place, a tree, a bird, a feeling which was engendered by something outside of us (and who’s to say that nonhumans don’t think and dream too?). What we see, hear, feel, smell, experience, walk through, play with, eat, and so on, gives rise to who and what we are.

It is often said that language is what separates humans from nonhumans, though this isn’t quite true. Language, that is, the ability to communicate, exists independent of words (and independent of humans too). Though there is something in the notion that human language, particularly the written word, is one of the key things that has severed our connection with the natural world; Abram deals with this idea throughout his book, The Spell of the Sensuous. Yet, though he believes that a return to oral culture is greatly needed (and a return to living in our sensuous bodies also), his conclusion is not that writing is bad. It is, in fact, its own very concentrated form of animism. He said in an interview:

Everything that we speak of as Western civilization we could speak of as alphabetic civilization. We are the culture of the alphabet, and the alphabet itself could be seen as a very potent form of magic. You know, we open up the newspaper in the morning and we focus our eyes on these little inert bits of ink on the page, and we immediately hear voices and we see visions and we experience conversations happening in other places and times. That is magic!

[…]

I'm not trying to demonize the alphabet at all. I don't think the alphabet is bad. What I'm trying to get people to realize is that it's a very intense form of magic. And that it therefore needs to be used responsibly. I mean, it's not by coincidence that the word "spell" has this double meaning — to arrange the letters in the right order to form a word, or to cast a magic. To spell a word, or to cast a magic spell. These two meanings were originally one and the same. In order to use this new technology, this new play of written shapes on the page, to learn to write and to read with the alphabet, was actually to learn a new form of magic, to exercise a new form of power in the world.

But it also meant casting a kind of spell on our own senses. Unless we recognize writing as a form of magic, then we will not take much care with it. It's only when we recognize how profoundly it has altered our experience of nature and the rest of the sensory world, how profoundly it has altered our senses, that we can begin to use writing responsibly because we see how potent and profound an effect it has. (3)

Writing is magic. I feel this is so, based on what it has done for me, bringing me from a nowhere/nothing place, back to life. It has helped me to heal, to find myself once more. Creativity itself is a spiritual practice, and therefore necessary and meaningful. Thus, in not writing for some time, really delving deep into my inner life, my wellspring, I began to feel disconnected, from myself as well as the world. Without writing, I wasn’t finding the connections that enliven me, that bring meaning. 

I’ve said before, I want to write myself back into relationship with the world, to let my imagination spill out of the boundaries of my own body, yet to write in a fully embodied way too. When I am unable to go out into the world, I can at least invite the world to come to me. I want to write for and from the earth, not just for and from myself, and this implies responsibility. And if everything is interconnected—and it is!—then the connections are already there, always there. It’s just a matter of opening up to them. This means that writing itself is about connection, about engagement with the world—intellectually, intuitively and sensuously—even though, paradoxically, the life of a writer may seem, from the outside, so very full of solitude and withdrawal. 

And so here I am at the end of a long and rambling essay, because I started writing, and connections found me, and wanted to be written. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say, or where I was going to end up, and perhaps this doesn’t make as much sense as it should, filled as it is with my sometimes vague philosophical musings. Yet this needed to be said, the connections forming on the page, and reminding me—writing is magic.

References:

1. Monica Sjöö & Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, second edition, HarperOne: New York, 1987, 1991, p. 29

2. David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World, Vintage: New York, 1996, p. ix

3. Scott London, ‘The Ecology of Magic: An Interview with David Abram’, http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/abram.html

Secret Names

In a post on the Dark Mountain Blog called The Ecology of Language, Abbie Simmonds writes:

Mythologist Martin Shaw encourages his students to develop a practice of giving twelve secret names to the plants, animals or ‘things’ they encounter in nature and to speak those names out loud. He comments that ‘inventive speech appears to be a kind of catnip to the living world’ — an enlivening force. And surely it must be seen that those that love and know the land they live upon have a hundred names for snow or twenty different names [for] mud or, at the very least, three different names for the garden robin. In giving something a name, we deepen our relationship with it and in finding many names we find ourselves watching, listening, thinking more deeply about that bird, plant, flower or bug — by engaging through language, we come to know it better. 

Must those names always be secret, though? 

Perhaps sometimes, for they are our own personal way of forming relationships with the Others, and those relationships will often be private, intimate, not to be intruded upon. Our own special connection to the more-than-human world. There is a kind of magic in that.

Yet I have decided to share my twelve names for the eastern spinebill, a little bird who tends to be nearby all through the summer, but who I only really come to see up close in autumn, around March and April.

Whir-Winged Piper

Flight Magician

Brown Honey Sip

Singer of Wing and Throat

Faster-than-Sight Traveller

Slip Through Air Sprite

White-Breasted Flitter

Autumn Friend

Flutter Guest

Marvel Eye

Visitor of My Heart

One I Welcome

I challenge you to come up with some of your own secret names for the creatures and the landscape around you, to speak them out loud, and make your own magic.