Matrix (An Homage to Meinrad Craighead)

These are certainly strange times we are living through, and uncertainty is likely to be with us for some months to come. This, therefore, is a small offering, a creation long in the making, that I hope brings some solace—and if not that, at least a temporary distraction from the anxiety-laden news.

There are a number of inspiration-threads to this work. I will try to weave them together as best I can here.

Matrix, watercolours on gesso prepared card (2020)

As lunar symbolism has been a core part of my art over the past year, the ‘triple goddess’ symbol has often been on my mind. 

☽◯☾

While there may be some dispute surrounding the authenticity or validity of this symbol and concept in a contemporary sense, there is no doubt that there were numerous threefold goddesses in ancient times (the Fates, for instance), and that their triune nature is embodied by the lunar cycle, and vice versa. Thus the number three has symbolic (and, for me, aesthetic) significance. In my studies of Neolithic cultures it also came to my attention that very similar symbols can be found, such as this one from Knowth, Ireland (1), indicating that the roots of this image are very deep indeed.

In my explorations I came across ‘Lunulae / Crescents in Ancient Europe’ by Max Dashu, which displays some beautiful examples of the crescent moon/horn shape across time and cultures. It’s hard to believe that there isn’t some kind of ongoing meaning behind this symbol, though much remains a mystery. As Dashu says, ‘This whole post is about questions, not conclusions’. 

Messenger of the Invisible

Further searching led me to the lunitsa (‘little moon’)—the same symbol, inverted, and said to represent a bird (though the moon too), in ancient Slavic cultures, from shamanic ‘bird culture’ origins (2). I’m not sure of the veracity of this claim, and its almost impossible to find more in-depth information, though it does fit with the symbolism of Old Europe, and likely has some connection to it. Additionally, Phoenix of Elder Mountain says, ‘The moon and bird are the oldest pre-pagan female symbol for the emotional body, the feminine and the moon. Its a dual symbol which symbolizes the “soul bird” and the moon.’ All of this reminds me of my painting Messenger of the Invisible, which suggests that the lunula-bird has been subconsciously at work in me for some time.

Rainmaker

Since the aim with my art is not to create an image that is historically accurate, but rather to work intuitively and synthesise numerous influences into symbols that have meaning for me, the above information was enough to get ideas flowing. (Though it is always nice when the symbols naturally fall into place based on what we know of ancient realities, however disputed they may be—and more often than not, they do!)

If the lunitsa is a bird, I knew I would echo it with the snake, since the bird and snake are so entwined now in my mind. The snake would be an answering crescent, much like the serpent who arches like a rainbow, flowing with life-giving water, in my painting Rainmaker.

The other core influence for this image was Meinrad Craighead’s Symbols of the Mother (3). The simplicity, yet depth of meaning, in this work drew me in and wouldn’t let me go, and led to my use of a vertical format (rather than the horizontal design of the triple goddess symbol), and to the separation of the ‘upper and lower waters’/earth from sky/underworld from upperworld.

I scribbled down my first design in late January, so it feels like this painting has taken an age to come to fruition. There were false starts, an uncooperative painting technique (combined with my limited skills), plus rain and illness delays. I also made things difficult for myself by requiring accuracy and symmetry, based as the design was on a kind of sacred geometry. I very much doubted if I would finish it at all, but I persevered and found a way through to the end—at which point I was still without a title. The most obvious thought was to call it Goddess, my first thought just Untitled. But in listening to an interview with Max Dashu recently the perfect word came up: Matrix—the Latin for ‘womb,’ with its connotations of source or origin.

And just like that, everything fell into place. I hope it is a fitting homage to Meinrad. 

References

1. Image of megalithic designs, Knowth, Co. Meath, Ireland (middle or second half of 4^th millennium BC), from Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess: Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization, HarperSanFrancisco: New York, 1989, p. 286

2. https://www.facebook.com/471707109534948/photos/a.573305559375102/1474403889265260/?type=1&theater and https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/484348134899952305/

3. Text and image from Meinrad Craighead, The Sign of the Tree: Meditation in Images & Words, Artists House/Mitchell Beazley: London, 1979, pp. 110–111

Witchlines: Spondylus Shell

This is the final (long overdue) piece I have written for the first unit of Witchlines, and I think it provides not only a fitting ending, but also a fitting beginning for the work of Unit 2, as you will soon see. 

Spondylus Shell

He said it was my turn to try, to shape something out of the white, the soft white, light in my hand, like a cloud come down, made stone. He showed me how to carve, how to grind away at the edges with a sharp piece of flint, gifting me with the white, curving form.

What is it? Where has it come from?

Far away, he said, from the place of water, the place of the past, which we no longer know. A place of blue. It is precious.

I did not understand, but I held the white piece in my hand—like bone, but alive under my fingers. I felt it speak to my palm, I felt it move, and I ran out of the village and along the trail that leads into the forest, and went to my special place, where I place the clay figures as offerings. In there, there is a hush, away from the houses where the women sing and bake bread, where the small children chatter and play. It is my green place, where I might snare a rabbit, or startle a deer—or be startled by the whoosh of a bird’s wings, and have my heart beat faster. In the wild green I held the white piece from the place of blue, and I listened to what it told me.

Fish, it said. Fish!

With my piece of flint I began to carve, to shape, letting my hands be led by what dwelt inside the chalky whiteness. Dust clung to my fingers, and settled on my clothes, and from the curve came a leaping form, water-wise and graceful, with tail and scales.

If this white piece says fish, and came from a place of water, of the past, which we no longer know, what does it say now? What can it tell me? What precious knowledge is wound into its flesh?

As one day dies a new day is birthed.

Little white fish, does a future wait in the place of blue?

I placed the fish beside the other offerings, to shine in the green gloom, and speak what it knew of water and of coming days to the earth.

* * *

The shells of Spondylus gaederopus, a type of bivalve mollusc, which lives in the waters of the Mediterranean, were highly valued in Neolithic Old Europe. They were traded far inland, and used for making beads, pendants, bracelets, and other objects, which may have held some kind of magical value.   

For this task I had to describe the making of an object, and what it might mean to the maker. I also allude to both the beginning and ending of Old Europe—for the first people of those Neolithic cultures migrated into Europe from the area of the Aegean; and, after the fall of Old Europe on the mainland, the last vestiges of the culture survived for another 2000 years in the Aegean, most notably on the island of Crete. Thus, the past and the future are linked through a piece of spondylus shell. 

I’ve used some artistic licence here: it’s possible that the Old Europeans who lived far inland from the sea did not know quite what the shells were, or where they came from, only that they had symbolic value, and were therefore deemed to be precious. I have suggested, however, that a memory of their origins may still have lived within them. 

Also note: while the raw shells could be reddish or purple (as pictured below), they would lose their colour over time and become white.

Spondylus gaederopus from Sicily, on display at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano
(Source: Wikimedia, by Hectonichus)

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!

Why the Wellspring?: The Influence of Water

You may wonder where the name for my blog came from. 

Well—pardon the pun—the explanation is a lovely liquid tale, to be sure. 

Over the past couple of years the idea of wells and wellsprings, rivers and oceans—of water in all its fluid forms—has been very close to me, welling and bubbling up from those deep inner places, washing much negativity away, bringing new life and fruitfulness. 

Water is a feminine element, associated with women, with fertility and abundance, cleansing and healing, and emotion, depth and time (the words ‘time’ and ‘tide’, for example, are etymologically related). 

As Jay Griffiths, one of my favourite writers, says in one of my favourite books, Wild: An Elemental Journey:

The wildernesses of waters, rivers and oceans are linked to the female. In many cultures, probably most, women are associated with what is “wet” and men with what is “dry” . . . In Chinese thought, fire is yang, male, active, phallic and conscious. Water is yin, female passive and unconscious. Freud and Jung, too, through analysis of folktale and ancient literature, concluded similarly: water is fertilizing, a place of regeneration; it represents what is potential and female. (212)

The first life on this blue Earth originated in water. As does all creativity—in the Rio Abuja Rio, as Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls it in her classic book, Women Who Run with the Wolves—‘the river beneath the river’.  

I have come to think of my own creativity as arising from the gushing flow of a river. Indeed, being a river—the River of Creativity. It is always flowing (though there have been times in the past when it became blocked and slowed to a mere trickle). Yet though it streams constantly, it still has its ebbs and flows, like the ocean—high and low tides—calms and storms—seasonal changes. The wide and fathomless ocean underlies the river, exerts its own fluid influence from below, as it is pulled upon from above, by the moon. 

Water Nymphs by Alan Lee

When I was pondering what to call this blog I was led to think of a little poem I had written in October 2014:

A deep well, 

ocean of memory, 

springing up 

blue and pure, 

flooding 

the parched place 

inside me.

This is deeply symbolic, and a favourite poem-gem of mine. 

It seems that water, wells, and the flooding of dry, parched places, bringing the return of life and creativity and all things wild, are ideas and images that will not let me go.

I recently read a brilliant book by Sharon Blackie—If Women Rose Rooted: The Power of the Celtic Woman. Chapter 2 is entitled ‘Wells and Waters: The Wasteland’, and Sharon writes:

Wellspring. The word, like a good well, runs deep. It conveys so much more than simply the source of a stream or spring: it says something about the source of life itself. According to the Collins English Dictionary, a wellspring is ‘a source of continual or abundant supply’ – which tells us why wells, along with certain rivers and lakes, have been recognised as sacred by nearly every culture on the planet, and throughout every age. (27)

It seemed like a kind of synchronicity. All of my thoughts about water and wells echoed here, in this very powerful book; and in Celtic culture in particular, in the voices of the maidens who once guarded the wells, the sources of life. The silencing of these wise voices, after the violation of the well-maidens, as told in the story of ‘The Loss of the Voices of the Wells’, and the subsequent coming of the Wasteland, is partly what inspired me to begin this blog. Sharon says:

Each of us has our own unique set of stories to tell: the story of the years we spent in the Wasteland, the story of our awakening, and then the story of the path we took out of it. Telling those stories helps us to understand ourselves – not just the place that we’ve come from, but where we might be heading. Similarly, telling our stories to others can help them to work through problems they are facing in their own lives. (60)

And:

The Voices of the Wells were lost, long ago – but the Voices of the Wells were women [who represented Sovereignty, the spirit of the Earth itself]. We were the voices of the Wells. We can take up that old mantle. We can take up our golden grails again, and offer their life-giving drink to the world. (62)

Lady of the Waters by Brian Froud

I know from past experience how powerful, transformative and healing telling my story can be, and I would like to tell some of it here—even if I do ‘tell it slant’, to quote Emily Dickinson. And too, I would like to be one of the voices that speaks for the Earth, if I can. 

After much thought, I decided to create this blog to be an outlet for my creative work, and to call it Offerings from the Wellspring, for all the ‘offerings’ I post here will be drawn up from my own personal well, from my River of Creativity. These offerings will be poured out into the world to express something of me, and, I hope, to inspire and influence others. 

(Of course, it must be said that offerings were also made to rivers and other bodies of water, back in the old days when people lived in close relationship with the land, so the giving and receiving goes both ways.)

Interestingly, the word ‘influence’ itself is associated with water. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it originates in late Middle English, from Old French or medieval Latin influentia ‘inflow’, from Latin influere, from in- ‘into’ + fluere ‘to flow’. The word had the general sense of ‘an influx, flowing matter’, also specifically (in astrology) ‘the flowing in of ethereal fluid (affecting human destiny)’.

Influence is flow is fertile. And from fertility comes new life, growth, abundance.

So, like a well that never runs dry, I hope my work here will flow abundantly, and become an offering back to the Earth, to the sources of life, and to any visitors who come this way. To bring regeneration and renewal back to the wasted lands that we inhabit in this modern world. To bring the same back to my own life.

I leave you with an excerpt from ‘The Well’, by Irish poet and writer Cathal Ó Searcaigh, that prefaces that water-filled chapter from If Women Rose Rooted. Let us all find and go back to the source: