Witchlines: Crowning The Blossoming Body

This is is the fourth creative piece I have completed as part of my Witchlines studies, this time imagining the clothing and adornments that may have been worn by a young girl of Old Europe as she enters into womanhood.  

Crowning the Blossoming Body

Her bleeding had begun, just after midwinter, and with the return of spring, she knew it was her time to dance with the other women, to waken new life, and herself. She entered the temple where they waited, in the inner room, and there they were: her mother and grandmother, her sister and aunt—all of the women who had danced the dance before her. She sank into their embraces, bathed in their kind words. She was becoming one of them. 

In the warmth of the room, by the oven which glowed within, and in sight of Her, they removed her clothing, then anointed her body with herb-infused water, gently combing it through her hair, which fell loose down her bare back. Around her waist they draped an ankle-length skirt, newly woven by her grandmother, the fabric the colour of river sand. Over this they tied a belt of clay medallions, their heaviness pleasing on her hips; and from this belt hung a fringe of leather cords, weighted at the ends with small clay beads, which would click and jangle as she swayed. 

Encircling her upper arms, woven bands of hemp were tied, three on each side—the number of She who is one, who is two, who is three. On her small, firm breasts, her mother painted spirals of red ochre, giving her eyes, moons, whirls of energy, with which to pass into womanhood. Over her breasts were hung long bead necklaces of greenstone and white spondylus shell—precious things that said earth and water and beauty. And last of all, they set a garland of woven greenery on her head, the first emergence of early spring, to crown her blossoming body. 

Then, dressed in their finery, smelling of wild thyme, with hair flowing, breasts bare, long fringes undulating, and beads clinking, the women emerged into the chill of the spring morning to dance.

Figurine from the Vinča culture, c. 4500–3500 BCE
(Source: Wikimedia, by Sailko)

Wise Words: Taking All Green Into Her Heart

(‘When Earth Becomes an “It”’, by Cherokee/Appalachian poet Marilou Awiakta, found in Jane Caputi, Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth, Bear & Company, Santa Fe, 1993, p. 47) 

Serpent Green

I greatly underestimated the time it would take to get my studio into working order. I had hoped to be in there by now, writing and making art, but instead we are only just getting to the stage of painting colour on the walls. However, I thought I would tell you about the colour I chose—a warm green, called Serpent—for it means something to me. Not only do I hope that it will provide a calm space to work in, I also hope that it will be conducive to creativity itself, as green is the colour of growth. There is, in fact, an etymological relationship between the words green, grow and grass.

The name of the colour is also significant, for I’ve been preoccupied with the idea of snakes for some time: their earth-bound sensuousness; their ability to shed their skins—a symbol of regeneration; their connection with healing. 

Snake Goddess figurine, early Cretan Neolithic, c. 6500–5500 BCE (Source: Wikimedia, by Zde)

I wrote a story last year that featured Snake, the shedding of skins, and the healing of a rift between self and land. I wrote ‘Furies’, a poem alluding to the mythological Furies or Erinyes, snake-haired and winged ‘monsters’ of ancient Greece. And I read Sylvia Linsteadt’s powerful novella, The Dark Country (which I wrote about here)—a story of the return of the chthonic powers of the earth in the form of a great white serpent.

Sylvia’s writing has been a particular influence on me; as is her Witchlines Study Guild, which I am currently taking part in—most especially because I am learning more about the closely related Neolithic Bird and Snake Goddesses. Fascinatingly, elements of these goddesses can still be seen, albeit in diminished form, in later goddesses, monsters and witches. All of this is providing much food for thought, and inspiration for potential artworks. That’s why I am glad that this serpentine influence is going to be an integral part of my studio space.

Minoan Snake Goddess figurine, c. 1600 BCE, Heraklion Archaeological Museum
(Source: Wikimedia, by Jebulon)

This is also a good opportunity for me to tell you about Sylvia’s recent book, Our Lady of the Dark Country (2017). As I wrote last year, Sylvia’s novella, The Dark Country, was only available as part of limited print runs. However, it has now been published in this collection of short stories and poetry, through which a serpentine, feminine and earthy wisdom runs. As Sylvia writes in the introduction:

Women and men of heart, Earth’s snakes are speaking. It is time we listen for the truth they tell us through the centers of ourselves. Women and men of heart, we make a spiral round this planet. It is time to tell the old stories that have damaged us differently. To go beneath what we’ve been told and into the dark country, into the Earth, where the other side of those stories is hidden, the truth that was carried all along in the roots of the trees despite thousands of years of war. (p. xiv)

If you are not familiar with Sylvia’s writing, this is, perhaps, a very good place to start. You can read the full introduction on her blog, The Gleewoman’s Notes. (The cover art is Deer Madonna, by Rima Staines.)

Meanwhile, I will be thinking of Snake, in all her many forms, and of the snaking roots of wisdom that stem from the Neolithic, and how these things might manifest in my life and work.