Feminine Circles

Feminine Circles

 
Feminine Circles
July 2015

Circles, circles, and more circles … cups, flowers, wheels, balls, apples, oranges, seashells, our planet, nests, jars, stars, and so on … so much in nature is in the form of a circle. The Circle represents wholeness and is primarily a feminine sign as opposed to a line or cross or phallic shaft representing the masculine spirit. The circle is the mark of protection, a natural shape, a consecrated space. The round table with King Arthur and his men represented the idea of equality . Pagan sacred dances were circular. Stonehenge is a good example of a sacred space. The cup, container of nourishment, the vessel of life giving liquid.

Circles with spirals, spirals as eyes. Circles of petals, crowned sages, deities have circles of gold, a golden disc attached to the back of their head. The red haired goddess clutching a dove, listening to the music of the spheres. The lion with a halo of golden fur around his face, looks as majestic as a sun god. The rose, the lily and the lotus, circles of beauty.

Spirals are very ancient symbols used since paleolithic times and found all around the world. The whorls depict energy, the vortex, movement, winding and unwinding, the rhythms of nature, the seasons, thunder, lightning, rain and water, Whirling energy representing fire and flame, smoke and air. It is associated with weaving and spinning, the web of life, and the veil of the Mother Goddess, controller of destiny and weaver of illusions. The spiral is also associated with the navel the center of power and life.

The butterfly transforming from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to taking flight. Why the parrots? Why the Hen or the stairs or a nest with blue eggs. What does the apple have to do with the composition you might wonder. The apple came to mind when I thought of circles. The Hen begs the question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” This is circle thinking.

This collage piece was totally intuitive. I just let it unfold only asking when it was finished, “Why, How, What for?” I looked up the symbols. Chris sent me a piece that included the circles with spirals. I just started looking through my stash looking for Circles and Spirals. I’m pleased with the way the piece has come out and I am willing to let the mystery images be in the composition without completely understanding the why. There is a bit of Chaos about the piece that’s why I love the red haired girl with the dove. She represents the calm, the act of entering. She holds the space, calls for wisdom, calls for inner peace.
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Toucan (Two Can!)

Toucan (Two Can!)

I’ve decided to call this piece “Yes Two Can.” She is looking over “… the cowboy, the main Leo the Lion in her life. The black and white cat is also fondly admiring what she sees. The ballerina leaps through the air while the Motorman stares. He has his arms out directing traffic. The spa like pool in the background has a door and wall that separates the scene from the outside world. On the right side of my main figure (me) I have a frog diving down after a fish and a frog sitting on a rock looking back into the past. A white horse is galloping into the future. There are two fabulous blue and yellow Macaws chatting and looking at the garden woman holding two tiny birds. The trees surround her and the snake is moving forward. Don’t ya just love the garden Woman? I find the figure lovely. On the upper left side is the bather who is toweling off as she also looks at the scene below.

As I put together the collage I thought about the differences between the woman and the cowboy. Her with the emerald and diamond earrings and him with leather work gloves and chaps. Her in the spa, him out doors. Behind him is a black and gray floor. The bright yellow daisy is at the center of the collage. The flower is fully open its petals flung back its center open to the sun.

When I found the image of the Toucan I had to get him in the collage somewhere. He is sitting on the lion’s neck. The yellow petals around him. I heard myself say … Yes! Two can.” As I look around the collage piece I see several two’s … two cats, two Macaws, two frogs, two men, even two thistles. Life is better with two.  I enjoyed creating this collage. It was fun, joyful and informative. I’d be interested in feedback especially if there is anything that jumps out that I missed.

I plan to approach the collage work spontaneously, without a preconceived idea. Once the piece is finished I’d like to ask “What has this collage got to tell me that I don’t already know?” If I asked the question “Can two different personalities be happy together … The collage is saying Yes they can, as shown in the combination of the Toucan and Lion.

Out of the 8 images Chris sent me I used 5 and sent back three. 1 image I cut up and used only parts.  I enlarged a few images and shrink some of the others. My first “Oh  yes image was the yellow daisy. I also loved the frogs and the snake. In the Chinese zodiac I was born in the year of the snake. I also loved the thistle on the boarder of the card which I included. I like the idea of being spontaneous and intuitive. Spontaneity is a perfect word to work with in this new challenge.

For those folks that are interested in making their own Art Journal … There is a You Tube video created by Teesha Moore. It is a wonderful video because Teesha makes it look simple. Her instructions are clear and easy to follow .I like that she also shows you how she used her own art Journals. Go to Youtube and type in …Teesha Moore’s Amazing 16 page Journal part 1 of 2.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z6qmXGRrsE

The Three-Way Motif

The Three Graces

 

The Three-Way Motif
The Month of April

This month, April, we will be exploring the number three and how it manifests in Story. It seems that in many tales the number three is an integral part of the telling. For an example in the story of Aladdin’s Lamp, the hero gets three wishes from the Genie. In the story of the Lazy Spinner, she gets three rooms of flax to spin. Often there are three main characters in a story, such as The Three Little Pigs. What is it about the number three that repeatedly shows up in story?

Three is a about multiplicity, creative power, growth, forward movement, overcoming duality. Three is the first number to which the word “all” has been appropriated and “The Triad is the number of the whole, inasmuch as it contains a beginning, middle and an end. The power of three is universal and is the tripartite nature of the world as heaven, earth and waters. It is man, as body, soul and spirit. It is birth, life and death. Beginning, middle and end. It is past, present and future. It is the father, mother and son. In folklore, there are three wishes, three tries, three Princes or Princesses and /or three fairies. In the wizard of OZ, there are three witches, two good witches and one bad, there are innumerable trinities of Gods and Goddesses…

The chief symbol of three is the triangle. Other symbols of three are the trident, fleur-de-lis, trigrams, and the trefoil. There are three charities, graces, and sirens. Cerberus is triple-headed; the Chimera has three different animal parts, the head of a goat, a lion, and a serpent. In Christian beliefs, the Magi brought three gifts to baby Jesus. Peter denied Christ three times. There were three crosses at Calvary, and Christ was dead three days before he rose again.

There are many divine deities that have triple aspects; Isis, Osiris, and Horus; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; In Christianity there is God the father, Jesus the son and the Holy Spirit. From Japan, there are three Treasures, Mirror, Sword, and Jewel. In Mexico, the Trinity is represented by three crosses, one large cross and two smaller ones.

In my collage, “The Three Graces” dance together in celebration of Aphrodite. They celebrate beauty and joy. They bestow beauty, kindness, love tenderness, pleasure, creativity, artistry and sensuality. They dance for the quality greater than faith or hope; they dance for love.

The White Ibis

The White Ibis

 

The White Ibis

We are still exploring “Birds”. I’ve selected this week the White Ibis. Back in the 1980’s I had a retail store called, Ibis gifts and jewelry. The shop was located on the corner of my local shopping village in Oakland, CA. When I decided that I was going to open a retail store it needed a name. I wanted to use the name of an animal or a flower. I briefly considered the flower Trillium. A Trillium is a tri-flower perennial herb that is part of the Lily family. I was looking for a symbol to use as the logo.

I finally chose an Ibis to be my store’s symbol. The logo was two Ibis heads looking into the future. They were framed by an arched window with the words Ibis gifts and jewelry written below. I loved the curved beaks of the bird design. We had wooden exterior  signs made and painted the birds in flight high on the tall long wall of the store. Like cranes, herons and spoonbills the Ibis looks quite graceful in flight.

In my collage I have a white Ibis and the Ibis headed Egyptian god Thoth. Thoth is the god of knowledge, hieroglyphs, wisdom, the moon and magic. In nature the long-legged birds wade in shallow water, their long down-curved beaks searching the mud for food, usually crustaceans through they also eat snails, small lizards, flies, crickets, beetles and grasshoppers.. Most Ibis nest in trees. The word Ibis comes from the Greek/Latin and probably ancient Egypt. There are 28 different species. I took a field trip to the San Francisco Zoo to visit the Ibis that live in Northern California.

In Steven D. Farmer’s book, “Animal Spirit Guides” the Ibis is listed as a bird that reminds you that everything is sacred. Call on Ibis when you want to “Follow your heart and trust in its wisdom.” Ibis seem to know when weather will turn bad. When a storm is brewing, the Ibis are the last to leave the shore-line and the first to return when the worst has passed… If an Ibis is part of your life “Keep your eyes, ears and heart open in order to notice the miracles around you each and every day.

The Light Bringer

The Raven

Magic is in the air when Raven is present. The other day while at the coffee shop I was looking out the widow at the parking lot. High above everything perched on top of the tall light pole sat a bird. His outline fully formed against the light blue sky. It is a rather large size black bird with a prominent beak. He intrigued me so I watched him for a while.

Was he a Crow or a Raven?  A Raven for sure. A Raven is a member of the Crow family but a larger king-size cousin. This fellow was big. Two small birds joined him. They moved to the outer parameters of the light standard giving the Raven a wide berth. Crows and Ravens are the smartest of all birds having outwitted other birds, animals and humans from time to time. There are lots of Myths and stories about them. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a poem called, The Raven.

They are kept at the Tower of London, England. The Tower of London is located on White Hill and one legend tells of the Ravens always living there. Another legend is that after the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Tower was rebuilt and the ravens arrived. The British believe that “It is very unlucky to kill a Raven” and so they keep them as good luck symbols. The Tower Ravens are cared for by a Keep. Each Raven is named, fed and treated like a soldier. The Tower Ravens live to be 40 years old. Besides having one wing’s flight feathers clipped away, they have free rein of the Tower and the grounds. A Raven can be dismissed from the Tower grounds for “Conduct unbecoming of a Tower resident.” Otherwise, the Raven’s live a comfortable life.

In Rome, the Raven is associated with the God Apollo, the god of prophecy. They are considered good luck and a messenger from heaven who speaks to us. One myth tells the story of why Ravens are black.   In the story Ravens were as white as swans. One day a Raven brought bad news to Apollo who in his anger turned the Raven black. Since then all Ravens are black.

In Norse tradition, the God Odin had two Ravens who were his messengers.  Odin could shape-shift into a raven. In Biblical lore, the prophet Elijah was fed by Ravens and Crows while hiding in the wilderness. To the Athapaskan Indians of Alaska,  Raven was the creator of the world.

Ravens are symbols of watchfulness. They often perch high in the trees and can see for miles. Their Croak sound is so jarring that all can hear.  They can be taught to speak and are members of the songbird family . They have quite a range of vocalizations but they do not sing.

In many ways, the Raven is an animal that plays the confusing role of the trickster and the wise one.  Raven is comparable to the Coyote tales told by the Plains Indians.  In the Pacific North West, the Raven has this same aura about him. Raven stole the sunlight and gave it to the people of the Earth. He is playful and an excellent tool user. He cracks open nuts using stones.  In fact, many folks believe that Raven knows  he is  smart. He has chosen to remain a  crows rather then move on to some other area of evolution.  Raven  is associated with creation. The color of night, he brings forth the new day.  He is the light bringer.

Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael

There’s so much to say about this story it is hard to know where to start.  We usually begin with an overview.  So, here we see Sarah the barren old woman who has been promised a child by God himself.  Even after the promise, this mythical child is a long time coming.  Worried about Abraham not having an heir from their own family (Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister) , Sarah has sent her handmaiden Hagar to lie with Abraham and bear his child.  That child, according to Jewish tradition, now belongs to Sarah and Abraham.  (Echoes of this practice reverberate down through the centuries in both real life and story.  Consider surrogate mothers and Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale).

The starry heavens behind the three characters represent God’s covenant with the two women – he has promised them both that nation’s will arise from the seed of their sons.  In this collage Isaac has not yet been conceived and Ishmael is still a little boy.  Jealousy has already begun to bedevil these women.  The heavens also represent the ubiquitous God, who just can’t seem to keep from meddling in these people’s lives in the most clumsy manner.

In reading the Bible stories about women, keep in mind how seldom women are named and how little description surrounds their names. When a woman is named we can assume her story held great import for her contemporaries and that the story associated with her holds enough meaning to continue to reverberate down the millennia.

Hagar looms the largest for me in this story. She is the least powerful figure here; even her fertility can be co-opted.  Nevertheless, Hagar haunts every action and even God keeps track of her comings and goings.  We can deduce from the story that she is a straightforward woman, lacking in subtlety or cunning until motherhood empowers her and she becomes proud, defiant, stubborn and ambitious for her child. I can’t help but identify with her.  She seems to represent the status and position of so many women today, in this country and around the world.

Perhaps Hagar and Sarah together represent the precarious nature of motherhood.  The women in this tale are both hostages to fortune.  They live and die at the whims of men and their gods.  On the one hand, fertility bestows a certain amount of power; on the other, women are easily interchangeable. Perhaps the meaning lies in what these women fail to do, rather than in their actions.  Perhaps, we are being shown how divisive and enervating jealousy can be; how it saps the strength and diverts the will to the point that the welfare of children becomes compromised rather than enhanced.

We don’t know how Hagar felt about being sent to Abraham’s bed.  Was she repulsed by his age?  Or attracted by his power and prestige?  Whichever it was, once pregnant she began to enjoy her new status.  No doubt, as her time approached she was relieved of many duties and when she gave birth to a son – well the feasting and rejoicing are easy to imagine.  It all went to her head, and she began to put on airs and disrespect Sarah.

Remember that Sarah and Abraham are very old by this time and Sarah has spent decades living down the shame of being barren.  The fact that she has been a beautiful and desirable woman makes it all the worse; makes her feel like a fraud.  Perhaps, all along she has harbored a sneaking suspicion that her childless state may be the fault of Abraham.  Now that the younger woman Hagar has borne a son, even that secret comfort is denied her.  Hagar’s airs, which may be just the normal delight and pride of a new mother, act like salt in Sarah’s wounds. The humiliation and shame of a lifetime overcome her.  Sarah beats Hagar and Hagar runs away, taking the baby with her.  However, God isn’t done with these people.  He sends an angel to talk to Hagar and convince her to return.

There’s a blank in the story here – one of many.  In Jewish tradition the rabbi’s often make up a scenario to fill in the blanks.  These are called midrash and they are teaching anecdotes that carry a moral or make a theological point.

What I imagine happened here is that when Hagar ran away, Abraham was furious and worried.  I imagine he berated Sarah for driving Hagar away.  Perhaps Sarah, too, was horrified at losing her son.  No doubt they sent out search parties and prayed for them to return.

We can extrapolate from other stories in the Bible, that Hagar would have been welcomed back with rejoicing and forgiveness.  In my version, when Hagar and the baby came back, the two women come to an agreement; sharing the child and living harmoniously for a time –  at least, until Isaac arrives on the scene…

To Be Continued…

Those Bloody Shoes

I must confess the reason I pushed for the Grimm version of Cinderella was the bloody shoes.  Cinderella’s slipper differentiates it from all other “rags to riches” stories.  It’s importance is heightened in the Grimm version by the dreadful acts of the two step-sisters as they actually slice off parts of their body in order to cram their feet into those shoes.

Shoes are fascinating symbols in themselves.  They represent ownership.  In ancient times the Irish sealed a real estate deal by taking off their shoes and handing them to the buyer.  New land was claimed by setting ones shoes on the property.  In Cinderella, the Prince was setting out to claim ownership of Cinderella, but he needed both shoes to do so.  On the other hand Cinderella was claiming the palace as her own by leaving a shoe there.  The missing slipper also underscores Cinderella’s ambiguity in the household.   She is the rightful heir of her father’s estate, but cannot claim her birthright.

Shoes are also sexual in nature.  Think of the vaguely phallic shape of the foot  slipping snugly into a well-fitting shoe and you get the idea.  Hence, the shoe fetish.  High heels and the outlawed art of foot-binding are both examples of the perception of the foot as a sexual  symbol.  Both involve suffering pain and physical humiliation.  The self-mutilation of the step-sisters is shocking not because it presents us with an alien idea, but because we so easily understand it.  Consider that some women pay thousands of dollars for a pair of shoes.  This story speaks directly to the desperation inherent in the competition for attention from powerful men and women.  The shoes send a sexual  message of availability.  It’s why they’re called “F***- me-shoes.”

Cinderella, like many stories starring a maiden, contains coded warnings, comments or instructions for young women.  Whenever you find young women and blood together in a story it refers in some way to menstruation and/or the breaking of the hymen.  Blood is one of humanity’s most potent  and complicated symbols because it stands for both death and life.  It is a sacred fluid full of spiritual and magical abilities; Odysseus uses it to speak to the dead, Abel’s blood cries out from the ground to the Lord.  In our story the birds speak for the blood.

Oaths sworn in blood are considered binding for all time.  The step-sisters shed their blood to seal a falsehood.  The consequences are bound to be dire and they are.

The bloody shoes may presage the tearing of Cinderella’s hymen once the Prince takes possession of her.   Yet the tearing is a necessary precursor to both pleasure and reproduction.  The blood in this story represents lifeblood, women’s blood.  Perhaps, that’s why the step-sisters are blinded rather than killed in punishment for their cruelty and deception.

Because of the blood, I wanted to make my collage red.  The red on red on red motive symbolizes the layers of meaning inherent in red blood and in the color red itself.  It is difficult to see into them, just as it’s difficult to untangle the various disparate yet connected strands of love, property, individualism, family, truth and lies that make up the tapestry of this story.  The shoes are bleeding for all the literal and metaphoric reasons stated above. I set them in a border of flowers because this is a maiden story.  It speaks of women’s mysteries and women’s doings and women’s solutions.

Embrace Our Differences

Embrace Our Differences

Don’t judge a Duck by its Early Plumage.

 In this collage I am showing a variety of poultry. I’ve got a large beautiful Swan, two swans flying over head, a gaggle of geese, a turkey, a mother duck, ( she’s in the water behind the swan), ducklings and one large oversized cygnet.  One of the things l love about the word birds is the large range of animals the term embraces. There are birds that are tiny, such as the hummingbird, birds that swim but can’t fly, Penguins, a bird that can run fast, the Ostrich, diving birds, wading birds, small wings, huge winds, no wings at all. It’s all quite interesting and wonderful.

 In my collage mother duck has taken her babies down to the pond to teach them to swim. She is in the water telling them to jump in. When my son was little, maybe 30 months old we were on a small boat dock looking at some ducks. When I turned around my son had stepped off the dock and was underwater. I reach down and pulled him back up onto the dock. He wiped his eyes and smiled. It scared me. It hadn’t scared him. Two things happened without delay. I bought a life vest and he had to wear it any time we were near water. As soon as we got home I searched around for swimming lessons. As it turned out he loved to swim and decided to join a swim team. He became a competitive swimmer and worked for several years as a life guard. He, like the ducklings and the cygnet took to the water immediately.

 This story is about personal transformation and was one of Hans Christian Andersen’s favorites. He considered it his biography. As a child Hans was picked on by the other children. He had a big nose and very large feet. When he grew up it turned out that he had a beautiful singing voice and was talented in the theater. Before he wrote this story he discovered that he was the illegitimate son of the King of Denmark, Prince Christian Frederick. To Hans, the Ugly Duckling is a story about inner beauty and talent but also about secret lineage. He may have been ugly, like the ugly duckling, but like the duckling that turned into a swan, the most beautiful of all, Hans turned out to be a member of the royal family far superior then the local barnyard rabble that had been so verbally and physically abusive not so long ago.

Peas

To me this story is about power – who has it, who wants it, who needs it.  Last month we dealt with Krishna and his mother and touched on issues of motherhood.  This month the story brings me to issues of childhood.

When I was little it seemed like I was in a continuous struggle for power with my mother; a struggle into which I had arbitrarily been plunged without instruction book or reason.  Of course I’m describing my feelings – the language came with education and experience and years of introspection and reflection – but I knew instinctively, as all young animals know,  that understanding the power dynamics of my tribe was vital to survival.

I know now, she did not see me as her adversary.  In fact, the struggle I took so personally wasn’t personal at all.  Her anger, come by honestly, could not be directed at its proper target and so she turned it on herself and on me.

Peas were a huge issue.  I hated them, she insisted on serving them.  Truly they made me gag.  It was the texture more than anything else, but the color didn’t help.  In the beginning they were canned.  The frozen ones were mildly better though by the time they came around the battle lines were so entrenched no one could back down.  On the nights she served peas I often sat in front of am congealing food until bedtime.  I devised all kinds of devious ways of folding them up in my paper napkins and then excusing myself to go to the bathroom where I flushed them down the toilet. I stuffed them in my pockets, pushed them into the soft stick of butter in the butter dish, dropped them in my glass of milk, and fed them to the dog who spit them out.  He didn’t like them either.  Naturally, these stratagems usually failed, resulting in interminable lectures about starving children in foreign climes.  The slightest hint of defiance in the form of body language or glances led to high-pitched angry tirades that shattered everyone’s peace for the rest of the evening.

Years later, my mom went back to college and took all kinds of classes.  We grew to expect weird innovations in our family routines with each new course and teased her unmercifully, but I was proud of her.  She willingly embraced those new ideas, pondered their meaning and applied them to her own internal process.  One day, I was sitting on a kitchen stool chopping onions for the meal she was fixing when suddenly my mother burst into tears and said, “I’m so sorry I made you eat your peas.”

It was an extraordinary moment of contrition on her part and forgiveness on mine.  It was all that was said.  I think we were both shocked.  We didn’t talk about my childhood again until years later when I had garnered the courage and experience to be able to initiate the conversation.

My collage shows a child spitting out her peas – her mouth, like Krishna’s, is full of stars to remind us how precious children are.  There are two other little ones here – the goblin I thought myself to be and the defiant self-possessed little girl who clung to her own identity and integrity.  The fabric in the background refers to the part of this month’s story I liked best – the bed covers and mattresses of many colors.  My mom loved fabrics and patterns and taught me to love them, too.  My eye for color and talent for composition are part of her legacy.

Bed was a special place for me – the place I could be myself, escape into imagination, and read to my heart’s content with the help of a flashlight.  It was also my cache.  I hid food under the bed.  Not peas, of course, stolen cookies and forbidden chocolate made up my stash.  You can see candy wrappers and cookies peeking out beneath the pillows.

My peas, like the princess’s are like  grit rubbing against the soft vulnerable flesh of an oyster.  Year after year,  I exude nacre to ease my discomfort, working and re-working the raw material of childhood until it becomes a luminous, precious pearl that enriches and enhances my life.  The proverbial pea also provides grit in the sense of “true grit.”  I’ve found that in my life it is the dis-comforts that make me strong and build my character.

The Dreaded Pea Test

The Dreaded Pea Test

The Princess and the Pea

Week #2

The Positive Aspect

What are the positive aspects of the story? I’ve seen many pictures of the Princess high a top the pile of mattresses and feather comforters and the “bed” its self looks very fun. It reminds me of my childhood when my father would pile the backseat of our car with a mattress, lots of pillows and blankets so that my brother and I could see over the front seats and out the front window. We were headed to the drive-in movies. The backseat bed was perfect. Before the second movie started we kids would have fallen fast to sleep, scattered about the backseat like puppies among the pillows.

 The stack of mattresses the Queen prepares for the Princess would create a tower in which to observe the room from a different perspective. I would imagine from up top of the stack you might feel quite lofty.

 If you look at the story from the view point of the Prince he no longer has to search the world for the “real” princess. Since the Queen mother herself created the test and the young woman passed the Queen would give her stamp of approval. Now the prince can proceed with confidence knowing that he has found the right girl. Plus he would have his family’s approval.

 If you look at this fairy tale as I suggested last week, as poking fun at the aristocracy, there are lots of things in the story to make you laugh. Imagine the young princess at the door, like a common person, dripping wet, perhaps her tiara slipping down her hair, her fine clothes, even her lovely shoes completely soaked and on top of that she has no attendants. Most of us have gotten wet by the rain and most of us do not have attendants, but a princess, oh my, what an outrage. Poor little princess, are you wet and cold? Isn’t it just dreadful? How very un-princess like. What other un-princess like things could occur? How about a test?  Your integrity questioned. Oh no not the dreadful Pea Test! Oh sleepless night! The Princess and the Pea is a delightfully fun story.