A wet, wintery day for the last Sunday in July, I have books to read, and art piece I want to work on and what looks to be a lazy day ahead of me on my Winter’s Gift weekend. I have given all my indoor plants some TLC and they are bright and cheerful putting out lovely energy into the house. The crystal fountain is adding to this energy with its cheerful burble. The house, the cats, the plants and I are all happy.
I broke my fast with my usual brunch of mushrooms, leafy greens, hauloumi, eggs and toast and with this went Gyokuro Kabuse, very, very finely cut leaves from the Sencha and Gyokuro tea bushes giving a sweet, nutty flavoured tea and I paired it with my Geisha tea cup. I would hazard a guess that Gyokuro Kabuse would not be everybody’s cup of green tea, it does have a distinctive flavour and if not a fan of green tea many would fine off putting. But me, being a tea aficionado, I enjoy the flavour.
I find it interesting that though we still have one more month of winter and probably our worst month of the winter with the expectation of a lot of wet to come I am feeling a restlessness of wanting to be out doing. My Elan Vital or Anima is the highest it has been for many years this encompasses my health, my vitality, my spirit. Yes, there are thing still not quite right, but on the whole I feel great and I am having difficulty in curbing my impatience to get out and do. It is only held in check by my dislike of getting soddenly wet which if I try at the moment to do will be the result.
I look out my windows and there are so many varying shades of green in my near view and within the green I can see touches of red and pink as blossoms on the Cherry Trees begin to open. The bright yellow of the lemons in the garden and pure white of my Elfin Calla Lily with the rain falling create an impressionist landscape for me to enjoy inside in the dry warmth. The grey and greens are a dull palette on which the colours available at this time of year burst forth. With the blossom opening the Tui’s and Kereru will be more visible as they gorge themselves on the nectar. Everywhere I look even in the depths of winter life burgeons forth.
Today the words I have chosen relate to the Vital Spirit
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” ― Henri Bergson
“The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its colour and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of non-conviction. It speaks through its constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the centre, and rising hope. The body remembers, the bones remember, the joints remember, even the little finger remembers. Memory is lodged in pictures and feelings in the cells themselves. Like a sponge filled with water, anywhere the flesh is pressed, wrung, even touched lightly, a memory may flow out in a stream.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
“We all begin as a bundle of bones lost somewhere in a desert, a dismantled skeleton that lies under the sand. It is our work to recover the parts. It is a painstaking process best done when the shadows are just right, for it takes much looking. La Loba indicates what we are to look for—the indestructible life force, the bones.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
This final quote of Clarissa Pinkola Estes is the inspiration for this piece of art and this story I created
With Bones SHE Created Life
SHE sat outside her hut and looked out towards the distant horizon; in every direction she saw the same grey white landscape. As the sun rose a touch of pink washed the grey white with a slight blush. The cool air carried the dry, gritty taste of calcite, still holding a trace of yesterday’s hot, baking sun.
Life, SHE mused, came in so many shapes and forms. It began in a deep silent place. Some engendered life in plants, someone out there somewhere started life encapsulated in a seed. SHE pondered the strangeness of life beginning in this way. The seed it wasn’t her way. Her calling was bones.
She drew out her bone flute looking out across the landscape. The sun’s light cast radiance across the ground down bones, and some of the bone minerals held lustre. This was bone she would call. SHE raised the flute to her lips; the sound that poured forth was a magnetic drawing. Hallow and haunting it spiralled out and gathered the bone components. As SHE softened the call the spiral moved towards her.
SHE stood and looked into the heart of the spiral where she could see the being awaiting creation. Confused SHE looked again, this was something SHE had never found before. This spiral held a duality, two spirits entwined, parts blended together and parts holding their own matrix. This day was proving interesting.
Clockwise SHE walked around the bone spiral singing a song of being, of conception, of origination and imagination, setting down the template. When SHE reached the end of her refrain SHE looked again into the spiral and saw a duality of person and animal. Counter clockwise SHE walked singing the song of separation, of difference and acceptance. Her skill was drawing dimension from the template.
SHE maintained her rotation singing continuously soon SHE saw the being emerging momentarily a man appeared and then a wolf. Then a combination of both wolf and man emerged. This duality had never appeared before. Bone spirit came in one form SHE was intrigued with this new creation. Her song reached its end and the song frayed into the landscape.
Before her the life she created from bones was a man who was a wolf who SHE now understood was a gift for her lonely life.
Image from my SHE Album "With Bones SHE Created Life"
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