Spiralling: Part II
Soul Journeying Portrayed in Baskets and Poems
Here’s the second part, chapters 4-6, of my book Spiralling: Soul Journeying Portrayed in Baskets and Poems.
You can view last week’s posting of the first part of this book here.
4. AND THE FIRE AND THE ROSE ARE ONE [1982]
Type: Coiled basket, irregular stitch, 40 stitches per inch
Dimensions: 8" diameter, 2" height
Materials: Raffia, cattails
Time: 175 hours
Dyes: Madder, sandalwood, brazilwood, padouk, alkanet, logwood, annatto seed, osage orange
Pattern: The pattern represents an attempt to express visually the concluding lines to T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
July 1, 1982
I grow quiet, making room within myself
For the deep reds, oranges, yellows
Of the roses.
These are the colours of passion
Yet their voices sound in stillness
They know the secret of containment,
Filling to the very edge of what is their own.
In the marking of the boundary is the erasing
As the fullness spills over
In myriad voices.
July 9, 1982
Fear not, he said.
Flame purifies.
The fire rose was spawned in the ocean
And grew in the warm belly of the earth
With the breath of the sun.
Here we do not banish the darkness.
We cast our eyes inward for the unfolding.
5. MOTHER OF HEAVEN, MOTHER OF EARTH [1983-85]
Type: Coiled basket, irregular and slanted stitches, 45 stitches per inch
Dimensions: 19" diameter, 3/4" height
Materials: Raffia, cattails
Time: 700 hours
Dyes: Indigo, carrot top, sandalwood, padouk
Pattern: The uroboros is an ancient symbol of wholeness portrayed by the circular image of a serpent with its tail in its mouth. The pattern of the basket represents my visualization of the uroboric Mother, one of the manifestations of the archetype of the Great Mother. The uroboric Mother functions as male and female, and above and below. She is symbolized in her spiritual aspect as a bird and in her earthly aspect as a serpent.
February 14, 1983
The Virgin Mary is strangling me in her blue folds
with quiet insistence on goodness.
Shadows of goddessess languish in the dungeon
with an occasional moan of chains
or a brief escape into sunlight
before taking their places again.
Where are the feet that were given to dance
and the hands that were meant to caress?
Where the long strong muscles and the flashing eyes,
the serpent, and the rough coat of the bear?
Where is the key to the dungeon?
March 28, 1983
I am the one who severs myself in two.
Wanting only light, I banish my darkness,
living thereafter in fear of the deep current
that sours and turns on me, its rhythm disturbed
and wisdom smothered beneath clods of earth.
Paying dutiful tribute to the clean flat model,
I cannot soar on holycard wings.
I dreamt once that I made grasses sway,
slept among roots and raced through clouds.
Fiery stars and moist worms were my companions
and tiny crabs at the bottom of the sea.
July 16, 1983
Sensing the turmoil,
my fantasy of sainthood rose to greet me,
her delicate hands extending the crown,
her soft eyes sure that I would not
dethrone her.
None stepped forth to claim her place.
Into four pieces I broke the crown.
The first I planted in the earth--
a mighty oak sprung forth.
The second I tossed to the winds--
a phoenix appeared.
The third I flung far into the sea--
it sunk without a ripple.
The fourth I ignited
and a golden flower bloomed in the flames.
January 23, 1984
The sea heaves,
projecting from her depths
the Serpent,
the Dove.
Wary antagonists,
circling,
eyes widening,
lovers embracing
in a fierce and tender union
of earth and air.
Sometimes, if you are looking,
you will see them in the twilight.
Clear notes of a flute linger in the stillness.
March 29, 1984
She who is always with me spoke to me:
Send your anger like sparks to ignite
the cold wood among the ashes.
Release your grief as rain
to soften the cracked earth.
Carve your pain into rock to comfort
the deer and the men who pass by in the forest.
And let your arms fall open, palms forward,
to receive He who will come on the wind.
July 3, 1984
When my mind goes supple
and my hands unclench,
I slip into deep water
to meet the great serpent.
He pulls me down
in slow spirals.
Peeled grapes fill my mouth,
a frog's heart beats in my palm,
my bones are liquid streaming stars.
When we rise up through the surface of the water,
wondrous colours shoot from his mouth
On Bernini's Bust [1630 A.D.]
of Medusa
Ah, Medusa, how well I know thee!
I have been living with you,
taking you into my heart,
honouring you,
you who were reviled by the clear-eyed Athena
in her patriarchal mode, she who
feared you, who gave you this form,
who could not rest till she had your head.
Yet you triumph, holding your presence within us
lest we forget.
What is this forgetting?
Not merely of darkness but of its power:
that energy leading downward, slicing through the
arrogance of all that pushes up and out, holding
immobilized our 'single vision' until it
multiplies.
Bernini knew.
And so you sat for him, granted him
the long look inside to find your sorrow, sent
your pain through his fingers, allowed
his fingers to speak what Athena would not hear.
I hear you.
For so long I thought you wanted to kill me, but
that was before I lived with you,
before I was wayward like you in Athena's temple and was
cast out,
before you held me down until I found
your anguish, your hard-won wisdom,
your longings.
6. AND ALL SHALL BE WELL: MAKING HOME AND MAKING SACRED THE EARTH [1985-86]
Type: Coiled basket, irregular and slanted stitches, 50 stitches per inch
Dimensions: 5” diameter, 3" height
Time: 180 hours
Dyes: Cochineal, osage orange, carrot top, annatto seed, onion skin, indigo, logwood, brazilwood, alkanet, dahlia
Pattern: Modelled directly on a turban tapestry shell, this basket remains, and may always remain, in process. The shell is a manifestation of the spiral, a basic form of movement of energy, and its shaping is the quintessential creation of beauty as a home environment.
Making home is to call forth love and beauty, to praise the many manifestations of abundance we encounter daily, and to care for everyone/everything we can.
Making Home
I always knew it was heart that matters.
I just forgot,
again and again
as affairs of the world
claimed my attention.
I knew it in the trembling when
the rose and I became one.
I knew it when I beheld his face
for the very first time.
I know it whenever boundaries dance
and coals glow in the belly.
I always knew it was heart we'd come home to,
scarred and weary, broken in spirit.
Who would welcome such vagabonds?
Not I, says society.
Not I, says ego.
All--ee--all--ee--in--come--free,* says heart.
*The call cried out to all directions in the game of hide-and-seek when a player has been found. It means that everyone is safe to come out of hiding and to rejoin the group. Everyone is welcomed back; wholeness is restored.
Autobiography
in
Twenty-eight Words
From a
Longing for Certainty
through the
Experience and
Acceptance of
Uncertainty,
I found myself
Widening in
Concentric Certainties
which are
Spiralling me
into the
Opening
of
Matrices.
Part III can be found here.