It’s the death of the year, I’m in a large circle of cloaked and robed people. A woman dressed in black, face covered holds out a cauldron in front of me, she is embodying the Cailleach in ceremony, radiating power she stands waiting, to receive what I am willing to let go of.
I put out my hand, energy flows from me, something is released. The tarot cards told me what I must let go of is the reversed King of Wands. The reversed King of Wands to me symbolises all that is standing in the path of stepping to my full creative power in the world. I let that flow, I am lighter, I am brighter, new possibilities are opening for time I call the womb of the year. Two days later I receive the news, the seed of my new year is conceived and this new chapter of my artistic journey has its go ahead from the arts council.
November was a month of frantic activity trading at Christmas markets. In my rare quiet moments, I could dream into the possibilities this opportunity gives me. I got very excited about an idea for my first nature immersion experience, and in my get things done - left-brained - yang - do it mode I scheduled it in.
“Thud! Pain, pause silence. Boom, dizzy strangeness, thud again. Shock, pain, fear. Blood all over my hand and head. I’d asked the woods to watch out for me and keep me safe. I knew it wasn’t safe that day…”
I’d had this idea an exciting shining idea. Because WOW the arts council are Paying me to go do my thing out on the land. I’d planned for the Winter Solstice I’d go to the reconstructed Iron Age roundhouse (also known as the house of the ancestors) and spend the day there with my sketchbook, some candles and a fire. Have a day there as a dreaming den to vision my project for this year.
In my excitement to dive in, I ignored the warning signs. First I’d woken up around 3am with the message No woods, Not Today, Bad Idea. Normally when I wake up with messages in the night I write them down for the morning, as they’re generally useful. This time I wasn’t listening, I turned over and went back to sleep.
When I woke up in the morning the wind was blowing up for a storm, my tummy felt twisted. The wants of my mind and the intelligence of my bodily intuition and quiet voice of inner wisdom, were in complete disagreement with each other. After much overthinking and debate with myself I decided to go down to the studio and make my decision when I was there.
I sat on a bench by the old fire circle watching the wind in the trees. When I say wind I mean something coming up to a gale, blowing up for a storm. Knowing it was a bad idea, knowing I wanted to do it anyway, questioning my intuition, questioning what I was reading from the weather conditions and nature. Questioning my bone deep knowing. Ignoring my sensory and situational awareness, definitely not being fully present in the moment with what I was doing, and listening far too vividly to my organised and somewhat impulsive tendency. I made the decision to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway.
A friend had said a few days before that there wasn’t much wood up there, so I took a wheelbarrow, chucked some wood in it, and various bits and pieces. After pausing for a quick moment to ask the woods to keep me safe I made my way up there.
It was muddy, the trees were creaking ominously, the gusts of the brewing storm made the trees blow around in a decidedly unfriendly manner. But I wasn’t paying all that much attention to what I was doing or how I was getting there. I wasn’t being mythopoetic about it. I just wanted to get to the roundhouse make my fire and sit down and rest after the franticness of the winter trading season. Seeing how slippy it was I went the long way round and still there was quite a push to get up to the spot where the roundhouse sits.
As I pushed myself up the slippy muddy hill, I fell and the wheelbarrow fell on top of me.
Thud! Pain, pause silence. Boom, dizzy strangeness, thud again. Shock, pain, fear. Blood all over my hand and head. Once I stumbled to my feet in a strange daze, I gathered what I could and put it under the eaves of the roundhouse and stumbled back out of the woods to the shining light of caring friends.
Concussion is an interesting space to be in, I couldn’t really do much thinking at all, the world was soft and dreamlike. My memories of it are hazy and strange, my most vivid memory of that time is standing outside in the Winters cold gazing up golden ochre-brown sunset sky against the deep umber-full purple of the bare twigs.
The hospital said I needed to be with ‘responsible adults’ to watch over me, so I spent a few nights in my kind friend's spare room. My days were filled by digitally painting a woman dancing with a heron by a pond in the depths of winter, whilst listening an Audiobook of to Dr Norrell and Johnathan Strange. So I did get to have my winter dreaming den time, but not in the way I was planning or expecting.
On reflection the wood had actually kept me safe, like I’d asked it too. Later that day the winds blew up into a full named wild creature of the sky sort of storm of 50+ mph winds - A really, don’t go into the woods today - sort of storm. My friend who has lived on this land for all her life went into the woods and fetched the bits and pieces that I’d left. Whilst she was there she heard a crack and a massive bough of cherry came crashing down, and another tree possibly one of the poorly Ash trees also fell down. Luckily she was standing in the right spot to witness but not be harmed by it. I’m so grateful that she was safe, and that she and her partner looked after me whilst I was recovering from my mishap.
When I recovered from my concussion I felt rather foolish, but was also given the opportunity for some self reflection.
“Listen with all your senses and all your sense - Common Sense, inner wisdom, what are the conditions telling me, listen to the stories in the wind. ”
Lessons
That day I had the lesson once again that if my mind is fighting with my intuition to pause, to seriously pause and listen to the wisdom of the moment. I’ll often do this when I’m not in ‘Get Stuff Done’ mode. Listening with all the senses, sight, touch, smell, hearing, tasting, alongside common sense and intuitive sense. Yet, i’d overridden what I’d received with all of my senses with my impulsive desire to chase an idea, and felt the consequences of that in my brain and body. In a way it’s quite apt I injured my head as I wasn’t actually using my head properly.
Automatic Drawing
In the stillness of winter and the enforced rest of concussion. I returned to an old drawing practice of automatic drawing. Surrealists see this as a way of channelling the irrational imagery of the unconscious, those more inclined to magic see it as a way of channeling messages from spirit or the great mystery, and those more inclined to new-age shamanic worldview see it as journeying with the materials.
Whichever story we tell about this practice all I know is that it has been the foundation of my creative practice for as long as I can remember drawing, which if I recall correctly was inspired by a guide in a dream, and is to me one of the entryways into the mythopoeic imagination. A way of courting improvisational creativity, allowing ideas to come without the interference of the mind. It allows me to touch into full presence in the moment and touches the mystery of the spirit of the unknown that unfolds moment by moment.
Relationship building
I also realised I needed to deepen my thinking in how I relate to the land. Reflecting on how I approached my relating to the land that day, It wasn’t the approach that you would take when building a new relationship. When building a new connection, in my world at least. You don’t generally dive in and spend the entire day with the new person. You’ll spend a little bit of time here, a bit of time there. Have a catch up, a cup of tea, maybe a walk. It takes time to feel new people out, to build the trust and connection, to see how that connection feels and what organically flows and unfolds from that. I hadn’t fully considered that part of building a deeper mythopoetic relationship with the land that I’d need to treat it like building a new relationship.
Growing new leaves
These lessons have allowed me to slow down a bit for January and not be so frantic. Which is a complete change of pace as I’m coming out of four years of frantic survival mode combined with regular mini burn-outs. It’s a real blessing to have the space where I can slow down and allow my art, dreams and ideas to have space to breathe and grow.
During December and January I noticed there were leaf buds on the trees, tucked away growing in their hard little casings, dreaming the leaves of next years spring into being and in that, saw this as a mirror of my own dreaming of this years activities.
Fairytale Protagonists
In January I spent quite some time in research, following my threads of fascination with the mythic and the animate. Listening to podcasts, reading books, diving into the internet alongside dreaming with drawing and writing.
An episode of my favourite podcast The Emerald by Joshua Schrei, called ‘Awake in the forest of dangers and wonders’, drew the ideas together for me. In this episode he explores the mythic, fairytale and animate view of the forest. This added an important thread to my thinking around sensory and situational awareness whilst relating mythopoetically with the earth.
He speaks of how the protagonists in fairytales navigate the forest:
‘The sensory openness of the youngest daughter is a great gift in navigating the forest. Her mind has not yet decided that things are this way or that, or that stones never speak, or that the purpose of entering the forest is simply to get to the other side. She does not walk brashly into the forest. She walks as one who is learning, feeling, absorbing, listening paying attention… The fairytale protagonist navigates the forest through protocols of animacy. The forest is the place where trees and bushes and grasses and toadstools explain for those who will listen. What to do and what not to do. Who to talk to and who not to talk too… ‘The forest demands that we be awake, aware, in a place of strange sounds, marvellous sights of perils. and wonders. There is a place where it helps not to be the jaded one, the one who has already decided how life is. There is a place where it helps to walk humbly rather than brashly. To listen with respect to the forces all around. There is a place where is helps to feel through the skin, to listen through the feet, to tread delicately and hold each choice as precious. Where is this place:? Of course it’s right here,. This is the forest. The forest is consciousness, the forest is life, the forest is choices’
That sang to the words that came out of my drawing and reflection, ‘Listen with all your senses and all your sense - Common Sense, inner wisdom, what are the conditions telling me, listen to the stories in the wind.’ And so as we headed towards Imbolc (early February), I could see the stirrings of the seedlings of the new in the world and in my creative practice.
In my next post I’ll tell you all about my first successful mythopoetic nature immersion, entering the forest like a fairytale protagonist, and my new painting ‘Continual Becoming’.
Love & Sparkles
Rachel
X