Blodeuwedd

When the burgeoning force of spring meets the ardent heat of summer, our dazzling maid comes into being, to fill the lusting void with the heady perfume of feminine wiles.  Bursting forth, her willowing figure is formed from nine types of blossom - meadowsweet, broom, cockle, bean, nettle, chestnut, primrose, oak and the hawthorn that grow wild across the unsuspecting land.  Woven together by trickster hands, life breathed into her by kingly whims, her birth is as wild woman and her beauty all the more treacherous.

So she, whose destiny is undreamt of marriage, is born a companion to he who cannot take human wife, nor die so easily as man.  For him a blossoming woman made from verdant nature into unnatural ardour, untamed, with her own mind and desires.   Thus the story unfurls its buds into emerging tragedy, for always is free will temptation filled. 

Child as she is of lascivious Beltane, her red heart soon beats deep for a vital young warrior, as youthful and as tempestuous as she.   A potent mix of ingredients, for lovers entwined tie themselves in bonds of foolish acts, driven mad with longing. Together they plot to steal the life of unwary unwanted husband. 

Pretty pleading discovers the secret of death and hunter wields the spear forged over thirteen moons to fell their prey, seeming dead.  But what mystery unfolds when shape-shifter appears: wounded Eagle flying high to the magical Tree of Life. 

How unjust a punishment then when fragrant Face of Flowers is transformed.  Her innate power born of spring days and summer dances, now stilled to abide only in the darkness of the long, silent hours.
  
Now beware all, that bitter owl who cries in the night...

An old story retold by Amber Spring 2011

Seeking Self and Finding Bare Bones II

'Before I die, I want to stand on an ice sheet and in an orange desert and see nothing but vast sky.'

 

I didn't dream of travel particularly; I was a home bird who liked being in England and at most longed to visit the ancient sites of the British Isles and Ireland. I was the last of my (three, younger) siblings to really travel in the true sense of the word. I couldn't wait to leave school and go to Art College so having a gap year was very far from my mind. Also I admit I was terrified of the idea! Despite leaving home to go to college, then moving to London soon after and virtually disappearing from the family landscape in my twenties, I needed my friends and soul family more than they ever knew.

Life moves in waves both destructive and creative. A gradual building up and gathering of people, places, somewhere to work, to call home and then things fall apart and disintegrate in your hands like dust only to pull back and move through to the next wave. Beneath it the sandy beach of your soul undulates and changes, old beliefs eroding and others revealed as treasures - curled shells upon the golden curve of Self.

It is only later in life that one acknowledges an undercurrent of restless energy, of courage and calling. Something reminds you of a story once read long ago where the heroine stood alone in a desert and understood profoundly her own being for the first time in her life. How profoundly that touched you and your young self, but what to do with it? Pocket it away until you have lived enough to need it...



Frozen Lake

Orange Desert

Welcome Spring

Vernal Goddess

Persephone - Goddess of the Underworld

Sometimes I find that a certain image, story or archetype stays with me for many years, a thread woven through time and place expressed inwardly and then appearing outside of oneself. Persephone is one such thread...

'Prosepine' by Rossetti

“Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
  Edna St. Vincent Millay

Persephone is a subject that has interested me for a long time, as an image of womanhood and its apparent parallels between her myth and the stories of women the world over. That we are caught in between the light and the dark, that we are stolen from our mothers too early and taken into the depths of lusts we don't understand. That we are pulled between being ‘good’ girls our mothers would be proud of and the ‘bad’ girls (or more accurately ‘wild’ girls) they would be ashamed of, but secretly we both want to be.

She came to me powerfully during one of the most painful times of my life, when I seemed to be in between the worlds and channelling ideas one after another. I was watching a programme about mummies and there was one that was curled in this pose that was so like a young girl asleep and merely dreaming that it captivated me.

I painted Kore (Maiden) at the moment of silent slumber, when she is a spring flower and untouched, in a pose of quiet death.  She dreams of falling in love and the summer to come, all the while someone is plotting to take her away. The dried poppy heads blow soporific seeds into her eyes so she remains unconscious of her fate. But also alongside the poppies are brambles that speak of the dark side of mother love, that mother loves her but is envious. Is aware of how the child’s youth and freshness shows against her own ripened beauty. They are the briars that appear in fairy tales, where loving mothers die young and stepmothers are wicked. The cruel thorns that scratch young skin and spill the rich red blood of womanhood.

 ‘Kore’ By Amber Caspian, 2009

‘Kore... gently curled.  Small figure of quiet Death.  Settled within the age-old Prison of wild briar and sharp thorn. Dormant amidst Soporific poppies. Tell me, of what do you dream?’

From the versions I have read it appears that Persepine is always taken away unwillingly from a mother who doesn't want her to go by a lover she doesn't want. Yet for me I believe there is something in the idea that both mother and daughter are ready for the separation. The girl is yearning to become a woman and experience her sexual self in a way that she cannot within the realm of her mother. Mother is relieved to be able to rest and enter the dark time of hibernation and restoring even if only awhile. And all because Persephone ate those six pomegranate seeds...

A story about choice taken away now appears full of moments where a decision can be made – mother takes her eye off her daughter when she could have never let her go; the child lies alone and unprotected conjuring dreams of subjects she has no experience of; once taken she eats seeds that she knew would hold her to the new life where she is Queen of Souls, her own realm. Those seeds are nourishment, food for the Self and of a kind she will never find in her mother’s summer garden.

Arctic Art

My thoughts return to the Arctic often, even in summer, but it doesn't feel right to post about the cold lands when the wheel turns warmer. We've had a couple of weeks with spring in the air but now we're once again amidst wind, sleet and snow and so I thought I'd take the opportunity to get one more Arctic post in.

The Arctic has intrigued me for many years, ever since I was in my teens and started reading in earnest.  It inspired me even before I had set a snow boot upon ice.  I'm the child with a slither of ice in her heart, her eye, her soul.  Not in the way of frozen emotions but instead using ice as lens, a clear eye, an enhanced vision of myself and therefore the way I express that.

Once I knew I was definitely going to Sweden it was as if the floodgates opened.  I met the group I was going with in the October before we went, spending a weekend sitting in circle and sharing our journeys to this place.  Lots of connections of having been to 'Rivenstone' at the same time, mutual friends and acquaintances.

We did a visualization to meet our inner guides and took turns to sit in the yurt in the depths of night, keeping the fires burning and wolves at bay.  We wrote letters to ourselves to be received at an unknown date, our innocent curious selves meeting our knowing adventurous selves.

Here are some of the visual pieces I created before travelling to the Land of Snow and Ice…

'Arctic Hare and I' (c) Amber Caspian (Monoprints, Oil Painting & Drum Bag)

Seeking Self and Finding Bare Bones I

For years I have longed to travel, not having taken a gap year before college or starting work, it felt as though a rite of passage hadn't been taken.

In the past I had regarded myself as more of an armchair traveller, a seeker after inner truths journeying on the rhythm of the drum or the dream, rather than someone likely to do so physically. This changed as I changed and became a strong yearning for adventure.  I felt trapped in my job, despite enjoying many aspects of it, and I was tired of the 'safe' life that stretched before me.

One day I stumbled upon a book called 'Soulcraft' by Bill Plotkin that seemed to answer a number of questions.  Working in a shamanic way with nature, the ritual telling of one's story to the land, going deep, feeling the giant 'YES' to Self, to Life, to living without fear all spoke directly to me.  I loved the way that beautiful poems were used to connect to soul. It appeared that others were aware of the sharp edge of Fear against the soft flesh of Self, and the call that comes to shake the false image of oneself so that the truth you were born with could re-emerge.

Later while at 'Rivenstone' in Dartmoor I saw a presentation, given through letters, diaries and poems, by several women who had travelled to Arctic Sweden on a creative and spiritual retreat.  At the end I said with great intention - I want to do that! - and I signed up for information.  The following year I received a leaflet and realised I couldn't afford to go, so I put it aside with the knowledge that if I was meant to go I would.

So after many years of dreaming about doing a Soulcraft Quest I began to make plans to take a 3-month sabbatical and do the September Quest in Utah.  I even went out one evening with two of my American friends to talk about my trip and get some advice. However, the Universe works with us and to my utter surprise 2 weeks later the opportunity came early when redundancies were announced at work.  I put myself forward and was accepted.

The first thing I did was email the women about going to the Arctic; I was welcomed with open arms! It was perfect timing as they needed to book the flights within the next couple of weeks. Then I had a long conversation on Skype with a lady in America and signed up for the May Quest.  What an amazing gift, an enormous answering 'YES!' to everything that matters, all was meant to be and led to the most wonderful experiences of my life.