The Moon and the Virgin

I've been spending the past month immersing myself in what I'll simply describe as being an ongoing, life long journey of spiritual creativity that Maureen Murdock speaks of in her book The Heroine's Journey, and learning how to actualize this in my life as an artist. It all very exciting and rather daunting at the same time. But I have never felt more proactively engaged in, and connected to, the creative process.

In practical terms, it translates into knowing and connecting the dots with these four things that Ann Rea from Artists Who Thrive has taught me.

• Why -  Knowing who I am and what at I stand for, and what I stand against and Why, my Purpose.
• What - Knowing my Why determines my What, my Mission, the one problem that I believe is really worth solving.
• How  -  Knowing How I can help to solve that problem, through a particular process of creating value above and beyond my art.
• Who - Knowing Who has the problem worth solving.

As mentioned I am re-reading The Heroine's Journey written by family therapist, educational consultant, and writer Maureen Murdock.
Below is a poignant quote out of the book by Nor Hall.


"There is a void felt these days by women and men-who suspect that their feminine nature, like Persephone, has gone to hell. Wherever there is such a void, such a gap or wound agape, healing must be sought in the blood of the wound itself. It is another of the old alchemical truths that "no solution should be made except in its own blood." So the female void cannot be cured by conjunction, by an integration of its own parts, by a remembering or a putting back together of the mother-daughter body."
                           - Nor Hall, The Moon and the Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine


I posted my review of The Heroine's Journey on Good Reads. It was interesting to read the other reviews. This is what I wrote.

My second reading of this book, but this time intentionally studied, with much note taking. One of the most important books for any one to read, in particular, women who wish to understand what the heroine's journey is, and to learn how to heal the mother/daughter split and the feminine wound in order to "revive a spirituality of creativity."

Because this book was written in 1990, sixteen years ago, it is seen by some to be irrelevant, in a 'post feminist' society. Having lived through the second wave of feminism  myself, and historically aware of the first wave, I must disagree with that. This book is actually as relevant today, if not more so, in many ways.


It would be easy to make the assumption that circumstances have moved progressively forward for women, but my observations tell me otherwise. There still exists numerous discrepancy's between men and women, discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, religion, poverty, and great income and socioeconomic disparity throughout the world. This reality check seriously makes me wonder why we haven't come further ahead.

Maureen Murdock states that our society is androcentric, which means seeing the world from a male perspective. I believe this to be very true, it explains a lot and still very prevalent today. You don't have to look far to see the evidence.

What Nor Hall says is true. Many of us do suspect we are like Persephone, and have gone to hell.

Mothers

My Mother - Sarah Helen Milner Meyers

Lots of holidays and occasions we celebrate we don't know their origins, and some mean more to us than others. Mother's Day is one of those particular celebrations that has significant meaning to many.

Many people are very grateful for having a mother, some I know unfortunately have not had a positive relationship with their mothers, and that's a sad thing. I am always so grateful that I found both my friend and mentor in my mother, and as the years go by, I become even more grateful and miss her deeply.

Mother's Day has become commercialized in many ways much like all the other holidays but when it does come around most of us do think about our mothers whether they are still living or have left this mortal coil. I am no different and it is the same for me, I am thinking about my mother today.

Today I also think of motherless children, and childless mothers who can find comfort in knowing there is a Great Mother like Demeter in search of her child Persephone, who always loves unconditionally, who watches over us, and is closer to us than our own heart, and we can aspire to be like her.

We all have memories of our mothers, and I hope your memories, are all good ones.

The Great Mother - Catherine Meyers - Egg Tempera on Porcelain Tile 2015

It's My Way - Buffy Saint Marie

Buffy Saint Marie and her song It's My Way epitomizes for me what it means to be the Wild Woman, the Woman Who Runs with the Wolves, Wolf Woman, The Empress, Persephone, and all those who have taken, are taking ,and will be taking The Heroine's Journey.

On this International Women's Day and always  everyday I honour and thank all those beautiful strong women whose shoulders I stand on, the ones who have lived then, now and to come.


It’s My Way
© Buffy Sainte-Marie
(I’m cutting my) own way
through my own day
and all I dare say is
It’s my own
(Got my) own seeds
Got my own weeds
I’ve got my own harvest
that I’ve sown
I can tell you
things I’ve done
and I can sing you
songs I’ve sung
But there’s one thing
I can’t give
for I and I alone can live
The years I’ve known,
the life I’ve grown.
Got a way I’m going,
and it’s my Way.
I’ve got my own stakes
in my own game
I’ve got my own name
and it’s my Way
I’ve got my own wrong
I’ve got my own right
I’ve got my own fight
and it’s my Way
I’ve got my own peace
I’ve got my own wrath
I’ve got my own path that only I can go
I’ve got my own sword in my own hand
I’ve got my own plan that only I can know
Don’t be crying Don’t be sighing
Your day will come; your day alone
Years you’ll know and a life you’ll grow
You got a way to go and it’s all on your own
I’ve got my own World
I’ve got my own Life
I’ve got my own Strife
and it’s my Way
I’ve got my own Kith
I’ve got my own Kin
I’ve got my own Sin
and it’s my Way
I’ve got my own Prayers
I’ve got my own Fears
I’ve got my own Tears
and it’s my Way
I’ve got my own Joy
I’ve got my own Load
I’ve got my own Road
and it’s my Way
Put down the story of what I’ve known
Your bound for glory all of your own Put down the story of what I say
You’re bound for glory
all on your own one day

How Frida Kahlo Made Me Think About Life and Death

 
Recently my childhood life long friend lent me a wonderful little book about my favourite artist, Frida Kahlo. The book, Frida Kahlo Painting Her Own Reality is written by Christina Burrus and published by Abrams, New York.
It is a fairly in depth biography along with wonderful coloured illustrations of Frida's paintings and photographs depicting her life. There are her intimate diary enters and letters giving a real sense of who she was.

What I've mostly thought about Frida Kahlo was the way she fully lived her life and how death was so often a present theme throughout her subject matter in her paintings, while simultaneously, she had great passion for life, and for her painting.

Perhaps Frida was an atheist of conviction, though this is not completely clear, however one can not help but feel some how, a strong presence of the divine, the spirituality of the goddess, with an otherworldly quality in many of her paintings. I can't help but feel her Mexican heritage and culture, along with her mother's staunch Catholicism and her father being Jewish must have been a significant influence on her spirituality or opposition to it.

The Dream - Frida Kahlo (1940)

 Her Mexican heritage I'm certain, shaped her level of comfort surrounding the acceptance of death as being, just a part of life. As seen in her painting The Dream (1940) it reflects how she was very conscious of having to live day to day with the possibility of her own death.

She stated to Alejandro immediately after her accident ' death is dancing around my bed all night long'. All of her paintings reflected an obsession with death during the period after her separation from Diego. As well, understandably the loss of all her children, she could not carry to term, was a source of great depression, and sorrow for Frida. The fine and precarious thread between life and death must have been ever poignantly present.

I believe because of Frida's suffering, she lived her life as fully as she possibly could, seized the day in spite of, and perhaps because of her sorrows, heartache and pain, she loved life itself, with such passion, that one can not help but be inspired by a woman who had such a close relationship with life, because she had such an intimate relationship with death. She may not have wanted to return after her death, but she certainly will always live on always in the spirit of her paintings and the beautiful soul she was.

 Frida reminds me of Persephone, queen of the underworld. She reveals in much of her painted subject matter, the secrets of her inner life, not unlike the mysterious unconscious inner world of Persephone.

I believe Frida Kahlo's world was not full of death and darkness, but full of life and much light.