The Sun Returns – Nisaba

Golden winter solstice blessings as we arrive at the return of the Sun. This print parallels the return of the Sun on our birthdays , when the sun returns to the place where it resided when we were born, our astrological Solar Return. Western astrology developed in ancient Sumer (Iraq) where the  Sumerian Fertility Goddess, Nisaba(2430BCE), was credited and aligned with transmitting the origins of astrology.

“Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.”
― Carl Jung

SOLAR RETURN – NISABA
Sumerian Goddess of Astrology

 

Ancient hymn to NISABA…..

Lady coloured like the stars of heaven,

holding a perfectly endowed lapis-lazuli tablet!

Nisaba, great wild cow born by Uraš,

wild sheep nourished on good milk among holy alkaline plants,

opening the mouth for seven …… reeds!

Perfectly endowed with fifty great divine powers, my lady, most powerful……..

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The Language of birds ….

The “Language of birds” is also called the “Green Language”. This is a mystical and sacred language of symbols whereby the core of what needs to be said, is actually not said, and is used as a ‘living’  language in Alchemy and other esoteric subjects. To many, the language of birds is nothing more than a series of  codes , texts and phrases, which pass by in daily conversation. Those with ears that “hear” the  secret and perfect language are offered  the  key to perfect knowledge.

The Alchemists used  symbols of birds such as  – the Black Crow, White Swan, Peacock, Pelican, and Phoenix – to describe certain stages of the alchemical process.

The language of birds

 

Hark, love, while through this wood we walk,
Beneath melodious trees,
How wrens with redbreasts ever talk
What tuneful words they please…
No graybeard linguist, love, could vie
With our large learning, then!
You’d speak to me in Redbreast; I
Would answer you in Wren!
~Edgar Fawcett, “Bird-Language,” Songs of Doubt and Dream, 1891

 

AIDOS – Goddess of Shame – # MeToo

This print is my response to the # Me Too campaign ….
This is AIDOS , the Greek Goddess who personifies shame. She was a close companion to the Goddess of justice and vengeance -Nemesis .
I don’t need to read the papers about the prevalence of sexual harassment and objectification. My own experiences and those of the women in my life are riddled with penis exposure , workplace harassment, incest, sexual assault and rape. Perhaps you may think this is too strong a statement but most women have experienced some of these. Often women react with misplaced shame and bury the feelings that are a part of our society .We have been told for too long to endure it , that it’s ok and it is just how it is……BUT it’s not ok to carry the embarrassment, the burden, the anxiety and the shame, the humiliation, the anger …ITS NOT OK.

Women are made to feel ashamed for not fighting hard enough

Women are threatened into silence and punished for speaking out

 

The Muse of Alchemy ….🌹

Lady Alchymia is the guiding principle of Alchemy and is also known as the Anima Mercuri. She is Nature , but she is also the astrum – the stars . She is Quintessence , the 5th element.

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” Hermes Trismegistus

Lady Alchymia – the muse of Alchemy

There are 2 entwining paths in alchemy …..which end in one .

THE SOLAR PATH – The first way of knowing is rational, deductive, argumentative, the intellectual thinking that is the hallmark of science and our patriarchal Western culture. The alchemists called this consciousness the Solar path and assigned it many code words, such as ….Sun, Fire, Sulphur, and Spirit. The solar path is the King.

THE LUNAR PATH – The alchemists called the other way of knowing Lunar. This kind of intelligence is a non-linear, image-driven, intuitive way of thinking that is an accepted tool of the arts and religion. Among its symbols are the Moon, Water, Mercury, Lady Alchymia the Holy Ghost, Soul.The lunar path is the Queen.

THE STELLAR PATH – is the sacred marriage of both the King energy and the Queen energy. The alchemists believed that perfection could only be achieved by working with both Solar and Lunar ways of knowing and ultimately uniting them in a third state of Stellar Consciousness, the Egyptian alchemists called this the “Intelligence of the Heart.”

Paracelcus – the great alchemical physician was  father of modern day homeopathy. He saw the function of  his remedies as  the restoration of celestial harmony between an inner ‘astrum’, or star, in man and a heavenly astrum.

Brigid and the Secret Fire ……

Here is Brigit the Sun Goddess who sits  the Divine Forge and Sacred Hearth . She is  capable of transforming , with her own magical, alchemical, divine transmutation, one thing to another. Because of this she is the keeper of the secret Fire, a substance containing Heaven and Earth, which  is the 5th element after fire, air, earth and water. This is the  fire used in  alchemy and also the fire which Prometheus stole from Heaven. It  is serpentine in nature symbolising  life  force. It is the energy of  Kundalini, Chi, Prana.

Brigit reaches down into the dark Earth to connect with the ‘divine spark’ , she offers us divine inspiration . She is also Goddess of poetry and resides over purification and the waters of the sacred wells. Her energy is celebrated at Imbolc, a time of the stirring of growth within the dark earth. Three rivers are named after her …Brigit in Ireland, Braint in Wales and Brent in England .

“Seek that which is not possible” ….These are the words Carl Jung carved above his Hearth within his beloved Tower house.

Brigit and the Secret Fire

An Old Gaelic hymns for Imbolc reflect the nature of her celebration and her kundalini aspect;

‘Early on Brides morn, shall the serpent come from the hole.

I will not harm the serpent, nor will the serpent harm me.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Echo’s lament for Narcissus

Echo was an Oread, a mountain nymph. She had a reputation for talking rather a lot and used this skill to distract Hera from searching for her husband Zeus who is conducting numerous affairs. As a punishment, Hera takes away Echo’s voice so that she is only able to repeat whatever she hears, a voice becomes an echo. She is silenced and loses her own authority.  Wandering one day she catches sight of Narcissus and falls madly, maybe obsessively in love with him. He catches sight of her but spurns her telling her he would rather die than be with her. And from then on she can only echo his voice and watch as he falls in love with his own reflection in the water. He too becomes obsessed, with himself,  and eventually dies as Echo watches on. His body by the pool becomes the Narcissus flower. Echo wastes away with only the Echo of her voice remaining.  A tale of obsession? narcissism or the search for the Beloved? Certainly one of loss and grief.

Echo’s lament for Narcissus

 

ECHO’S LAMENT FOR NARCISSUS  by Ben Jonson(1572-1632)

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop, herbs and flowers,
Fall grief in showers;
Our beauties are not ours:
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.

The Red Seeds Oracle

At our village’s open studio event next weekend I will be launching   a new creation ….‘The Red Seeds Oracle’. I am Looking forward to seeing anyone that can make it to the Chapel . I dedicate this to the Feminine , to all the women I have known, to my mother, my sister  and to my daughters .With love and  special thanks to  Capella, my daughter, without her love and expertise this would not have manifested. 

Some words by the great Sufi poet RUMI for you all x

“You suppose you are the trouble
But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It’s too bad that you want to be someone else
You don’t see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.” ……. RUMI