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Well my first ceramics class is complete! It was amazing and exhausting and wonderful. I met incredible people, got to talk “shop”, and play with dirt! I’m all signed up to do it again in the fall. With a longer running semester the classes are only two days a week and three hours a day (instead of four and start at 1 pm) so I am hoping to get to keep a few more spoons this time around. I already have plans (and two orders!) for things I want to make, a few things that I want to test and an idea for a VERY long term project that would be part installation and part ritual *grin* color me ecstatic!
But first – the rewards of five long weeks of work – shiny stuff!
The odd things first:
My candle holder thing is MUCH prettier with glaze – a nice dark blue, as is the weird plant/frog holder thing that will live in my backyard for the moss to grow on. It got a green celedon glaze with a splash of rutile blue for accenting. Inside I placed a couple of glass pebbles – those melted and then cracked during firing creating a still water effect.
The three pinch pots did exactly what I hoped they would and darkened up nicely. The Black Mountain clay comes out a lovely dark chocolate and the Rods Bod looks like warmly toasted stone ground wheat. I did discover that I hadn’t applied enough white slip to the black piece so the streaks where I missed are noticeable. A good thing for me to remember. Working with clay and the glazes takes a hell of a lot more patience that I normally have, and the glaze process in particular is bloody repetitive! ugh. but… its worth it in the end.
The other pinch pot I did everyone seems to like – I think it looks like the closest thing to an “ashtray” of all the things I made. You know what I mean… that “thing” you made in elementary school ceramics by squishing the clay around with your hands and then handing it to one of your parents with great pride. When they asked you what the lumpy thing (painted pink or glazed lemon yellow no doubt) was you proudly declared “An Ashtray!” even if your parents didn’t smoke? yeah… that project. Well its not quite elementary school work, but I of course see all the lumps and bumps and think its fugly. I’m pondering giving it to my dad for Yule as an “ashtray” (even though he quit smoking more than 20 years ago – I think he would get the joke).It was the other “patience” teacher. Again, I thought i had painted on enough colored slip along the vines, but after firing it was clear that was not the case. Ah well.
Of the plate / bowls I made The seashell one seems to generate the most interest. The crack I was worried about did seal up, but the seam is rather evident, so to solve that I am going to get help epoxying (no breathing in THOSE fumes for me) a set of shells / beads / pears – things over the seam. I figure it will look a bit like a waterfall or a treasure trove when we get done with it, so that should be cool. The black glaze worked perfectly, so once the seam is no longer an issue I will indeed have a lovely scrying bowl. I’m looking forward to testing it out.
The Demeter bowl turned out incredibly cool, though vastly different than I expected. Apparently one of the things that can happen during high fire is that clay can bounce back into a shape you pulled it into or out of, even if you have bisqued it already. The heat of high fire picks up the “muscle memory” of the clay and enhances it. Taking the bowl of the plaster mold I was a little rougher than I should have been and now we can see that – the bowl is warped. Along with the kind of patina quality of the green glaze gives the bowl a very archaic feel. I looks like something from an ancient temple – that alone is cool. Not exactly what I was expecting, but interesting none the less – and Demeter seems pleased, so its all good.
The Brigid plate suffered from “end of the semester” rush and a crack in the edge. Because of this I couldn’t put it through the high fire process so the distinction between the Cinnamon and Rods Bod clays is barely visible. It’s still lovely, but again not quite what I was going for. I did a simple clear glaze over the plate which worked nicely to enhance the two colors and make the plate food safe at the same time. That’s going to live in our temple for coven work.
And last, but hardly least… the Tree. (OH MY GODS) um.. yeah… to say it worked would be a bit of an understatement. I am hopelessly in love with how it turned out, plotting more trees and have been given the (squeal) of approval for the work by the client it is going to. All is VERY very right in this artists world.
Now that class is over and the tree is complete, its time to start working on the doll that goes with the tree. Mmmm… tattooed, long haired, pretty Norse God… one of my favorite people/gods to work with!
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago. 3 comments
So Ceramics, the new and utter love of my life, let me show you it 
As of today’s nearly six hour marathon session of work (yes, we are all crazy) all but two of my piece are now glazed. The last two pieces were snuck into a last minute bisque fire run, so they will be ready to play with next week.
Over the past month I have made eleven pieces. One of the pieces is part of a commission for a doll I am working on – Frey, the Norse God of wealth, growth and a whole lot of other lovely stuff. As part of his design he gets to lean up against the World Tree, or at least the lower part of the world tree, and I get to make it – or rather I have made it – out of clay. I also made a bowl with wheat pressed into its sides for Demeter, a strange Seashell type bowl, a bowl for Brigid made out of two types of clay and an offering “thing” made up of the scraps from that bowl, three pinch pots that proved to me I have studied a lot of of anthropology, archeology and art history, a weird “Yes, this is my first ceramics project in years” thing which just missed being an ash tray by a few inches, and two other …er… experiments.
Pictures-
The Tree and the Demeter bowl are both in the kiln RIGHT NOW!! (top shelf near the back in front of and next to the yellow and red figure) see – I have proof:
The three pinch pots are also in there somewhere. Those I did out of two different kinds of clay – the class standard Rods Bod, which is gray when we work with it and ends up kind of grainy and earth like after all the firings, and Black Mountain which looks just like it sounds, a nice rich black – no glaze, just colored slip on the lower half of each (white on the Black Mountain one, black on the two Rods Bod ones so they look like mirror opposites) and the natural clay as is. I’m really looking forward to seeing how those turn out.
Frey’s Tree is a huge project but so much fun! I had to scale it to match the doll and then increase *that* to account for the natural shrinkage that occurs in the drying and firing process. It started out 10 inches tall, and completely circular – just a slab of Black Mountain clay pressed to the inside of a bucket.
Once the form was dry enough to get out of the bucket, I cut it in half and stacked the two pieces one on top of the other to get a full 20 inches of height. Then I got to play! I added the roots and veining to the front of the tree and a shelf (for stability and offerings) to the back all with more Black Mountain. When one of my cohorts in crime at class asked if I wanted any of her trimmings (from her thrown pots) I grabbed them up and used them as “bark” along the veins. Conveniently she and our other cohort were working in both the BM and a lovely rusty colored clay so I could do two tones for more fun and effects.
Here’s the tree just after bisque fire (the first and longest of the firing processes, this dries the clay out completely and starts the molecular change that gives us stoneware) – a little shorter (by one inch – for a total of three inches down since I started) and a whole light lighter in color – don’t worry it will darken back up in the next firing!
Here is the tree nearly done with glazing – it looks odd – the “pink” will turn yellowish brown, the “green” will go black/green, and the black will actually be brown/black – all the changes are because of a. it’s glaze and fracking weird (yes the painter in me is twitching) b.on top of the Black Mountain clay which is seriously DARK it will all go shades darker than it would on a lighter clay and c. it all depends on how many coats you apply so I played that up and did very thick in some areas for the green, so it will look like moss, and very thick with the black in the hallow/burned out section so it will look… well… burned out, and then lighter in other areas to keep the darkness of the clay from getting overwhelmed. We shall see if my evil plot worked. Since this is hire fire glaze, there will be some melting and mixing going on as well – I just have no idea how much… which is half the fun or half the terror depending on my mood. lol
Other pictures…
The Demeter Bowl
The first image is of the clay drying over the mold. The next two are once it was bone dry and ready for the Bisque fire showing the wheat pressed into the outside and the center of the inside.
The Demeter bowl after Bisque firing.
The wheat has burned off (I REALLY should have taken a picture of the ashy wheat before I brushed it out, that was gorgeous – nearly white and still clinging to the shape of the stalks, but truly just ash. So cool!) Now you can see the depression left by the wheat… This clay will also darken up. It’s freaky though looking at it at this stage (the lighting here doesn’t do the color justice)- it’s nearly a pale salmon color instead of the gray it was when working or the kind of “stone ground wheat” look it is supposed to get after the next firing.
And inside the bowl- My brilliant plan worked! - the wheat that I taped onto the mold just before I draped the slabbed clay over it stayed in place and now shows up perfectly in the center.
I didn’t take any pictures of the bowl after I painted it because our Kiln Master was rushing to get the kiln loaded and had a space waiting for it and because really it looks silly at this stage. The wheat which I painted with a yellow looks pink, and the rest of the bowl which is in the same black to green (that’s its name, I swear) I used on the tree is supposed to come out somewhere along the forest green end of the spectrum currently looks like a pastel mint. UGLY! lol. It should be stellar when its done firing though.
The Sea Shell bowl
This is a bit of an experiment. I was going to do another pressed piece like the Demeter bowl, but was so intrigued by the way the clay over hug the mold that I started playing with its shape and well… things just sort of went from there. Here it is at bone dry – ready for bisque fire.
Sadly the shape itself has caused some problems. Two cracks formed as it was drying. I repaired them, but one reopened during the bisque fire which meant I couldn’t do any high fire – aka *glass* glazes on it. They would just get into the crack and split the thing down the middle. Instead, on our teachers recommendation, I patched the crack again with underglaze and then painted with more low fire underglaze. It will have a very different look and feel from the high fire work, but still incredibly cool (if it doesn’t just blow up on me as it fires) I was rushing to get out of the studio and didn’t take any pictures of the finished glaze work, so you will have to imagine the inside as solid black which will be glossy, and the outside a mix of black and blue sponged off – really just a very light tinting of color and matte finish. If it all works out I think it will make a very nice scrying bowl!
More pictures once everything is out of the kilns and shiny!
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago. 1 comment
It seems the weather in the Bay Area is determined to be stormy this spring. We have had a ton of rain, which is both wonderful and difficult. Wonderful of course because around here, we can *always* use the rain. Difficult, for me at least, because rain means more mold and more dust mites which means more *fun* on the health front, but at least I have the sound of the rain to keep me company while I veg out on the couch.
The rain has also meant that our seedlings from the Ostara ritual are well feed and growing like … well… happy seeds! I even had enough energy today to go out and get most of them transplanted over into bigger pots so they can stretch out and grow the next steps. That of course meant I needed to take pictures
Here are the seeds getting planted at the Ostara ritual (how about that plate of cakes – er carrots and strawberries we got to share?)
the seeds in their new homes (being guarded by my younger son’s bike)
I honestly have no idea exactly what in each pot (oops!) we had a little too much fun at the ritual and lost track of what went where. I’m pretty sure that my cats were working some serious mind control on the gang though, as I did recognize a fair amount of catnip among the seedlings. I think I saw a few sunflowers and I pretty sure I one pot has lettuce seedlings in it – so that will be nice. The rest? no idea! we had seeds for Hollyhock, cucumber, a couple of different herbs, some squashes, and more sunflowers… so this should be a lot of fun once the seedlings start showing their true nature.
Here’s a couple of other photos from the ritual:
Peeps of the North Altar Peeps of the East Altar
The Main Altar with our Chocolate bunny statues for God and Goddess
Next up… I need to get Demeter’s altar cleaned up, its a little neglected after the winter, I have a blueberry shrub to plant, and hopefully this summer we will finally get the labyrinth finished in the front yard! Pictures for everything of course!
Blessings,
Kate
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago. Add a comment
After more years than I can count of avoiding the topic, On Saturday September 10, 2009 I stood before Demeter’s altar and members of my community and declared myself Demetroi – a confirmed priestess of Demeter.
There really should be a whole lot more to say following a statement like that, but frankly I have a sinus infection trying to take hold in my head and yesterday was really LONG and wonderful and amazing and exhausting.
Until then, my thanks to everyone who has held my hand, read my mumbling questions, and been support of this long and crazy process.
Having my friends and family as part of my community and my life is one of the gifts I am grateful for.
Demeter’s Blessings upon you and your’s.
Kate
I Xrisi Örasis, Demetroi
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago. Add a comment
So remember how I said I wasn’t going to plant anything this year? (No, well I did somewhere, so bear with me). Apparently I spoke to soon. I walked into my local WholeFoods about three weeks ago and did the sapy eyed thing over a bunch of plants. Me! over plants! What the heck? Agricultural Goddesses, I tell yay!
So I yeah, I bought some plants and some potting soil. Then I rant out of soil. And pots. So I *just* had to the local plant nursery to get more supplies. And of course, since I was there, I just happened to see a few plants I liked… er… yeah… and so I filled up the back of my van with stuff.
Mind you all this was After my husband got his garden on by working on our front yard! *sigh* The House Kaleidicopia (yep, that’s what we call our home) yard project of 2009 is well and truly under way and I and up to my neck in dirt and plants and loving every minute of it all! Who’da thunk?
To begin at the beginning…
We have been needing to redo our front yard forever. About a month or so ago my hubby asks me if I would like a labyrinth in the front yard. Would I like??? He knows me far too well! Thus began the plotting of the front yard. We don’t really don’t have enough space to do a full size labyrinth, but we should be able to squeeze in a mini five circuit beastie similar to this kind:
The “Classical” Pattern. Original graphic © Shane Odom.
To do that we first have to move all the roses that are (were) where we want the labyrinth to go. That, and offering to buy my hubby a few more roses got him rolling. Over two weekends he, our youngest son and two friends moved first our ailing pear tree from what we now call the Rose side of the front yard to the back yard, where it will get much more sun and be waaaaay happier, transplant all but one of the Labyrinth side roses to the Rose side of the yard, and plant not one but nine more roses all told in the front yard! When they all the grow in we will have two hedges of yummy lavender and white simplicity roses (one on either side of the front yard). The Rose side is now a mini Rose Garden with only one rose still in shock from the transplant process.
The Labyrinth side still needs to denuded of its top layer of weed infested soil, but once that is done, I have a friend who is a wiz at building labyrinths and she has agreed to help me experiment with layouts till we find the right design for our yard. Then we can start laying down the ground cover (probably Irish moss) and pebbles to make up the pattern!
Ugh… lots of work, but it is amazing to see it all coming together!
In the back yard, my adventures in container gardening feel like they are going better this year. I have been reading up on the plants I potted, so I might actually be able to have produce by the end of the season this time!
I now have cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers, tomatoes, sunflowers, digitalis, mint (two kinds), sage, rosemary, Echinacea, hollyhock, California poppies, aloe, and Aeonium canariensis growing in my garden. Oh, and I have seeds sprouting for the Lupines and poppies that I am going to add to the front yard, and the cilantro that I will be growing in the back. And just today I planted my summer crop of barley. I’m keeping it in back with the rest of my produce, and hoping that without the massive rains from the winter, I might actually produce some barley plants this time. We shall see.
And last, but never least I have achieved Pomegranate! Yup. I am the proud owner of a pomegranate shrub. It now lives in an enormous faux terracotta pot a former housemate left us, and sits beside my external Demeter altar.
So somehow, in all of odd Chemically Sensitive, exhausting life, I have managed to garden. I don’t feel like I can be called a Gardener yet, maybe if I pull off an actually harvest this year, but I do feel like I am making a better connection to the earth and myself. And behind all of this has been Demeter, puttering around behind, inside and with me all the while I have doing working on myself and my plants. It’s a new sense of spirit and spirituality for me, to just be in the moment with no expectations and no requirements. I’m finding I rather like it.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago. 1 comment
I love researching Greek festivals. *snerk* First off we have the issue of when the event actually took place since our contemporary calendar does not line up well with their calendar. Figuring out when something should happen now is interesting. Then there is the process of deciphering what actually happened at the festival in the past and therefore what we might want to do for our reenactment of the festival in the present. For some festivals and rituals we have great records. We know the event happened, when, where, and even why, but not what was done during the event. Sometimes, like with the Eleusinian Mysteries this is because no one outside of the ritual staff and attendees was allowed to know, so no written records have been found and published to date. In other cases records have been lost, and in still others it may have been a case of people thinking it was so obvious that it no one thought to write about what they were doing.
Case in point, the Festival of Haloa. There seem to be two competing ideas about what the Haloa was about. On the one hand it appears to relate to grain and agriculture since the word Haloa is related to halōs meaning “threshing floor”. On the other hand the festival has sexual overtones and a few notations from writers about it being a women’s only ritual at which lewd and lascivious behavior and speech was encouraged. And on the third hand it may have something to do with the verdant growth going on all around the land at this time of year in Greece, much like in California, and by extension pruning of the vines and a connection to Dionysos.
“Starting from the beginning of the year, we find a festival celebrated at Athens about the commencement of January. Our information about it and even its name seem to be contradictory. The name, Haloa, 11 is derived from halos, which means both threshing floor and garden. Since the first sense of the word would be inapplicable to a festival celebrated in January, it must have been a gardening festival. It is said to have comprised Mysteries of Demeter, Kore, and Dionysus and to have been celebrated by the women on the occasion of the pruning of the vines and the tasting of the wine. It bore a certain resemblance to the Thesmophoria, and sexual symbols were conspicuous in it. If we think of the labors in the vineyards of modern Greece, this account is intelligible though not quite correct. In December the soil is hoed around the vines, and their roots are cut. At the same time the first fermentation of the wine is ended, and the wine can be drunk, although it is not very good. Thus, the description of the Haloa fits in with what we know about the labors in the vine-yards. On the other hand, the Haloa is also said to have been a festival of Demeter, and this, too, is possible. The crops grow and thrive during the winter, and, as we have seen, sacrifices were brought to Demeter Chloe at this time.”
- Greek Popular Religion by Martin P. Nilsson p 32-33
As a solitary practitioner honoring Demeter in her rounds, I am going to stick with the simplest ways to celebrate this festival. Since my altar to Demeter has been rather neglected so far this winter I will spend some time today cleaning and righting the altar, changing out the decorations and lighting her candles. In honor of the vines and new growth I will be getting some grapes and fresh greenery, and in honor of the grain I will get a nice wheaty loaf of bread to share with Demeter and some friends who are coming over today. And since I have friends coming over today I suspect there will be lewd talk at some point, there being only ladies present today, and perhaps we will indulge in a silly and lascivious movie or two at some point. All in all that should take care of all the bits of honor and respect for this fest day and my level of energy this year.
Happy Haloa!
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago. Add a comment
Ahh the joys of having a chronic illness… it throws all your well laid plans for a loop! December was supposed to be the month that spent continuing my Demeter work by learning about Poseidon. I had Tonsilitis instead. This, mind you, was on top of the strep throat from November and the flue from October, you begin to see what I mean about well lain plans?
Thankfully, the gods of my life seem to be cutting me some slack. I “woke up” meaning I got enough energy and spoons and life back this month that I have been able to do the research I needed to do on Poseidon AND write up my notes! (This on top of working on a new doll – I am definitely feeling better). Since my notes are ten pages long, I think I will stick to a few excerpts for this blog post, and some really great links where you can get more information about the Lord of Water and Earthquakes if you are interested.
Homeric Hymn 22 – To Poseidon
“I begin to sing of Poseidon, the great god,
Mover of the earth and of the barren sea,
The sea-god who is lord of Helikon and broad Aigai.
O Earth-shaker, two-fold is your god-given prerogative,
To be tamer of horses and saver of ships.
Hail, Poseidon, black-maned holder of the earth!
Have a kindly heart, O blessed one, and come to the aid of sailors!”
Poseidon is the brother of Zeus and Hades. In some stories he is the older brother of Zeus, in others the younger. All three are the sons of the Titans’ Kronos and Rhea whom they over throw early in their lives. Once the younger gods and their siblings (Demeter and a few other nice ladies) have control of the world, the boys divide up the realms. Zeus gets all of the sky, Poseidon all of the Sea and Hades all of the underworld. Theoretically they are all equal portions but in all the stories Hades and Poseidon seem to feel that Zeus managed to get the better part of the deal some how.
Poseidon is generally depicted as a man of mature stature, usually with a full beard, holding a trident and interacting with waves in some way. He is often seen with a fish or dolphin in his hand(s). while the descriptions do not come out and say it, he was also quite the ladies man and managed to produce more offspring than even Zeus. There is a very nice description of Poseidon in the Iliad Book 13 lines 17-31.
Poseidon was a busy busy boy… He had a whooole lota lovers goddess and otherwise. For a great list of his lovers you can visit theoi.com at this link: http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/PoseidonLoves.html
He also had a whooooole lota children human, god and otherwise. Probably the best known of his children is Athena. For more on the kids see this link: http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/PoseidonFamily.html
There is some debate as to what Poseidon’s name means. Many references state that he is Lord of Earth or Husband of Earth. Walter Burkert disagrees. In “Greek Religion” he states that “the first component of the name is obviously the vocative potei-, Lord, but the second element da- remains hopelessly ambiguous; that it means earth and that Poseidon is therefore Husband of Earth is quite impossible to prove.” [136] However, Poseidon’s two main aspects of water and earth mover make his title of Lord of Earth fairly reasonable. He is first and foremost seen as a god of the oceans and therefore as a protector of fisherman. His less well known secondary aspect is that of ‘Earth Shaker’ He is known to bring earth quakes and hurl rocks into the sea [Burkert 137]. There is also a key story between Poseidon and Demeter in which they both changed into horse form and mated. Through their union the child/horse Areion was born, and later given to the hero Adrastus. Here again a case could be made for Poseiden being Lord of Earth or Consort of Earth because of his relationship with the De-Mater herself.
Poseidon was honored with sacrifices, festivals and games. His most common sacrifices were bulls, first fruits from the sea and less often horses. “The Isthmian Games were held at Korinthos in honour of Poseidon. It was one of the four great Athletic Festivals of Ancient Greece–the others being those of Zeus at Olympia and Nemea, and those of Apollon at Delphoi.” [theoi.com] In addition the month of Poseideon was dedicated to Poseidon and the eighth day, called Posdidea, was especially sacred to him.
Correspondences
Please Note – Unlike with some gods and pantheon’s Poseidon at least does not have a specific day of the week that he was worshiped, perhaps because fisherman went to sea when the oceans’ allowed, no matter what day of the week it was. Likewise, there is no specific number associated with him beyond the reference to the eight day of his fest month being particularly important. The Greeks did not assign colors or flowers and such in the way that we do now, there fore the data that follows is a list of recommendations only and is based on my experience working with Poseidon personally. As they say on the Net, “your mileage may vary”.
Number: 8
Day of the week: N/A, try Wednesday or Saturday
Month: December
Element(s): water and earth
Colors: all the shades of watery blue from phototrophic (the bright stuff at the top) to benthic (the dark stuff at the bottom), storm colors, with a dash of rocky earth – browns and grays more than life based green
Symbols: three pronged trident, fish, dolphins in particular, Tuna fish and tuna fishing, horses
Offerings: fresh fish, tuna, beef, wine, incense / smoke of some kind but NOT tobacco
Bibliography
Print
Athanassakis, Apostolos Translator The Homeric Hymns. Baltimore, NY: Johns Hopkins University Press 1976, 2004
Burkert, Walter Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1985
Parke, H. W. Festivals of the Athenians. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977
Robertson, Noel. “Poseidon’s Festival at the Winter Solstice.” The Classical Quarterly (New Series), 34.1 (1984). pp. 1-16.
Web
Ancient History.about.com
Gill, N.S., “Greek Winter Solstice Celebrations, Solstice Celebrations Honoring Poseidon”
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/sexualit1/a/GreekSolstice.htm
The Iliad of Homer on line at Internet Sacred Text Archive as of January 6, 2009
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/homer/ili/index.htm
Theoi Greek Mythology, Poseidon main page as of January 6, 2009
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Poseidon.html
Posted 1 year, 8 months ago. 2 comments
I’m horribly behind on my posting, sorry about that… it seems that the first months of fall/winter and I really do not get along. I have been sick since the beginning of October which really puts deep thoughts on the back burner. So, while we wait for my brain cells to recouperate… I have two fun photos for you!
On Samhain I was able to get my Winter Barley planted – just in time too! We had a torrential down pour for the next for days!! It was wonderful and great for the barley, but it kept all of us inside for the most part!
heres the barely about a week (maybe less – I’ve lost track) after it was planted.
and a week or so later -
The wire fence around the pot is to keep the cats and local night critters out.
The Barley has gotten even taller since and has started to fall over! I have no idea if I am doing any of this right, but I figure nature knows what to do, so the best thing I can do is stay out of the way! So we shall see if I actually manage to make space for really live, honest to goddess Barley to grow in my side yard!
Holiday Blessings,
Kate
Posted 1 year, 9 months ago. 3 comments
My last post “Living the Demetrian Wheel, Reality Strikes” was a first for me. Turns out it was the first time I have ever publicly written about having Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). After two years of living with this condition that seems a little odd, but its true. Up until now I have confined my writing and processing about life with MCS to my private journal, MCS email lists, and discussions with friends. Honestly I think it has taken that long for me to come to terms with this condition and make a certain level of peace within myself around the situation. But as an artist, ritualist and priestess, eventually what is in my heart and mind becomes a part of my work, and I guess my last post was the turning point.
All of that brought to mind that it was time for a little bit of truth in advertising for this blog. A little bit of “who is this crazy lady writing about MCS, ritual, art, gods and goddesses and the like?” And what is it that I am likely to write about on this electronic page of mine?
Five or Six years ago I would have answered that question by saying that I am writer and creator of ritual and ritual theater works, a mother and a priestess. At the time I was the founder and Artistic Director of Magical Acts Ritual Theater an experimental performance group in the Oakland, CA area that explored the boundaries between theater and ritual, between the sacred and the profane. We never made a living at it, but we did manage to pay the bills in the end, which if you know anything about nonprofit, volunteer theater is saying something! I resigned in the fall of 2002 to get some sleep, do some writing and rediscover my family. That worked for a while… but we Type A’s get bored soooo very quickly!
My Bio Photo from my days as AD of MART
Sadly, whatever I had planned for my post-MART days was eaten by the “Flue that would not go away” which started sometime around late 2004 / early 2005. Anyone familiar with MCS can see the plot begin to thicken right about now. Turns out that sometime in that period I was exposed to a very large dose of formaldehyde through a large remodel that was being done on the building that I worked in at the time. Lots of cheap industrial paint and cheap industrial carpet all over the place including right under my feet. Being “normal” at the time, it never occurred to me that this was a problem. Except that from that point on I had this flue and these sinus head aches that would not quit and would last for a week or two, go away, and then reappear – lather, rinse, repeat, over and over again.
In the summer of 2005 I was diagnosed with a massive dust mite allergy. WTF?? I had never had allergies in my life! That started the prescription medication and the allergy shots routine that I now live on. A little over year later I was on my second, or was it third?, sinus infection and a new round of antibiotics. Then in October of 2006 came the lovely adventure to the Emergency Room while at Disneyland that I wrote of in my last post. This was the triggering incident that brought the slumbering formaldehyde into full toxicity and me into the world of life with MCS.
My purple hair – dyed in celebration of my new life with MCS and suddenly jobless because of my health
- weird, but hey it was fun while I could still do it!
The first six to nine months of life with MCS I spent sleeping or watching DVD’s. There was just no energy – no spoons for anything else. So I missed most of 2007, which sucks when you have growing teenagers. Bless my house mates and husband! They stepped in and took over when I couldn’t be there and got the kids and me through the worst of those days! Slowly I learned to breathe again and think again. I discovered that there was a world out there… and of course… I got bored! Lol.
As luck would have it, around the time I got sick, a friend of mine had introduced me to the world of Robert Tonner dolls and Fashion Repaints and it occurred to me to try my hand at redo a doll for myself as an icon of Demeter. So I did and it was fun and other people liked what I was doing… so I tried a few other designs… and people liked those dolls… and started asking if I would do commission work! And now I have the seeds of a business doing Altar dolls! Getting sick lead me to my art – who knew? I have no idea if I will ever be able to make a living doing this, but for the moment it keeps me (mostly) out of trouble, and pays for itself, which in this economy is an absolute requirement!
The Demeter Altar Icon on my altar behind my desk
With my art has coming my writing – my ritual work specifically. I used to say that I was a Writer! Ok, I don’t *think* I was that bad, but I might have been. But this enforced downtime has helped me figure out that its not that I must *write* in the sense that a novelist or short story writer might use that word. When I need to *write* it is almost always to write ritual. I am a ritualist first and foremost, all the writing about ritual comes afterwards. But the requirements of MCS, staying away from all scents and chemical fumes, makes working and being in public damn near in possible – so for now, I am limited to writing ritual for my coven which is small and very MCS wise, and writing about ritual. Yes, its frustrating as hell! And actually its not the complete truth… I am writing rituals, just more complex and detailed ones; the kind that need time to brew and percolate to become their ideal selves.
And last, but never least, I am a priestess. Somehow this has always been true, and now, even with the MCS, or perhaps because of the MCS, it is even more so. I am a priestess of several powers. My work for the rest of 2008 and through June of 2009 at least will focus on my relationship to Demeter, hence the recent spat of work on the Demetrian Wheel of the Year.
So what is Sacred Seeds Weblog about? Art, ritual, life with a chronic condition… ways to celebrate life no matter what the universe throws at you!
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago. 2 comments
I feel like I should title this post “bad priestess no biscuit”. October has been a wash, ritually speaking. Thankfully Demeter seems to understand and be rather tolerant of my efforts to get my life in order. Or at the very least she has not ripped open the ground at my feet or anything that dramatic.
My plan in drafting a Demetrian Wheel of the Year for my own working was to follow it for at least a year to see how it fit into my life and to learn from the experience. After all, if I claim to be Demeter’s Priestess shouldn’t I walk that talk in a very real sense by walking the path of her festivals? Well as with many well intentioned plans… life er… had other plans?
This is the complication of being a priestess and having a chronic illness, everything needs to be adjusted to the needs to the body. Oh. Goodie. So October has become “Flue” month rather than “ritual” month as I was planning. *sigh*. But then again, Demeter seems to understand what she has in me… so this all seems to be part of the process. Yeah, the process of teaching an Aries to mellow out and walk instead of run into everything! Riiiiiiight. Good luck!
All that being said… a few things have been accomplished, a little out of order… but I’ll take all the successes I can get.
I now have my out door altar to Demeter. This is a stand in for the Temple that is to come. The hubs and a cluster of other crazy friends have offered to assist in the creation of a larger exterior “temple” for her in the same spot. We are designing it along the lines of the Asian Spirit / Ancestor Houses which are built as mini houses in various designs for the spirits to live in. Since this is for Demeter, it will be Greek in style of course. And I have finally worked out what I want… hmm… what we want I guess is the better phrase. A four (Doric) column, single room temple with three steps leading up to the entrance. Nice and simple.We are going to rig an opening in the roof so that I can place the Demeter Altar Doll I made several years ago inside during the dry summer months and take her out in the winter. I’m pondering painting the image in Pediment rather than trying to create a set of mini sculptures for the whole thing! I found this very cool website that goes through the stages of development for the Greek temples complied by John Porter of the University of Saskatchewan. I’m hoping to have the temple built and put in place in time for Plynteria in April/May.
Over the weekend I ordered Barley seed so that I can plant a winter batch as soon as they arrive. I will need to work out a private honoring of Proerosia (about a month late, ah well) and include preparing the container and the location I am going to set the seeds out in – near the new altar.
I have a great idea planned for honoring the Stenia, but my schedule keeps getting messed up and timing with the group of ladies who are game to join me has been fubared – we all seemed to have gotten sick this month. My plan is very un-ritualistic and horribly contemporary but entirely within the spirit of the thing. A Girls Night in with videos, tasty things to eat, questionable drinks, and lots of bawdy girl talk. In particular we’ve been plotting a viewing of a lovely little musical called Naked Boys Singing. The Musical is much fun and the dvd was well done… and well… what can you say about lovely men with no clothes on who are enjoying themselves and singing about it? So again, the celebration will happen… just very out of sequence to the actual calendar.
I did manage to do an honoring of the Thesmophoria in a way… another very contemporary approach to ritual, but honoring the spirit of the festival if not the actual script. October 15th is the anniversary of the day I went into the Emergency Room at Disneyland in anaphylactic shock, which is a much longer story that does not need to be told here. That event triggered the toxins that had been stewing in my body from an exposure to Formaldehyde about 18 months earlier. The anaphylaxis pushed me over into full blown Multiple Chemical Sensitivity – the chronic illness I now live with. This year my business partner Jamie and I created a ritual to help me mourn some of what I had lost through that experience and celebrate some of what I have gained. We performed the ritual on Friday October 17th at the Berkeley Marina with a handful of other friends who shared in letting go some of their grief and celebrating some of their joys. It was a quiet and poignant evening.
Now the wheel turns and the Wiccan in me prepares for Samhain this weekend. More honoring of grief and joy at the end of the year. Somehow it all fits together. And just behind me, supporting and offering comfort and understanding, I can feel Demeter’s presence. Sister, Lover, Mother, Goddess, Cohort in Crime, and Friend.
Posted 1 year, 10 months ago. 4 comments
