So, I’m in the middle of a massive change right now and, at the same time, I have also recently done myself the (mixed) favour of getting two full days of colour-work done for a tattoo that covers almost a quarter of my body…
Suffice it to say I’m hecking tired and I’m gonna stay that way for a bit and I did it to myself and that’s what really hurts >_<.
To make up for the lack of posts – but *not* the lack of creativity and general witchery – this post essentially contains a photo dump of (some) recent projects and artistic goings on amidst ::wooooooo:: big change ::woooooooo:: ^_^
Recent shots of my desk – homemade beeswax candles, card readings, and musical practice. You may recognise the first image as the thumbnail for my most recent video post. Terribly cringey and an algorithmic shot in the foot… sorrynotsorry!Before and after mending a rip in my skirt (not pictured is the black cotton backing I incorporated into the stitching) & some homemade earrings (paper layers, glue, varnish; real wishbones, cleaned and varnished; paper mache clay, gold paint, varnish.)Recent shots of glamour altar (including perfumes, paper mache clay horns, and ultraviolet pigments) & a shot of the colours my tattoo artist was mixing and blending directly onto my skin!Adventures in making my own nail polish colours! Ultraviolet green (in various layer combinations)… I called it “Poison Apple” but my partner wants to call it either “Mutant Ninja Ooze” or “Aggressively Green”… thoughts?Random OOTD shots of the general vibe I’ve beeen going for these days! Complete with Evenstar & glow in the dark bugs and sex dice! ^_^
That’s all for now folks. Have fun storming the castle!!!
A selection of (some) favourite quotations – read or re-read in the last calendar year.
“One of the blotches of reflected sunlight swayed to and fro across the paunch. This particular pool of light moving in a mesmeric manner backwards and forwards picked out from time to time a long red island of spilt wine. It seemed to leap forward from the mottled cloth when the light fastened upon it in startling contrast to the chiaroscuro and to defy laws of tone. This ungarnished sign of Swelter’s debauche, taking the swollen curve of linen, had somehow, to Mr Flay’s surprise, a fascination. For a minute he watched it appear, and disappear to reappear again – a lozenge of crimson, as the body behind it swayed.”
(Peake, Mervyn. “Swelter.” Titus Groan, Gormenghast Trilogy.)
“She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate’s flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be conceived. Utterly un-feminine – no man could have invented it.”
(Peake, Mervyn. “Fuschia.” Titus Groan, Gormenghast Trilogy.)
“Once, long ago, traveling among the marbles of Rome and Florence, he had seen women like this, kept in stone instead of ice. Once, wandering in the Louvre, he had found women like this, washed in summer color and kept in paint. Once, as a boy, sneaking the cool grottos behind a motion picture theater screen, on his way to a free seat, he had glanced up and there towering and flooding the haunted dark seen a woman’s face as he had never seen it since, of such size and beauty built of milk-bone and moon-flesh as to freeze him there alone behind the stage, shadowed by the motion of her lips, the bird-wing flicker of her eyes, the snow-pale-death-shimmering illumination from her cheeks.
So from other years there jumped forth images which flowed and found new substance here within the ice.
What color was her hair? It was blond to whiteness and might take any color, once set free of cold.
How tall was she?
The prism of the ice might well multiply her size or diminish her as you moved this way or that before the empty store, the window, the night-soft rap-tapping ever-fingering gently probing moths.
Not important.
Far above all – the lightning rod salesman shivered – he knew the most extraordinary thing.
If by some miracle her eyelids should open within that sapphire and she should look at him, he knew what color her eyes would be.
He knew what color her eyes would be.”
(Bradbury, Ray. Something Wicked This Way Comes)
“But what word shall I speak?”, asked the Lady Amalthea. “I have said nothing to him, yet every day he comes to me with more heads, more horns and hides and tails, more enchanted jewels and bewitched weapons. What will he do if I speak?” […]
“No, he does not want my thoughts,” she said softly. “He wants me, as much as the Red Bull did, and with no more understanding. But he frightens me even more than the Red Bull, because he has a kind heart. No, I will never speak a promising word to him.”
The pale mark on her brow was invisible in the gloom of the scullery. She touched it and then drew her hand away quickly, as though the mark hurt her. “The Horse died,” she said to the little cat. “I could do nothing.”
(Beagle, Peter S. The Last Unicorn)
“Bioy Cesares had had dinner with me that evening and we became lengthily engaged in a vast polemic concerning the composition of a novel in the first person, whose narrator would omit or disfigure the facts and indulge in various contradictions which would permit a few readers – very few readers – to perceive an atrocious or banal reality. From the remote depths of the corridor, the mirror spied upon us.
(Borges, Jorge Luis. “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”. Labyrinths.)
I have collected these quotations here in the same manner in which one writes quotations down in a notebook or journal. I want to look at them from time to time… and turn some things over in my head. I hope to make a modest series of quotations arranged each around a theme… ideally, with as little explanation as possible.
So to close, another quotation from The Last Unicorn:
“One eye opened slowly, green and gold as sunlight in the woods. The cat said, “I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.”
Sincerely,
Saoirse.
The header image (in public domain) is a study of Jane Morris for ‘Dante’s Dream’ by Dante Gabriel Rosetti. A bit on the nose, perhaps, with all the Beatrices, Pygmalions, (and even ‘My Fair Lady’s’) being tossed around… The word “gauche” is used above. I will invoke it again here.
Get ready for a spat of unstructured posts. As I have said over on my youtube channel, I’m going to prioritise posting less formalised content for a little while. Honestly, everything about my online presence should be approached like that anwyay so this shouldn’t present much difficulty!
Recently, I have been talking to various people in my life about what we expect and value out of friendship (short and long term). We’ve been talking about aging, about appearances, about performance and body horror, and about external pressures and standards… narratives around expectations and control… and just how many people want to see themselves mirrored in others to the point of trying to force others to reflect what they want to see about themselves. It’s a pain to be fascinating to anyone, it seems. But it’s also a pain to be fascinating to no one. In a lot of cases, both result in people telling you what to be and how to be it the way THEY want…
I assume I’m not alone in feeling these pressures or in seeing how they clash with my expectations for healthy relationships. I don’t really think any age group is immune from them but as I get older I allow myself the liberty I always wanted to toy with these expectations. I love glamour magick and, sure, some of that can be maligned as shallow aesthetics and ‘playing dress up’ (if one is inclined to see such things as negative) but I love to subvert those narratives with accents of rebellion. Flowing gown? Sure. But add confronting skull earrings or drape silver bones around your neck. Velvets, sultry necklines, cute little glistening moonstone jewels, and makeup? Fine. But my lips and eyebrows might be painted “frostbite” blue.
Heck, the number of people who are thrown off by a black frock and tattoos is hilarious so it’s not like it takes much.
People can look and project, but *I* like to make the acknowledgement of death and decay a non-negotiable component of what they’re taking in. I don’t really care what their conclusions are, per se, but *I’m* not going to subvert these elements for their comfort.
To that effect, I have begun to explore this sort of thing in poetry and so on… and, as is often the case, making the link with other media, like music:
You will note the music reference in the title*. Also, for those who are not aware, a hornpipe is a type of Irish dance tune in 4/4 time. It is also intended in this poem to have a double meaning.
Usually, I’m thinking of many different tunes even if explicitly making reference only to one. Here are some other bits and bobs that have been floating around my head of late:
So far as I can tell, the lyrics are approximately as follows:
LAL LAL ARS’ A’ CHAILLEACH** (chorus) Lal lal, lal lal, lal lal, ars’ a’ chailleach, Lal lal, lal lal, lal lal, ars’ a’ chailleach, Lal lal, lal lal, lal lal, ars’ a’ chailleach, Ith am bò, thogaidh ò, ith am bò, ars’ am bodach.
Am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, ars’ a’ chailleach, Am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, ars’ a’ chailleach, Am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, am pòs thu fhéin, ars’ a’ chailleach, Pòsaidh mi, pòsaidh mi, pòsaidh mi, ars’ am bodach.
Có an tè, có an tè, có an tè, ars’ a’ chailleach, Có an tè, có an tè, có an tè, ars’ a’ chailleach, Có an tè, có an tè, có an tè, ars’ a’ chailleach, Tha thu fhéin, tha thu fhéin, tha thu fhéin, ars’ am bodach.
Cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, ars’ a’ chailleach, Cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, ars’ a’ chailleach, Cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, cuin a thig thu, ars’ a’ chailleach, As a’ mhionaid, as a’ mhionaid, as a’ mhionaid, ars’ am bodach.
LAL LAL SAID THE OLD WOMAN Lal lal, lal lal, lal lal, said the old woman Eat the cow, you will raise, eat the cow, said the old man.
Will you marry yourself, will you marry yourself, will you marry yourself, said the old woman… I will marry, I will marry, I will marry, said the old man
Who’s she, who’s she, who’s she, said the old woman… You are yourself, you are yourself, you are yourself, said the old man
When will you come, when will you come, when will you come, said the old woman… In a minute, in a minute, in a minute, said the old man.
And here is a lovely live version of the same tune, sung with Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh! Look at them giggling at the lyrics!
It should be noted that my Irish is terrible but my Scottish Gaelic is non-existent.*** I’m wondering if the ‘rise/lift’ in “thogaidh ò” might have a double meaning in this context? Also, as far as I can tell, it’s possible the reflexive pronoun (“fhéin”) serves a similar function to the corresponding word in Irish – as an intensifier or for emphasis, as in “selfsame”. So “tha thu fhéin” is likely to translate more like “You yourself!” etc. Lastly, “co an tè” translates more literally as “who’s the one?” except that “tè” means ‘one’ in a female or feminine context. It reminds me of “who’s your one” (or “yer wan”) here in Ireland to ask “who’s that” with reference to women… but I’m only assuming there’s a link.
Finally, musically speaking, I want to end on a note that packs a more magical and otherworldly punch to these themes I’m exploring. It should be no surprise that, as a devotee of the Morrígan (UPG), I appreciate a good ‘otherworldly woman pursues mortal man’ narrative. Whether she’s rejected or not, it’s an appealing vehicle for commentary!
The lyrics for Sir Mannelig**** are as follows:
Swedish
Bittida en morgon innan solen upprann Innan foglarna började sjunga Bergatrollet friade till fager ungersven Hon hade en falskeliger tunga
Herr Mannelig Herr Mannelig trolofven I mig För det jag bjuder så gerna I kunnen väl svara endast ja eller nej Om I viljen eller ej.
Eder vill jag gifva de gångare tolf Som gå uti rosendelunde Aldrig har det varit någon sadel uppå dem Ej heller betsel uti munnen
Eder vill jag gifva de qvarnarna tolf Som stå mellan Tillö och Ternö Stenarna de äro af rödaste gull Och hjulen silfverbeslagna
Eder vill jag gifva ett förgyllande svärd Som klingar utaf femton guldringar Och strida huru I strida vill Stridsplatsen skolen I väl vinna
Eder vill jag gifva en skjorta så ny Den bästa I lysten att slita Inte är hon sömnad av nål eller trå Men virkat av silket det hvita
Sådana gåfvor jag toge väl emot Om du vore en kristelig qvinna Men nu så är du det värsta bergatroll Af Neckens och djävulens stämma
Bergatrollet ut på dörren sprang Hon rister och jämrar sig svåra Hade jag fått den fager ungersven Så hade jag mistat min plåga
English
Early one morning before the sun rose up Before the birds began to sing The mountain troll proposed to the handsome young man She had a false tongue
Herr Mannelig, herr Mannelig, will you be betrothed to me? For that, I offer you gifts very gladly Surely you can answer only yes or no If you wish to or not.
To you I wish to give the twelve horses [palfreys] That go in the grove of roses Never has there been a saddle upon them Nor a bridle in their mouths
To you I wish to give the twelve mills That are between Tillö and Ternö The stones are made of the reddest gold And the wheels are covered in silver
To you I wish to give a gilded sword That chimes of fifteen gold rings And fight however you fight [well or badly] The battle site you would surely win
To you I wish to give a shirt so new The best you will want to wear It was not sewn with needle or thread But worked of white silk
Such gifts I would surely accept If thou wert a Christian woman However, thou art the worst mountain troll The spawn of the Neck and the Devil
The mountain troll ran out the door She shakes and wails hard If I had got the handsome young man I would have got rid of my plight
The narrative structure here bears a lot of similarity to an old favourite of mine, “The Loathly Lady” … a version of which is called “King Henry” by Steeleye Span. Steeleye Span also sings a version of “Allison Gross” and so on. There are many traditional variations on the theme of promising/demanding gifts and goods. Sometimes it’s in the hopes of lifting a curse, other times in bestowing one, all of which can occur with or without ‘conjugal felicities’ at the end.
I feel especially drawn towards wondering about “between states” though… so much of the media available to us either focuses almost entirely on young women (with what is subjectively for me an uncomfortable current trend towards childlike china-doll makeup styles) or much older fully grey women (if any older women at all). What about the process of *becoming*? Neither young nor old but anything and everything in between? Are we not shapeshifters?
Aren’t these divisions all rather broadly brushed in the end? Who does ‘maiden, mother, crone’ apply to anyway… I’m not aware of there being a straightforward “maiden” component to the Morrígan, for example, and I think her “motherhood”-relevant narratives are deeply complicated. Ultimately – at least from my lived perspective and my own religious Unverified Personal Gnosis – that’s not really a paradigm that illuminates much. Aging is interesting but dividing it according to sexual reproductive function as a marker of social development and value? …Perhaps only with biting sarcasm. At best it’s one variable with rather limited pre-conditions.
Hence the reference to my current age in the poem.
Sincerely,
Saoirse.
* This Baltimore Consort recording seems to be the only one I can find of this tune. Incidentally, I did have this album growing up and I have mixed feelings about it. For example, the vocalist is American and she mispronounces “cailín” in “Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow” at one point…
*** I’m really thrown by Scottish accent marks. I’m used to Irish having only the fada!
**** Erik Ask-Upmark is as well known Swedish folk musician and performer of various traditional and historical nordic music. His main musical groups are Dråm, Svanevit, and Falsobordone. I have had the great privilege of meeting him as well as hearing him lecture and perform (including Sir Mannelig!) Also, here is the wiki article for Herr Mannelig ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herr_Mannelig
The header image is a Portrait of Christina of Denmark (incidentally ca. 36-37 years old :P), Duchess of Milan and of Lorraine, dated 1558, by François Clouet … There is another more famous Holbein portait of Cristina done when she was as teen widow.
PLEASE NOTE ~ I didn’t do a great job of diversifying my language in this post. It may come across as specific to cis-gendered female experiences but I want it to be clear that I think these pressures apply to all genders… and to the extent that the cis-gendered experience differs from others, I see that mainly as part of the over-arching problem of external – often valueless – pressures.
At the moment, I’m in the midst of a massive change. Posts and so on are going to be sparse for a little while…
However, I want to offer some thoughts and updates on how I have been interfacing with the world and raise some perspectives that, honestly, I’ll never be ‘finished’ exploring.
The best feeling of sanctuary is well before sunrise.
Ever since I was little I have been obsessed with the minutiae of what it’s like to live creatively. Have you ever read a favourite book (in my case, mostly fantasy) and then seen a photo (sometimes at the back of the book with a short bio) of ‘the author at home’. Or perhaps you have stumbled across a photograph, blog post, or a short video essay that portrays ‘the artist in studio’. Have you ever seen this and thought I need to know how they got to that point in their life?
Cardboard cutouts I made years ago of Terri Windling and Ursula K. Le Guin. I used to tuck them in my planner and bring them with me everywhere!
I don’t mean ‘art for art’s sake’ but rather something very much embodied in the world and part of it’s extended network of sensibilities. Something that interfaces with real ecosystems or socio-economic environments and real time periods.
Is there any purer form of magic than the little glimpses you get of those lives? I don’t think they require endless descriptive detail because the idea is not to replicate them. You have to make your own for it to work and that’s what witchcraft *feels* like to me. It’s what I spend most of my youtube channel, this blog, my whole life pursuing.
Recent reading right before a VERY intense first time experience.
In my case, it has output that others can experience because I feel the creativity must go somewhere but I’ve never been the best at keeping track of my portfolio (and, indeed, I was always rubbish at tracking my repertoire when I was a performing violinist too. #myexecutivefunctionsucks)
But this is why I’ll so often mention something in detail, something relatively mundane but *just* off the beaten track (debatable) and then go “see? Witchcraft!”
And the reading AFTER that experience to get a sense of where it was going.
I love scenes in fantasy stories** that describe the seemingly mundane elements of a witch’s living space. Let’s say you’re in the Brooklyn apartment belonging to your aunt (umpty times removed). She has a gas hob that she lights with matches. There’s a colourful pot of coffee on. A fruit bowl sits on the coffee table below a daffy painting of old lovers in clashing robes. You wonder why their necks are so long… A cat lounges near an old pile of yarn or perhaps on a tatty armchair tucked in the corner. You look out the kitchen window to see she’s let the black-eyed susan vine overtake the fire escape …something looks different about the city though. “Honey, pick a different window” or “Sweetheart, come look at this old book of poems… people go mad looking out there too long.”
A reading about a specific… quandary and lived/sensory question.
Is it just because of the city chaos? Or is that the road to an Otherworld? What’s the difference between personal eccentricity and a real witch? Who gets to make that call?
… I’ve taken to washing my hair once every three weeks now instead of the usual two. I’m combing it, which I never thought possible with curls, but it seems that the key lies in using a wooden comb. I oil it with olive oil mixed with peppermint, fenugreek seeds, and rosemary (which I cooked in it myself. Magical intentions included.) Recently, I changed up my henna mixture for colouring too… the henna kept oxidizing far too dark and I prefer a lighter pinker red. I did a whole bunch of research on it and ended up with henna, catnip, and madder root! There are medieval recipes for colouring hair but I went with modern recommendations made by those interested in retaining length. Just in case.
So now I’ve got even more of a medieval-inspired head! Though I have no idea if it will register on camera over time, I’m very happy with the difference.
I’m making myself a new (to me) type of corset. And I’m going so very slow with it … partly because most of my time is eaten up with something else non-negotiable at the moment. But progress is happening! Hopefully, I’ll like it? I’m learning so much in the process though.
I’m still working on my current jumper project… historically inspired with billowing sleeves. And yarn the colour of crow feathers (black, but with many tiny multicolour fibres within so it has the optic effect of shimmering.) I can’t wait to finish it!!!
In other lights it looks more blue green!
I’ve also migrated over to the dumb phone life. I’d wanted to do this for a long time and had steadily uninstalled as much as I could from my old Samsung (having left a certain soul-sucking fruit-named empire behind years ago!) But the thing was still such a drain on my life.
My internet is based in my hotspot so my dumphone does have that capability. It’s the Matrix phone, for anyone wondering. A Nokia 8110 4G – and oddly it’s WAY faster than the old hotspot. I theorised to my techie BIL it might be that I couldn’t entirely keep my smartphone from doing other things in the background. He agreed.
In the absence of so much stimulation elsewhere, I have been getting better at aimlessly browsing less. And my witchcraft has immediately felt more real. More present. It’s colours are more vibrant. My relationship with deity has been reviving. Not that it was ‘dead’ but I had felt like I was fighting some kind of film that lay over it before I could really access it. That is much less the case now and I anticipate it changing further.
I mean, for example, Macha and Badb make an appearance masquerading as artists and tarot readers… They call themselves ‘Melodie Moonlight’ and ‘Breda Fairfoul’. One has blue hair, the other red. They ride a motorbike. They chew tobacco and smoke cigars. They file enamel handcuffs with their teeth and cry acid tears! What more could you want!
The way I keep describing it is, “I feel like I can see things better.” It’s not the best analogy but it will suffice for now.
Which brings us back to the magic in the mundane. Call it aesthetics, but I want to make real what I feel and perceive to be important. It takes sketches, notes, and even pin boards just as much as it takes altar work, moon phases, or wax drippings. Magic is art, art is sensory, and art and magic are visual-tactile-aural living.
The end.
(Or the beginning?)
~ Saoirse.
PS. I’ve been re-reading a lot of old favourites… Hounds of the Morrigan, The Left Hand of Darkness and so on… but I’ve also been embarking on a shocking amount of new stuff for me! Movies I’d never seen… The Crow (1994), What We Do In the Shadows, Witches of Eastwick, Beetlejuice (1988)****. I have THOUGHTS about all of this that links into what I’ve laid out above. Hopefully, I’ll get to post again soon!
** Urban fantasy is great for this but I can think of a few Patricia A. McKillip moments or Patricia C. Wrede moments and many others that do this really well too.
*** The header image is just a bunch of old photos of me aged approx. 16-21.
What if Madame Nostradamus, our “witty little knitter”, wanted her OWN scarf? Things are gonna get properly nerdy with this one. Strap in – I have no chill!
Note ~ my knit gauge was a little tighter than called for in the double knit weight, so I used the inches chart. I preferred the slightly denser look so I didn’t bother adjusting my gauge too much.
Paintings featured (anti-clockwise):
The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck, 1434
Portrait of Christina of Denmark by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1538
Portrait of a Young Woman/Isabella of Spain and Denmark by Jan Gossaert, 16th c.
Portrait of a Lady by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1460
Cornelis Aerentsz van der Dussen by Jan van Scorel, c. 1535
The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566
A Young Princess (Possibly Dorothea of Denmark) by Jan Gossaert, 1530
Music featured:
Je suis d’Allemagne – Je suis trop jeunette by Ensemble Unicorn (Album ~ “Art & Music: Raphel – Music of his Time”)
Comment qu’a moy lonteinne by Falsobordone (Album ~ “1350 Music for a Plague”)
I wanted to share some recent moments of simple joy & presence. These photographs were not necessarily taken for the purpose of sharing in a public format. However, I am in the habit of taking constant photos of brambles, for example… Such photos in turn make up a good back catalogue of plant/animal material to from which to practice drawing**, to practice seeing, and to practice layering concepts.
Whether something gets shared or not is rarely planned (at least rarely planned fully) and the follow-through on any such plans also rarely correlates to the intent in taking the photograph. It’s all a bit loosey goosey up in here.
For me, it has become increasingly clear that the intent to share (or not?) is not so binary… Thus, some recent moments of craft, joy, & sensory immersion.
Little doors…“Down among the weeds, down among the thorn” (‘Tam Lin’; Child Ballad 39, Roud Index 35)Looking for Miss Tittlemouse…Tarot decks ‘in sa phub’! (Crystal Tarot, my trusty travel deck.)Salmon Advice cards …not sure this is the correct Vol. box though…The Glamour altar… among other things.A moment of ‘synchronicity’ with a friend 🙂5 am, after nightmares.Colour, texture, & lots of hidden flora & fauna amidst curvilinear existence.
For some context on what I’m doing with the header image, you might like to watch this video of mine on The Hush Tarot & it’s references to Arthur Rackham/the Golden Age of Illustration:
An oldie but a goodie…
~ Saoirse
* A reference to the highly influential (1970s) art historical work of the same name by John Berger. You can watch it for free here. I’ve actually not watched all of it myself yet but the significance of this was two fold – to challenge what was up to that point a more traditionalist method of interpreting art historical work & to introduce the viewing audience to ways of questioning & analysing the art they take in or experience.
** The header image is a composite of my own photography of birch trees and a print I own of “The Fairy Tightrope”/”Fairy Dancing on a Spiderweb” by Arthur Rackham. You can see an early version of this image in a 1912(?) copy for free from the New York Public Library here. I guess you can also be glad I’m not sharing my photographs of dead rats and such 😛
*** Check out the album Child Ballads by Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer. It has a *gorgeous* version of Tam Lin that keeps the pregnancy/poison narrative in! …I mean, check out Anaïs Mitchell in general ::drool::
Something that has gripped my imagination my entire life is the idea of ‘Building Other Worlds’. Importantly, I don’t mean only as ‘substance behind narrative genres’. World-building for a fantasy novel or for game play, though deeply interesting, is only one popular iteration of a much broader interdisciplinary creative drive to make and experience other worlds. What of Art? Architecture? Costume? Music? Theatre? Ecological experience? Folklore? What of symbolism or spacial awareness? Where do we get ideas for what our worlds look like and what tools do we use to build them?
I have been wanting to write about this for a long time but have been puzzled about where to start. Do I start by explaining some things about art history? About perspective, image composition, numerology? Do I dig into how tiered worlds in late medieval and renaissance literature make their way into contemporary visual language? What about modern art? What about tarot or oracle? Witchcraft, sewing, or poetry? Would tracing themes of port cities and their proximity to marshland or wetland habitats get the message across? What about folkloric recordings of Victorian vs. Medieval streets in Irish town centres!? Ultimately, I realised I’m going to have to start where I am and, if you wish, you can follow me down each corridor as and when I get there.
Here are some purposefully drawn 18th c. Minchiate cards illustrating how card visuals can help you construct doors to Otherworlds and populate them in turn with architecture, characters, and landscape …with pips for ‘scaffolding’!
Recently, I revisited some books that were instrumental in helping me to identify myself when I was young. These follow very much in a similar vein to other favourites of mine such as Pish Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch, The Books of Earthsea, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Hounds of the Mórrígan, or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell… and I took special care to obtain secondhand copies of the specific covers I grew up with as well.
I have yet to re-read The Raven Ring although I know I will love it as I can’t remember how many times I would have read it growing up.
There are five books in all (for now) – each of which features scenes relating to tarot, tarocchi, or otherwise emphasise attention to historical detail within their fictional plots.
* Midnight Magic by Avi (part of a series that didn’t exist yet when I was younger. I won’t talk about this one much because – as it turns out – it wasn’t as good as I remembered and it’s representation of tarot is tangential to the plot and seems fairly ignorant of what tarot is. I still LOVE the cover though!)
* Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (no, I am not going to watch the new film abomina…I mean, adaptation of this beautiful wonderful highly intelligent book.)
* The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
* I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
* The Raven Ring by Patricia C. Wrede (part of the Lyra series but I have not read any of the others.)
The Midwife’s Apprentice is pictured here with selected plot-relevant cards from Oracle Médiéval et Merveilleux by Gulliver l’Aventurière & Julien Miavril. (No spoilers!)
For one thing, all of these books (except Midnight Magic) were aimed, perhaps, at Young Adult readers generally socialised as feminine but at no point did they talk down to them. They were an excellent foray into how creative and narrative detail coexists wonderfully with good historical enquiry. There is an emphasis on trade and commerce. Some of these feature port cities or otherwise thriving commercial principalities and their conflicts with rural living and tradition. They discuss textiles as if their readers can and will care about how they affect plot. And they treat Otherworlds and/or magic with the same expectation: that readers are curious to know detail and will put in the imaginative effort. To me, this is how the imagination grows.
Catherine, Called Birdy is pictured here with two cards from the Oracle Médiéval et Merveilleux that are… relevant to the story. 😉
Artistically, a glance at these covers will possibly explain a thing or two about my own preference for facial portraiture and the art of the late middle ages and early renaissance. The time periods in the books vary a little more widely than the covers. I, Coriander, for example, is set mostly in Cromwellian England and the time period represented art historically on Catherine, Called Birdy is about 200 years later than the setting of the book (i.e. 15th century visuals [1] vs 1290-1291 book setting.) I was lucky enough, however, to have an aunt who overlooked things like that. For example, she focused instead on showing me how the play in perspective with the rope and bucket and the figural proportions on the cover of Catherine, Called Birdy were all little art historical jokes that the artist had borrowed from real historical painters. The implication was that if I was clever and curious, I could find them out …and I did!
Obviously there is so much to say even just about these books… so for now I will draw a few connections between I, Coriander and a few tarot and oracle decks that I have.
I, Coriander pictured here with selected cards from the Nicoletta Ceccoli Tarot. Once again, the penchant for strange emotionally intelligent portraiture!
In the first place there is reference to a pair of wedding portraits in I, Coriander …a woman in the foreground holding an oak-leaf, a tiny hunting scene nearly hidden in the wooded middle-ground behind her, and a citadel in the distance. Her spouse is positioned in front of a fantastical city with a river or estuary intended (thematically) to mirror his connection with trade and the Thames. But in this city, there are mermaids and fantastical boats in the water among other things… I couldn’t help but picture certain cards from the Trionfi della Luna (paradoxical pictured below.) Or perhaps wander into a landscape just beyond the borders of such a city… might we find the world of the Somnia tarot there? People in old robes and linen shifts wandering in among the wetlands and sedge grasses gazing at the stars or riding silent sad horses?
Cards chosen from the Trionfi della Luna to mirror aspects of the story in I, Coriander… along with various imaginings of my own about the space we inhabit in the Somnia Tarot.
I should note I have also recently read Witchfinders by Malcolm Gaskill and am currently working my way through The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present by Ronald Hutton… Of course, in so far as witch hunts in England overlapped with civil war tensions between Royalists and Parliamentarians (and occurred along Puritan vs ‘Popish’ lines), I, Coriander made for an excellent fictional backdrop! Also, I really enjoyed drawing cards from the Oracle of Black Enchantment (also by Deviant Moon Inc.) while reading Witchfinders as a visual processing exercise*.
Pages from Malcolm Gaskill’s Witchfinders featured here with various cards from the Oracle of Black Enchantment (Samhain edition.) Patrick Valenza’s art historical source material (at least in part) should be fairly evident…
Lastly, this emphasis on the detail of Otherworlds – their textiles, buildings, landscapes, emotional experiences, social relationships, flora and fauna etc. – is playing a huge role in my current artistic endeavours. I tend to see pip decks as decks full of concepts/characters (in the majors and courts) and their scaffolding and architectural surroundings (in the pips). Sometimes this visual architecture is metaphorical and sometimes it is fairly literal. It depends on the reading. But it’s also helping me to tease out what it feels like to think of tarot decks in this way and what that might mean for creating a tarot deck of my own. Furthermore, I have been rebuilding a former world of mine and have recently begun sewing some clothing that I envisioned there…
And, of COURSE, the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot… featured here over (deadstock) cognac red crushed velvet ::drool::
Perhaps the act of sewing my own clothes is really the process of bringing fairy clothes over the divide? It would explain the time traveler vibes, don’t you think? 😉
So… this post has mostly been about my own personal explorations and impressions. I plan to return soon, however, with some better grounded and CITED analytical material about art history and technique.
Sincerely,
Saoirse.
* Please note! Literally any deck will aid in visual processing or reinforcing thematic content for literally any book. There is no need to acquire any deck not already within your means or comfort zone. Decks/products/material items are mentioned here for illustrative purposes only! It’s PRAXIS that matters.
** All decks featured here of my own volition and arising from my own use of them. I have neither been invited nor commissioned to do so and I have no affiliation with any of their creators. The TdL (paradoxical) was a private gift from a friend. All others were purchased by me.
[1] See images by artists like Petrus Christus (especially ‘Portrait of a Young Girl’, 1460s) and his contemporaries. The cover here has a very Burgundian look with a single truncated hennin among other distinguishing features…
As with so many things, a simple mental association double checked through the lens of a ‘quick Google’ yields a seriously mind-boggling rabbit hole. This blog post serves as a contextual supplement to this video:
I have had the topic of names on my mind for a long time. Anyone who plays traditional music will know that the name of any given tune is, shall we say, flexible. The way in which a lot of trad music works is that any given player or performer and certainly the more reputable recording artists will cite who’s version of a tune they play, where they have introduced changes, and will often also indicate if their own regional style has affected their playing or not, etc. A living folk tradition needs both that kind of flexibility as well as that kind of connectivity and accountability.
Recently, I decided to approximate a version of Shady Grove, pilfering most of my style and technique from this OLD video by “Gretchenman” (just look at his fingers fly!!!):
In doing so, I did a quick search online to refresh my memory about the lyrics (because I do sing along sometimes when I play) and check in on some basic background information on the song. Shady Grove (Roud 4456) is mostly considered an Appalachian tune [1,2] and there is a possible link with the English/Scottish tune Matty Groves (Roud 52; a famous version of which was recorded by Fairport Convention, for example) [3]. The two songs share the same melody and the fact that one is a murder ballad and the other a song in which a woman’s name has seemingly toponymic qualities interested me from a personal gnosis perspective. Drawing wild and highly metaphorical connections in my own head, I liked the familiarity of something that sounds like a place having an almost euhemerised quality… certainly Ireland abounds with such locations and its medieval literature/mythology has whole genres and stories centered on naming places after people and people after places, or just blending the two entirely.
Now, I’m NOT claiming that there is any such analogy to be drawn in historically viable or collectively verified ontological* terms. It’s just a fun poetic exercise. Creative license, as it were.
However! The rabbit hole referred to earlier drew me from link to link: first investigating the lyrical content of Shady Grove; then to it’s Roud Index Number and associated articles about the development of the song over time (including various collections in which it is annotated as well as different known recordings of it); then to re-acquainting myself with some of the basics on Cecil Sharp (because it’s been a while). Lo and behold… I forgot a) about his nationalism and the troubled legacy of his methodology in seeking out ‘Englishness’ in music, especially in Southern Appalachia [5] but also b) that he was in other ways influenced by William Morris’ socialist lectures and …potentially also approached his work through the lens of spiritualism at some point!? 🤯
This last bit seems totally unclear to me and I am finding it hard to validate until I can actually access some of the academic articles I’ve found online [6]. (This is where I am REALLY happy to have a free external reader’s card with UCC Library…ah, the perks of living in a Uni town!) But in scrolling through the Roud listings on Matty Grove, I saw they had an entry in Sharp’s diary from the 29th of August, 1916 in which he makes use of the word “séance”.
It’s strikes me that it’s possible this word has some other meanings or context of which I am not aware (I yielded no obvious or immediate answers from a quick search online) but it would seem there are a few articles out there at least that might make this clear once I’ve had a chance to read them. In theory, it doesn’t strike me as too unreasonable because this IS a time period in which a lot of academia (especially those with nationalist or otherwise politicised interest in folk movements) drift in and out of spiritualist circles and ‘methods’ of inquiry**.
I am not sure how all of that will go yet but I also hope to read a few more recent assessments of the problems in Sharp’s legacy.
Magickally, one of the things I am doing in playing such a tune (in which I usually face my altar, by the way) is reshaping identity. Drawing creative connections on the euhemerization of names, of nouns as names/names as nouns, and asking questions of my own anthropopathism and ‘pathetic fallacy’***.
At this point, the choice to play “Flatlands” by Chelsea Wolfe and Mark Lanegan over the first part of my video should begin to make added sense.
It all comes back around to walking the razor edge between what seems appealing as a creative or metaphorical idea and what is actually academically and historically viable work. We have to be okay with their inherent dissonance. You might even call it… an art.
* Here I am using the philosphical defintion of ‘ontological’ rather than the metaphysical one!
** Giving the Golden Dawn, Theosophists, and soooo many 19th and early-20th century artists and thinkers bombastic side-eye. Criminal offensive side-eye.
*** Oop! Hello, Ruskin!
§ 9. And thus, in full, there are four classes: the men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly (second order of poets); the men who feel strongly, think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is inconceivably above them. This last is the usual condition of prophetic inspiration.
§ 10. I separate these classes, in order that their character may be clearly understood; but of course they are united each to the other by imperceptible transitions, and the same mind, according to the influences to which it is subjected, passes at different times into the various states. Still, the difference between the great and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this point of ‘alterability‘. […]
§ 11. Now so long as we see that the ‘feeling‘ is true, we pardon, or are even pleased by, the confessed fallacy of sight which it induces: we are pleased, for instance, with those lines of Kingsley’s, above quoted, not because they fallaciously describe foam, but because they faithfully describe sorrow. [7]
John Ruskin at Glen Finglas by John Everett Millais, 1853-1854 (Public Domain)
(1) Shady Grove (Roud 4456), Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music, mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/shadygrove.html. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024.
(2) “Vaughan Williams Memorial Library: Shady Grove.” English Folk Dance & Song Society, http://www.vwml.org/search?q=Shady%20Grove&is=1. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024. (Of note, the English Folk Dance & Song Society owns the Cecil Sharp House.)
(3) Spiegel, Max. “Origins: ‘shady Grove’ a Mondegreen ?” The Mudcat Cafe, mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=131461. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024. (“Mondegreen” is my new favourite word now. Story of my hearing impaired life!)
(5) “Cecil Sharp.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Sharp#Political_Views. (Yes, its Wikipedia ~ but the citations at the bottom of the article look like they’re worth exploring.)
(7) Ruskin, John. “Of the Pathetic Fallacy from ‘modern Painters’ (Volume III, Pt. 4, 1856) by John Ruskin.” The Pathetic Fallacy, Ruskin (1856), http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/index.htm. Accessed 6 Feb. 2024. (I have no interest or affiliation with the author of this site as a whole, this link is simply where I have accessed an online free readable copy of Ruskin’s writings on the Pathetic Fallacy.)
