Feel free to laugh if you’ve known me for a while! Let’s just say there are things I do better than singing… at least on key!
Though the whole fireside bit definitely has Joan Baez humming in my ear!
One of those things I do better seems to be the magical process I refer to as hatching. Like keeping the eggs warm until they are ready to hatch. Sourdough starter works for a metaphor here, too. So does staring at a #wipwednesday painting long enough to hear its message.
I’ve been staring at the hippo who started out as an unusual growth on a very old tree and insisted on appearing in my Temple painting. (And, yes… I thought she was done!)
She’s the latest to join the tribe of Spirit Animals who have joined me on my journey in the last few years. There are Newfoundland dogs, of course. Seven of them, all told. Teachers, every one… like Luther, who saw with his heart, and appeared in my second Legend painting.
There are bears, too. (You’ve met Daphne!) And spiders, of the weaver-dreamer sort. The recent, very determined owl and her tortoise sister. All of them symbols for legendary perspectives and gifts.
There’s a new member of the pack, these days. You see, I’m reading a new-old book. One I read decades ago. Or tried to. I don’t think I had the filters back in those days to really make space for Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Now I know more!
When I woke this morning, I reached for my new copy of Dr. Estes’ book subtitled Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. Odd, really, to notice that it was published in 1992, when I was deep in a context with no space for the voices – at least none that I experienced – of wild women. (Except, maybe, ones who could carry a tune!)
Chapter 1 is entitled The Howl: Resurrection of the Wild Woman. There we meet a woman known, among many other names, as La Loba. Her work, according to Dr. E., is the collecting of bones. She collects and preserves especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world.
And you, dear heart, may already suspect why this story is touching my heart in the context of this moment, now.
Here are three words which virtually scrawled themselves in my hatching journal as I was reading…
My cup of cacao, nearby, I read on. Fortunately there were tissues handy, too! Dr. E said…
Let us consider La Loba herself. In the symbolic lexicon of the psyche, the symbol of the Old Woman is one of the most wide-spread archetypal personifications in the world. Others are the Great Mother and Father, the Divine Child, the Trickster, to Sorceress(er), the Maiden and Youth, the Heroine-Warrior, and the Fool(ess). Yet, a figure like La Loba can be considered vastly different in essence and effect, for she is symbolic of the feeder root to an entire instinctual system… the archetype of the old woman can also be apprehended as old La Que Sabe, The One who Knows.
There’s more of course. That last bit was only page 27! For now, though, my friend the hippo, who is grateful to have received nostrils, now wants more attention to her mouth and chin. I think she wants to be whole!!!
And that, dear friend, is my prayer for us. All of us.
ps… the Hebrew word beside her face is Chesed… steadfast love.
pps… need a bit of peace and wisdom with your cuppa? Or know someone who might? Lots of choices at FierceArtWithHeart! Maybe this year we could think of Mothers’ Day as Dangerous Old Womens’ Day!
