“People need a sacred narrative. They must have a larger sense of purpose, in one form or another, however intellectualized. They will find a way to keep ancestral spirits alive.” – E. O. Wilson

The Fibonacci Sequence (Golden Ratio), Sacred Geometry, the Music of the Spheres – we are always seeking some pattern or order to the universe and our lives. While there are indeed patterns that repeat and it does seem that biological life is ordered to a degree upon some essential designs – the one constant in life, as they say, is change. I would add to this, infinite variables. Einstein proposed that we all have lives that exist alongside each other in infinite variations and that sometimes they might touch. Maybe that is the source of déjà vu or dreaming about the same places over and over. Places that don’t seem to exist in our waking reality. Maybe it is where ghosts come from, shades of other realities breaking through.

Over the past year I have experienced a re-awakening of my creative self. I sought it out in the depth of grief and made it a spool of thread to find my way out of that maze. I’ve always been artistic, musical, a writer – and all of those passions have evolved over the years (as they should), tempered and marked by life’s triumphs and trials. The patterns found in nature have often been landmarks I could map my inner landscape by. I embrace, in a primal, visceral way, the elemental, the ancestral and the organic. Colors, textures, impressions and ancestral symbols drive my work these days and it is deeply connecting and fulfilling.

I’ve mentioned before how I feel life is a spiral (the Celts knew this well) and you do circle around but never touch the same place twice. After many turns of the wheel, I find myself circling around to the life I wanted in my 20s. Looking back I can see how I needed to go out into the world to try other things, hone my skills and test my resolve in tough times, always hoping that someday I would earn the right to go “home” again and claim that life.  The idea of the “hero’s journey” coined by Joseph Campbell makes perfect sense to me now – it is exactly what I ended up doing. Now, like Odysseus, I am home from many battles and adventures. I seek beauty, peace and family.

I have spent the winter making “Pleurants”- figures that date back to the Middle Ages whose purpose was to stand at gravesides and take over the task of grieving for a lost loved one. Making them was peaceful and soothing, one has even taken vigil at Casey’s side on her altar. I started a new Pleurant this week but while I worked something wild and magical happened – it didn’t want to be a Pleurant. The layers of clay I worked into the folds of its robe fanned out and curled as if caught in a strong wind. I went with it and by the time it was done my Pleurant had become a “Storm Elemental”. Where my Pleurants exhibit stillness and introspection, my Storm Elemental is all motion and intensity.

My own hands told me I was home.

“Fear whispers to the Warrior

“You cannot withstand the storm”

The Warrior whispers back…

“I am the Storm”

It is not lost on me that the timing of this moment aligns with the approaching anniversary of Lifa’s birth and Casey’s death this month. One full year, one full circle of seasons mourning for a loss and embracing a new life. Curling and spiraling within the Golden Ratio like a nautilus, a fern, the Milky Way…

Like magic.

I found my way out of the maze.