I am taking a writing course online and this assignment is a journal for one of my characters.  I love this blending of writing and art (the book we are studying suggests that bookmaking is an extension of writing, but I disagree – this is art.  There are words.  But this is art.

Because it is hard to get a good sense with either a video or just stills, I am combining them here, along with the actual text.  Enjoy!

THE VIDEO

This is to help you get a good idea of how the book flows.  I love foldouts and have plans for filling in the white spaces you see here, probably zentangles.

https://www.facebook.com/TammyTVitale/videos/10156030887087807/

 

Of course after I put this cover together, I realized that I should have yarn wrapped the stick so I will go back and do that carefully.  Also, I plan on a lot more “stuff” and a ribbon tie for when it’s actually done.

I am not staying with the original story of Morgaine (Morgan le Fey, the Morrigan).  I am taking liberty to connect her with other Dark Goddesses as aspects of the One Goddess.  That is partly what the story is based on – how the sacred grows with the mundane – or something like that (I wrote it and it sounded so lofty it scared me).  This is her journal.

If I read the translation from the words here, it is something about a shoemaker, which has nothing to do with Morgaine, but I like that it’s Greek.  It looks cool.  I got the sculpture from an art magazine.

Morgan le Fey is a character in the Arthurian tales, The Morrigan is a Celtic Triple Goddess – the map harkens to that heritage.  Morgaine is another name for The Morrigan.  Traditionally, The Morrigan and Morgan le Fey are not conflated by most, but some see the connection.  I’m happy with connecting them.

I put the aboe photo here so that you can see the texture:  material background, embroidery thread on the layered material and on my artwork.  The bottom smeared writing was actually the background for another piece of art in one of my art journals.  Nothing like having years of “stuff” to draw from when you want to create.  Lucky for me I had all of my art already printed out from another old project, and everything from magazines that I used already sorted in folders just waiting for me to come use them.

Text on page 2nd from left below:

I sit spinning spirits up into the starry night but looking on what you would see is merely a woman, weaving wood rushes, and you might make out a wordless tune hummed so softly even the deer creep close to better hear.  My name is carved into water-weeping caves, the entrances shielded by thistle and thorn, watched over by the thrust who whistles a warning tune when necessary.  No one knows how long I stayed in this forest of tall fern,silk-webbed spaces, trees that drip moisture without the aid of rain.  I am not lonely, do not miss what I have never known which is the companionship of anyone like myself – fierce, fearless, sure of hand and spindle and the waves of souls I send on their wya, expectant yet wishing for one more day.

Under the foldout (the short page with a pink edge)  is a copy of a Greek Chorus of Women by Aristophanes – the Greek allusions for another character in the story who is a Greek god.

**

this spans 2 pages and ends with a glyph on yellow paper, across from the orange and purple abstract.

You do not have to believe, you do not have to wander as if lost, you do not have to have magic words or third-sight or bright stones of power – all you need do is pay attention as you travel through the cathedral of forest, listen to whispered secrets under the crunch of leaves, feel energy below your feet as tiny tendrils reach, intermingle, talk to one another – be they like or unlike – send nourishment through networks of tiny fungal filaments –economic exchange: sugar from sky for phosphorus and minerals scavenged from soil; all you need do is take time to see and there will be Mother trees using their deep roots to draw water for shallow-rooted seedlings and to send nutrients to neighbors who are distressed and in need; you might notice that when a tree is cut, it signals like a wounded human’s skin.

If you do not have time for a trek beyond your known world, then allow me to tell you the tales of how trees mourn, make mischief, face menace; of how giraffes indulge their taste for acacias downwind to stay the trees from spiking their leaves with poison; of how, like elephants, younger trees will not leave an elder to die; and of how in ancient Greece trees could prophesy while in old Ireland they shared secrets to leprechaun gold.

I now leave you with all of these clues for how the Universe sings to those who listen.  What you do with them is up to you.

**

This is the main “story”/”writing” in the journal:

Once…

all of the Goddesses were known by the One name, but then the One became many, humans peeling off pieces of personality and renaming. But if you track far enough back, we start to meld together. I won’t start at the beginning. It would take too long and be too confusing, just know that there are lines and webs and tangles among many of the Goddesses who appear different from each other aren’t really. Let us, therefore, not get confused by the arguments about who is or is not connected. In the end, we, all of us, Goddess, animal (including humans), fish, fowl, plant, rock, reside in the same webbed Universe of being. If you need to argue, go elsewhere.

My power comes from the sea. Some say Morgan was taught the intricacies of magic by Merlin but I am here to tell you otherwise. I learned them from my mother, Igraine, who taught my sisters and me how to reach into the oversoul that is also called Universe, how to shape-shift, to see outcomes, to guide those who would use their powers for good and cross those who would use their powers for evil. You may conflate me with The Morrigan of the Green Isles, no matter what anyone says. That is simply me in my triple aspect – close enough that some already intuit our sameness, different enough that some like to challenge the connection with research and logic. There is no logic to magic and shape-shifting, believe what you will. I am Empress of the Wilderness, High Priestess of the Tarot, Lady of the Isles, Governor of the Waves of the Great Sea, Great Mother. I am Isis, Medea, and Circe. I am Night, Star, Moon. I am Crow, Wolf, Dragon. I am the Life Force: Life and Death as complements not competition. I am the Path you walk during times of transition and change. I fly before you, guiding your Way.

It was the White Monks, men claiming only one Divine Power – co-opting that power only for images of themselves – who captured my story, changed it. The Feminine Power was allowed nothing integral to itself: magic (working with the energies that surround all of us) declared evil and those that did not look like them who would wield it storied into the dark depths of depravity. If you are told a lie enough, it will become true unless you are intelligent enough to look at all sides, astute enough to listen between the lines.
As a consequence of the White Monks and their falsehoods, I traveled back to my home, my island, healed those who called on me, they becoming fewer and fewer. Perhaps I slept. Perhaps I enjoyed the time with my sisters as sisters are wont to do: sometimes loving, sometimes squabbling. It is no different for us who are elevated from your image.

Then there were voices calling my name, in all its manifestations. Women waking as if from some drugged sleep to look around, venture out to find the buried treasure of lines of Power that had been covered over, hidden, usurped; women deciding that enough was enough; women taking that which was naturally theirs but had been forgotten.

It was to one of these that I appeared in my crone guise, but not crone as others might describe. No. Crone in her full power and assurance. Handing out….fortune cookies. Apparently that’s the form that prophecy takes these days. Who am I to deny or discourage? I showed her how the rules are to be followed by showing her that she can tear them all up and throw them away. Rules are made for and by overlords. A free person need follow only the rules of her heart, which will not misdirect her, and which will stand her in her true power.

And the next thing I know I find a time machine, climb out its door or out of my namesake’s reveries or out of somewhere that I have been and cannot name and am standing beside her, bringing along my familiars. It feels like the beginning of an adventure. The world “out there” has seen much changing of its own accord and there are new storylines birthing daily. I find I have some catching up to do. Like the story I began to tell has already started shifting as I speak it.

**

there are quotes (my own) from when I published Wylde Women’s Wisdom quotes 365 days of the year (you could subscribe – that was years back), and the have a lot of white around them that needs filling, but for now, the quotes:

Every one of us has stories.

If we do not find a way
to dance or sing or write
or paint or sculpt or make
this story in whatever way we create,
then all those who might have heard
have lost something dear.

The story becomes the shiver that passes over one
standing in the hot sun listening
for something lost
that she cannot name.

**

something must die
so something may live
(small deaths, more flower petals
than torn skin, windblown
under footsteps along the sidewalk)

This is where the heart lives   be
still.    Listen.    See how
the story rises
like breath,
like song.

The final page with writing says:

There was a time I lived on an island but I come from the sea.

Whorled shells whisper my story but the backstory doesn’t matter – new stories move in and lay themselves over old storylines – the shape of the goddess changes with the story and beliefs.

 

Long – I know, but I hope you enjoyed Morgaine’s journal.