Descending into the underworld, the labyrinth, the abyss...

I'm not right now (thankfully)...but it's something that many of us struggle with, it seems, many times in our lives.  Reading Terri Windling's series of blog posts 'On Creative Burn-out', it seems that creative people of all types struggle with this strange circular journey.  Round we go, heading up and up, feeling on fire and full of creatives sparks, then suddenly we find ourselves over the top and heading down the other side...down into doubt, melancholy, greyness, lack of inspiration, lack of motivation.  Deep into some dark place that we're sure we'll never climb out of, we'll never find the key, we'll never find that magic spark again.

Although many of us realise we're not very good at dealing with it, it seems to me that artists and musicians, writers and pretty much anyone who lives a creative life, at least has some understanding of this cycle.  Many of us know deep down that sometimes we need to stop and refill the well of inspiration, go off by ourselves perhaps, and give ourselves time.  Not always easy of course, in a world dedicated to deadlines and 24/7 and better, bigger, faster, NOW.  And we may fight it, ignore it, deny it, try and push it aside, but most of us know that sooner or later, we'll have to give in and let it run its course.  And we also know (though it's often hard to remember) that quite often, we will discover something new, a new direction, a different way of seeing, a solution to a problem, in that very darkness we've been trying to avoid.  That usually, if we don't dig our heels in and refuse to go, kicking and screaming all the way, then the journey, though painful, might actually be worth it.

But I don't believe this cycle is peculiar to artists.  I think it is a HUMAN cycle.  And I think it is a human cycle that for too long the modern world has been trying to pretend doesn't exist, and that it does so at great risk.  Because I suspect it may be one of the reasons that, despite living in absolute luxury and abundance compared with so many in the world, we seem to be in the middle of an epidemic of depression.

Now perhaps I should say right now, that I am not a psychologist or a doctor.  And I don't for a moment believe that every case of clinical depression can be cured by someone patting your hand and saying "it's OK, you'll be fine, there's nothing to be afraid of, it's just going to get dark for a while".  That would be ludicrous.  So what you have here is simply the musings of someone who has suffered from grief, depression (PND to be specific), and also has spent a fair bit of time on the ups and downs of the creative ferris wheel.

In 2000, a week or two after I lost my little girl (story here for those who haven't stopped by before), I remember sitting in my doctor's surgery sobbing my heart out.  As you might expect.  And she offered me anti-depressants.  She said it wouldn't take away the pain, but it would take the edge off my grief.  I was floored by this.  Why on earth did I need to 'take the edge off my grief'?  Why would I want to take away the pain?  I believed I was feeling exactly what I SHOULD be feeling given the circumstances.  And more important, exactly what I NEEDED to feel in order to mourn properly, to walk the journey that can not, must not, be avoided, to heal and to come out the other side stronger, with peace and acceptance in my heart.  But it seems there was something unacceptable about my grief, about a woman sitting sobbing her eyes out.  Visible grief is just not acceptable in polite society.

A few months after the birth of my last little one in 2004, I could feel something was not quite right, but it took the visiting health sister to pinpoint it.  She very gently suggested to me that I might be suffering something more than just 'baby blues'.  And I'm very grateful that she pointed me in the direction of a women's health clinic with a counselling and group therapy service.  With all due respect to overworked GPs, I think it's pretty likely if I'd visited my local medical service, I would have been given a prescription for anti-depressants after a short consultation.  I know people who have.

Clearly, I did not have as bad a case of PND as some women suffer from. I managed to function OK (mostly, though there were times when I just curled up on the kitchen floor and sobbed), I looked after my girls and I did not actually have a problem bonding with my littlest.  I just felt as if I was disappearing, fading away into nothing, that everything I'd ever been, everything I'd ever done or created, everything I'd imagined or built, was gone and would never be back.  I loved my girls so fiercely it hurt, and yet there was resentment too, a truly horrible twin-sided coin.  And yet, meeting with other mums (who also looked normal on the outside) going through it too, talking and having a good cry in the one on one sessions with the counsellor, got me through.  As well as, it MUST be said, with huge support from my family, who understand the need for a good cry and a good talk, and my poor Beloved, who had been through so much with me, and somehow trusted that I'd get through this too if I was allowed to find my own way.

But I also know mums who were given anti-depressants and years later were still on them, afraid that if they give them up, those feelings might come back.  I've met people who mentioned to their GP that they've been feeling down lately, and were given prescriptions.  It seems that we are afraid of being sad, or melancholy, or down.  Even that society demands that we must not be.  And yet, aren't these emotions all perfectly normal?  

On the Beyond Blue website, there is THIS checklist.  If you have more than 3 of the symptoms for more than two weeks, you probably have a depressive illness.  I just tried it, ticking all the boxes that equate to how I feel when I'm in a creative funk and can't muster the energy or the motivation to even pick up a pencil.  I scored 11.  Most of the time, I don't go for a whole two weeks feeling like that, but there have been times when I have.  Or I've had some of the symptoms for that long (or longer) but not all.  I've had ups and downs most of my life, and even as a kid I had my 'melancholy' times.  The PND WAS scary, it lasted a long time, but generally, I don't panic when I'm feeling down because I KNOW this feeling. I know it will be a pain, and I hate being there, but I know it will go, and it might even leave behind something useful.  It's kind of normal.

But what if I didn't know?  What if I hadn't really felt this before?  What if no-one around me could tell me about it, what if I'd never seen anyone else deal with it?  It would scare the hell out of me I think.  And I wonder, I really wonder, whether we set ourselves up for a bad dose of it by allowing ourselves to run to the point of empty, because we don't know we shouldn't?  We don't allow ourselves 'downtime' until it becomes 'DOWN time'.  We are part of the natural world, and without any exceptions I can think of off the top of my head, it works in cycles: action/inaction, growth/rest, flow/ebb.  In order to flower in spring, the almond must sleep through winter.  This is what I said in comment to Terri's 2nd post:

The need for fallow time. Everything else in the natural world works in cycles of activity and inactivity, fallow and productive. Why should we humans think we are any different? And yet we push ourselves, or allow others (clients, deadlines, family and so on) to push us to keep going, not stop (or feel guilty if we dare to), and keep producing. No wonder the well gets empty, the creative flowering grows weaker and less beautiful. But it's not just in the arts, it's everywhere. I just noticed a headline yesterday, that Australian workers are working longer than ever hours, and yet are more inefficient than ever before...hmmmm, I wonder why?!

A few years ago, I attended a workshop led by Wendy Rule, an amazing singer/songwriter.  As a pagan/wiccan, she's interested in myths and archetypes, and is endlessly inspired by the myth of Persephone and her underworld journey, the cycle of descent and ascent.  And she said something that stuck in my mind.  That this descent into the underworld is a necessary journey, it's a chance to 'cleanse', to slough off the unneeded bits of our psyche that have outlived their use, to 'lose the baggage' we've been carrying around.  And without this voluntary going down, going within, this withdrawing and retreat time, we end up carrying around all these dead bits of ourselves, parts that rot like bits of old meat, more than likely making us sick in the process.  That might sound a bit 'out there' but if you think of people who have worked so hard for so long that they burn-out or suffer from a break-down, then that's pretty much the same thing, just in less colourful language.

So I wonder...if there were elders (who had journeyed there before) to tell us 'it is not an abyss, it is a tunnel with a light at the end of it', would we be less scared?  If we regularly allowed ourselves time to be truly 'fallow' would the journey be shorter and easier than if we fight it all the way?  I wonder too, if we medicate at the first sign of the downward journey (instead of waiting to be sure it's something more than that and needs more than just time and retreat), are we in danger of precariously balancing ourselves forever on the edge of what looks like a terrifying bottomless black pit?  When if we allowed ourselves to step down gently into the dark, we might find a well trodden path that is not so dark or terrible, and we might find we have things to leave there, and new things to bring back into the light.  

Because it's in the dark that old things compost down into rich new soil.  And it's in the dark that the seeds that become the trees that provide the oxygen we breathe, germinate.

Perhaps she is finished...

Well, I have to send off a JPG of the painting to enter a local competition, so it's as finished as it's going to get for that...but I think it's quite likely I will continue to add a little here and there, at least until such time as I find out whether or not my work has been accepted.

It occurred to me today that my paintings are always more than just paintings to me.  I think it's to do with the layers of thoughts, the attempt to capture all the feelings and ideas that I have in my head AS I'm painting, and with the search for some intangible thing, some magic or meaning, the attempt (always unsuccessful of course) to encompass something too big for a mere canvas to hold.  It's the STORY, in all its marvelous, mutable glory.  But that's also the beauty of it...the story is ever unfolding, never ending.  Never to be captured and pinned down.  Always free.  Like Beauty and her Wolfheart.

The poem is HERE if you haven't read it and would like to.

Beauty Remembers...progress....

Well, I left her alone for a while, maybe we both needed to ponder the next step.  But if I'm going to enter it into anything I need to stop being afraid I might screw it up, and start working.  This will be a process of layering, and I sometimes wonder whether I'm wasting time and effort in working each layer in such detail even though I know it may well disappear completely under the next.  Quite a lot of the pencil shading in Beauty's hair is disappearing under the paint and ink line work, and then there will be more working back into it over that, perhaps with coloured pencil, perhaps with black pen...I don't know yet.  But, I can't really see it as wasted effort, I know the work is there, and each layer teaches me something about how to proceed, it has its moment in the sun, even in it must be obscured by what comes after.  And layers make story, don't they.  The more layers there are to peel back, the more complex and interesting the story.

So here is Beauty so far, the first colour 'washes' from a few days ago, and then yesterday's effort, working back into her hair, adding more colour to her and the beast.  More to do, and I can't wait too long, so I will be busy tomorrow with it.  It's quite different to previous work, but I do like it.

The paint runs ARE intentional...I wanted to try something a little looser, I wanted to let it find its own way a little rather than carefully orchestrating everything.

However, I did decide that one running down the middle was a little too dominant and distracting...so I lightened it off a little.

Taken with flash above, and without, below.  The truth (as is so often the case!) lies somewhere between.  I've extended Beauty's hair, and worked colour into her and the beast.  I think I may need to darken their features a little to make them stand out, they're getting a little lost in the colour.  The trees on the horizon definitely need to be better defined.  I'm a little worried I might have to do the same with the text, but I really DON'T want to have to go to all that trouble if I can help it.

I still like the poem.

The well of inspiration...and there's no denying it...

...spring has sprung!  Actually, it's been springing for the last few weeks, since early August in fact.  I like spring well enough, the trouble is it's always the herald of another long summer, which rather puts a downer on it for me.  Especially after last summer lasted about 6 months.  Winter has been very lax this year, hanging around half-heartedly for about 2 months, then it buggered off early. Still, at least it put in an appearance.  More than I can say for autumn, who failed to turn up at all.  Spring is when the garden looks its best, though I can't take the credit, it's the nasturtiums that make it look so lovely and they just come up by themselves without any help from me at all.  I only wish they'd hang around a bit longer, but come summer, they will all die off and leave the garden looking (and me feeling) bereft and empty.

I've never planted Flanders poppies before, I'm so glad I did this year, they're gorgeous.

This is one of the babies of my old lavender, which seeded itself all over the place (I've got about 6 babies from it).  It obviously likes this spot, some of the flower spikes are over 6cms long and the bees love it. 

The McCartney Rose.  It does this every year...as much as I love it, I wish it would just pace itself a bit better and flower over a longer period.  These will probably all be gone in a week or so.  The apricot next to it flowered, then leafed, and now has baby apricots, all in the space of about 2 weeks...or less!

My poor confused almond.  The poor thing is probably wondering how the heck that year went round so quick (it decided to flower in autumn, the weather was so warm).

Nasturtiums taking over as always.  The tree in the left foreground is a Crepe Myrtle. Hubby and I have a running joke we laugh ourselves silly over every year.  For the first 3 or so years we had this tree, spring would arrive, everything around it would be budding and blooming, and it would continue looking very, very dead...right up until November or later, then it would suddenly grow leaves, and flower.  And each year, I'd sigh and say "I think we're going to have to pull that Myrtle out, it hasn't survived," convinced that this year it really WAS dead, and he would disagree and say it was fine.  And then Hubby started getting in early..."Hmmm, Chris,"  he'd say, snickering, "I really think we're going to have to pull that Myrtle out."  So now, we see who gets in first to say it, then both snicker like 6 years olds!  Daft, I know!

I think these are pansies.  See, I told you I know nothing about gardening.  They were pretty and cheap, so I bought some!

Look!  Over there, to the left...a tiny wood violet.  Again, I don't know what kind, it may be the native violet...but it's very tough, I can tell you that.  It will die off and you think "oh well, there goes the violet" and then in autumn, tiny green shoots will reappear.

The McCartney taking over Hubby's studio.

Nasturtiums and Lobelias together.  Beautiful, intense colours.

As for inspiration, this week I've been revelling in the world of Brian Froud, having bought several books that I've been wanting for ages.  I was introduced to Brian, and Alan Lee's book Faeries by my art teacher at school when I was about 13.  It had a profound effect on me.  One of the inspirational milestones in my life actually.

And the last two weeks I have also found much inspiration in these places on the winding web path:
Sometimes a Wild God
(Tom Hirons writes a poem to make you want to run barefoot through the woods and find the wild heart you've lost somewhere)
On wooing the poem.  A beginner's guide.
(Tom tells us the secret...in magical prose)
Jackie Morris writes a long post with the most wonderful links (visit them ALL!)
(and if you haven't found Jackie's blog before, you're in for a treat!)
This is just one of them!
(Isn't this marvelous?!  What an amazing revival of craftmanship.)
And lastly, this is just sublime!
(Make sure you read to the end to see them all.  And again thank you to Jackie Morris for the link.)

The deputy head at my girls' school asked me if I was interested in running an 'art club' at the school next term.  I must be getting braver, I said yes without even stopping to think.  So, a group of six or seven 9-13 year olds.  Hmmm, I'll have to think of a cool project we can work on over a few weeks!  I'm nervous and excited, I've never done anything like this before!

Yes, it's been a while...

I've been busy, but not everything has come to fruition.  I missed another deadline simply because I could NOT get inspired with a good enough idea.  I started a painting, worked on it for a whole day, and in the end decided it was just not worth completing and I ended up painting over it.  I almost never do that, but I think most of us know the difference between that awkward stage where nothing seems to be working but we know if we just keep at it something will happen...and reaching the point of realisation that the piece you're working on has NEVER worked, the idea wasn't up to scratch to start with, and your heart just isn't in it.

However, something did FINALLY get finished!  Do you remember this painting?  Here it is again.

Yes, it was part of a duo...a painting each for two little boys.  And I have finally, FINALLY finished them both...Phew!!!  So here is the second one, which I called 'Here Be Dragons'.  I think their mum was pretty pleased with them.  She's going to keep them for Christmas pressies, so I'll have to wait a while yet to find out what the boys think of them!

As for what else has been happening in the attic...or in the general vicinity anyway...spring is most definitely here, the McCartney rose is covered in blooms, the Apricot has almost lost all its flowers already and has all new leaves.  My silly jonquils bloomed about a month and a half ago, but we really never got a winter at all.  I don't know what the Almond is doing, it doesn't know whether it's coming or going.  We've planted out our vegie garden, and a new herb garden, and the garden out the back is actually looking nice and, well, sort of almost slightly organised...as if it had been created by someone who had a vague idea of what they were doing!

Beauty is still waiting for her colour washes, but I'm almost glad now I didn't have to rush to finish her, I think a little pondering time is often a good thing.  She will be finished anon!

Beauty Remembers the Beast...getting there...and disappointment...

I wonder if I'm the only one who, no matter which version of Beauty and the Beast I read (or see), always feels a sense of disappointment, of anti-climax, when the Beast turns into the handsome prince.  Beauty falls in love with an extraordinary person, she makes a huge leap of faith, and then he turns into a man.  Just another prince, like all the other princes in all the other faery tales.  Did she feel let-down too?  Did she wonder if her sacrifice deserved better?  She loved a beast who turned out to be gentle and loving, yet wild too.  Not the sort of husband who would care about table etiquette, or small talk at parties to keep guests amused.  Not the sort of husband who would care if she went barefoot, or let her hair hang down.  And what does she get?  A prince, for whom all those sorts of things would be of paramount importance.  Not a man to run wild in the woods with...a man who would require a wife who knew how to behave on state occasions, to entertain endless boring sycophants...to behave APPROPRIATELY.

I'd choose the beast, wouldn't you?

My Beauty did.  She's coming along, I've spent HOURS (or rather OWW-ers) hand-lettering the poem  onto the canvas.  Almost done, but OH, my aching fingers and shoulders.  So here are more progress pictures, as requested.

Some winter trees added to the horizon.

The whole canvas.  91cm x 91cm.

Beginning the free-form hand-lettering.  Guess all those hours in Typography and Hand Lettering classes during my Graphic Design course were useful after all!

Close-up.  2nd last verse, phew!

Almost done!

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SIGH!  Just after I posted the pics above, I sat down outside in the sun for a well-deserved cuppa...and got a phone call.  Apparently my entry form, for the Art Award/Competition that I entered "Beauty Remembers" in, did not arrive in time.  Sad to say, it seems that it takes Australia Post 5 days to deliver a letter that I could (and obviously SHOULD) have dropped off myself in 10 minutes.  And it takes the organisers almost two weeks to let me know (on the day before it was to be taken in) that I could have saved myself the trouble of rushing to get it finished.  So I'm feeling rather down and disappointed.  These competitions are a good way to get your artwork out in the public eye.  Ah well, I've finished the pencil and it's now sealed, so I may put it aside for a bit, as I have another painting to do.  Then I can pick it up again and take my time over it.  But here's a pic or two of where it's at now, ready for the 'colour wash' step.

The Talesingr: The Tale of the Wolf Bride

The Tale of the wolf bride

In the time of ice when hunger bit deep, a hunter was tracking game along the sleeping white river. But the river yawned in its sleep and the hunter fell into its mouth. A wolf saw him fall and went to the edge and looked down. The wolf looked at the man and thought, “This man will make a fine meal, for my bones are rubbing my skin it is so long since I last ate.” And the man looked at the wolf and thought, “That wolfskin will make a fine coat, for my bones ache and I cannot remember what it is to be warm.” But the wolf could not get to the man, and the man could not get to the wolf. So both decided to bargain. The wolf said, “If you will give me meat, I will pull you out.” And the man said, “If you will pull me out, I will give you meat.” But the man was foolish and thought, “I will trick the wolf and when he pulls me close I will take my knife and I will have that skin.” So the man threw his rope up to the wolf, and the wolf caught it in his teeth. And the man held the end as the wolf pulled. When he was safely out, the man took his knife and stabbed, but he was clumsy and the knife did not kill. The wounded wolf could not fight the man, so he turned and ran, leaving a trail of blood and anguish at such betrayal. The man was cold and hungry and went home to find food and fire to warm himself.

When the man arrived at his tribe’s camp, he was welcomed for they had feared him lost or dead. And the hunter told them the story of his rescue, and laughed at how well he had tricked the wolf. And his son and eldest daughter laughed and told their father how clever his trick had been.

But the youngest daughter was silent, and she saw the look the Dreamspinnr gave her father, hooded and dark. And she thought, “My father has broken an oath, and no good will come of this.” So she went to her hut and packed her medicine bag, took her knife and bow, and in the dawn before the tribe stirred, she crept away. She found the river of ice, and followed the blood in the snow to the wolf’s den. And she found the wolf, cold and close to death. She wrapped it in her new reindeer skin coat, and dressed the wound with herbs and bark, and took her bow and went to hunt. She found a snow hare and brought it back to the den.  There, she cut the meat into small pieces and fed the wolf from her own hand.

In the days that followed, the wolf grew stronger. His eyes grew brighter, and the ribs that pressed against his skin were covered with flesh as the girl hunted for him. She made fire to keep them warm, and at night she lay beside the wounded wolf and wrapped them both in her coat. In this way, the wolf grew well, and grew to love the girl who saved him. In return, he taught her wolf ways and wolf lore. How to track, to sniff the wind and find game that men could not, to hunt like a wolf and how to sing the moon song when the curved moon grew fat.

One day the girl said, “Now you are well, I have righted my father’s wrong doing, and I must return to my people.” The wolf was sad to see her go, but she had saved him and he could not make her stay. And the girl returned to her people, who were overjoyed to see her but unsure why she had chosen to leave. She said nothing, but the Dreamspinnr knew and smiled, for the girl had averted the fate that might have befallen the tribe with the breaking of an oath.

But the girl could not settle, she no longer felt she belonged to the human tribe, she saw them through different eyes. She hunted strangely and they began to fear her success, for it seemed like sorcery. She could smell and hear things they could not. And she would sing the moon song when it rose full and fat, and it frightened them. She longed for the company of the wolf, for the smell and touch of his fur, his bright eyes that saw the wind, his loyalty and lack of human guile. And once again, she packed her belongings, and in the dawn before the tribe stirred, she crept away. The Dreamspinnr saw her go, and nodded. The girl followed her own tracks back to the den, and found the wolf waiting for her, for he sensed her coming. And she knew this was her home now.

And it is said by hunters who pass that way, that they have seen a wolf and a woman dressed in white fur running beside each other, swift as the wind. And their feet never touch the ground.

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

‘The Talesingr’s Children’ is a story invented by Christina Cairns, and all accompanying ‘anthropological information’ was found hidden in an old wooden box with aged brass handles, in the attic in a corner of my mind that doesn’t get dusted very often. Or perhaps it’s all true...............................