Photo Credit: Thomas Bonometti on Unsplash.

The She-Wolf Inside Us

May 1, 2024

There is an ancient folktale from the desert Southwest about “a woman who was a wolf who was a woman” also known as “Loba Girl” or Wolf Woman who climbs the canyons, and sifts through the arroyos or dry riverbeds, gathering wolf bones over which she sings, until they spring back to life and run off laughing with the voice of a woman. Inspired by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ retelling of this story in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, this folktale invites us to call back to life those buried and discarded parts of ourselves, so that we can find our true voice again.

A Magical Mossy Coat: Finding Sovereignty in a World that Values Ownership over Love

March 31, 2024

Mossy Coat is an Old English fairytale about the ingenuity and creativity of a wild forager and weaver who sews her daughter a coat of wild mosses so she can disguise herself, escape poverty, avoid an unwanted marriage and determine her own destiny. It is how even a small diminutive plant like moss can be protective, nurturing, empowering and magical, and how a coat of moss gives the heroine a sense of wildness, freedom, and sovereignty over her own life. An enduring folktale that lives on like wild moss, wielding its quiet power. . .

Power Beneath the Surface: The Psychic Waters of the Unconscious

March 5, 2024

The ocean is a prominent and enigmatic feature in many folktales around the world including: the Irish folktale of the Selkie, the Inuit folktale of Sedna, and the Vietnamese folktale of Dragon and the Crane. According to Carl Jung, the radical and inspirational psychoanalyst, we can explore the meaning of the ocean as a symbol of the unconscious and through this process we can find ways in which the characters’ struggles and transformations resonate with our own illuminating the path to our own self-discovery, forging a deeper connection to our own true authentic identity and our full potential.

For the Late Bloomers: Earth Blooms with Us

November 9, 2023

Autumn’s late blooming flowers remind us, year after year, we are meant to be flowering right when we do. The late bloomer comes in many guises, and appears in the folklore of the Baba Yaga, creatrix and witch, and the Selkie, a shapeshifting seal woman. In a world that often glorifies early achievements and rapid success, these two ancient folktales of late bloomers are still remarkably relevant and timeless in their wisdom. They teach us that even in the midst of challenges that slow us down, there is always the capacity for growth, transformation, and the emergence of something truly extraordinary.

Autumn's Gifts: Beauty and Bereavement

October 21, 2023

Autumn gifts us with the beauty of dying leaves, or, in the words of Rebecca Solnit, the reminder that beauty and bereavement can sometimes intertwine. What the autumn reminds us of is how feelings of grief and loss (and the dying of the leaves) can be felt at the same times as we experience something beautiful and joyful (the vibrant golden colors of the leaves) and how this complex combination of opposites is often at the heart of our human experience and weaves its way into many ancient folktales.

The Birch Goddess: Baba Yaga & The Wisdom of Fall

October 6, 2023

Inspired by the Slavic Folktale Katrina and the Bright Falcon, featuring Baba Yaga, the enduring powerful female wilderness creatrix from Russian folklore, beautifully described and redefined by Natalia Clarke in her book Baba Yaga: Slavic Earth Goddess which she writes from her own Siberian heritage. The wisdom this folktale offers is how a deep relationship with a wild Falcon and an unconventional wild elder woman who lives in the deep forest, can be a pathway to birth our True Authentic Selves.

Caribou Sky, inspired by a folktale about the caribou and their connection to the seasonal cycle of the sun which draws loosely from several ancient stories from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, including many elements from indigenous Sami folklore. Here photographed in the process of being carved.

Summer 2023 Newsletter

August 21, 2023

Sharing several new handmade prints in my shop! Each print contains a precious folktale from the past, a mythos, reminding us of our ancient and intimate kinship with the wild, expressed with a multitude of endearing voices of the earth. Whether it is the sound of clanking antlers, or the mischievous pecking of a black crow, or the whisper of a tiger’s whiskers these heartwarming stories lyrically weave us into the circle of life and remind us of our extraordinary human imagination.