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.
Read MoreSkye's Feathered Weavers of Worlds: Dream Carriers, Winged Messengers, and the Liminal Magic of Migrating Birds
The old Scottish folktale of the Dreammakers from the Isle of Skye whispers a quiet knowing: that beneath our feet and beyond our sight, migrating birds carry more than wings. As they journey across shifting skies and ushering in the seasons, they bring us our dreams, weaving the outer world with the inner landscape of vision. Resting on the edge of worlds, they remind us that our true belonging rests at the meeting point between here and there. . . from the threshold loom of the open sky where feathers and wings thread landscapes together.
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The Birch Goddess: Baba Yaga & The Wisdom of Fall
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.
Read MoreUshering in the Autumn: Synchronicities that Fall from the Trees
The ripening of local cranberries to crimson, the late-blooming rich yellow goldenrod flowers, and the variety of brown hues of dying leaves ushers in the beginning of autumn. I see a remarkable synchronicity in the colors of this landscape where I live in Massachusetts and the reds and golds that are considered colors of luck, happiness, and joy during a festival of my own heritage: the Mid-Autumn festival which is celebrated in Vietnam (known as Tết Trung Thu) on this full moon in September. Streets are lined with red and gold lanterns, and the rich brown color of traditional mooncakes eaten on this special day just adds to the magical similarity!
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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
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.
Read MoreThe Owl Lover: When the Wild Courts Us
An endearing love story about a rare white Great Horned Owl who falls in love with a human woman, retold by Joseph Bruchac in his book Wabi: A Hero’s Journey. This Abenaki folktale suggests that nature is courting us, that there is a a romance taking place. . .a precious mythos from ancient times about the intimate and tender relationship between humans and the wild.
Read MoreThe Medial Thread: Between The Cauldron and the Crow
In a quiet cave beyond time, an Old Woman weaves the world with fibers dyed from root and blossom, only to have it unraveled again by Trickster Crow. Yet she does not despair. She gathers the threads and begins anew, each tapestry carrying a different pattern, a new possibility. This enduring White Mountain Apache folktale echoes in the folklore of many landscapes around the world reminding us that creation and destruction are not enemies, but dance partners in the rhythm of renewal. In a world obsessed with permanence, at its heart the story holds paradox, persistence, and the sacred art of starting again.
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