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.
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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!
Read MoreThree Sisters: Harvesting Food and Wisdom
The North American indigenous folktale of the Three Sisters is told from Mexico to Montana, and teaches the ancient agricultural technique of planting corn, beans and squash together because each provides some benefit to the others’ growth and health. The Three Sisters celebrates a Sisterhood of mutual thriving characterized by reciprocity and interdependence: each Sister’s uniqueness is celebrated and recognized as important to the health of the whole. I love how planting and harvesting these Three Sisters nourishes our bodies as well as our spirits and communities.
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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 Old Woman Who Weaves the World
Like the concept of Yin and Yang, the folkloric archetype of opposing forces that create the cosmos, weaves its way into so many different landscapes and cultural traditions secretly behind a veil of different stories and visual motifs . . yet here it is hidden in plain sight, in the White Mountain Apache folktale of The Old Woman Who Weaves Together the World and the Black Crow who pecks at the loose ends and unravels it again. What wisdom might this folktale offer us in rethinking our relationship with the wild?
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